No, not the four-leaf variety that pigs and people like to be rolling in, the sort that cows eat to make their milk sweet. This Clover is a cash register system used by my employer in her supplement shop/wellness center. It’s very high-tech, with a clean, swoopy outline, a cunning credit card slot that soundlessly absorbs and ejects cards, and three options for how to receive one’s receipt, including via email. It automatically computes tax and tracks inventory.

I work in the medical office, where I shove credit cards into one of a pair of clunky boxes, triggering the second box to ask me for an amount and then contact the credit company, by Internet when it can, by phone when that fails. I have to know what is taxable and to compute the tax in advance, and it prints paper receipts which I retain and use for manual reconciliation the  next day, plus a copy for patients. I also record all transactions on a paper ledger card and in a binder. I compute totals at the end of each month and quarterly, using a flat, simple calculator, not even a proper ten-key adding machine, patented in 1914.

Naturally, I am jealous of the Clover and wish I had one in the medical office. Last week, though, our Clover started disconnecting from the Internet randomly and frequently, wreaking havoc with sales. The workaround worked only occasionally. The Clover people, the wiring people, a general computer expert, and our Internet provider all came out, all found something, yet all failed to fix. Next step is replacing the device.

Having trouble with our electronic tools is no surprise, but I was startled today when I went to the True Olive Connection and their Clover refused to connect to the Internet. Could I have carried a virus from our Clover to theirs?

A silly idea, but in Santa Cruz I am embedded in groups of people who believe that 5G is responsible for Coronavirus, that Whole Foods doesn’t sell and has never sold anything organic, and that when Mercury appears to move backward from the perspective of Earth, humans are more likely to make mistakes. If I were to actually bite my tongue every time I figuratively do so, it would be severely damaged.

I don’t think I know everything, or even that everything is knowable. I do think that having a method of discriminating between likely and unlikely truths is comforting and fear-reducing and clarity-inducing. I would be willing to share that knowledge if I knew how.

Maybe no one would be interested.