The Kid At Subway
I told my ChatGPT the story of that day. I asked if it could write a 500 word article about it. About 5 drafts in, I had what I wanted in it said in my own words. This is a Kevin and Jarvis production. (Jarvis is my ChatGPT). Those of you who are familiar with my style and syntax, or anybody really, I've been hesitant with accepting its assistance with my writing. Is this piece of prose worth reading to you? It really happened. Am I being lazy for letting AI touch it? I swore I would never use AI in the words I wrote. I’m trying to change my mind. Your input would be greatly appreciated.
The Kid at Subway
Lately the world has felt like it’s balancing on the edge of something unstable. Political fights seem louder than ever. Nations posture and threaten. Technology races ahead faster than our ability to understand it. Some days it feels like civilization itself is stretched thin, like the pendulum has swung so far that it might snap and force a reset—political, technological, maybe even spiritual.
People imagine scenarios where the power grid fails, the internet disappears, and all the systems we depend on suddenly stop working. No Wi-Fi. No GPS. No digital banking. No carefully optimized supply chains. Just people again, standing face to face, trying to figure out how to get through the day together.
I had a strange reminder of that possibility the other day at Subway.
I was sitting there finishing an early dinner—a meatball sub—when a kid came straight up to my table. He looked a little nervous but polite. He asked if he could use my phone to call his ride because he had lost his. These days a lost phone isn’t just a missing gadget; it’s your wallet, your map, your contact list, your ride home. Without it, you’re suddenly stranded in ways people fifty years ago wouldn’t quite understand.
I didn’t even hesitate. I pulled out my phone and asked him for the number. I dialed it myself, hit send, and handed him the phone.
When he finished the call, I motioned for him to sit down while he waited.
So he did.
He could have stood outside or hovered awkwardly near the counter. Instead he just sat across from me while I finished my sandwich. I had a small bag of Cheetos sitting on the table, so I offered him some.
He shook his head and said, almost casually, that he was allergic to cheese.
That caught me completely off guard.
“So you can’t eat pizza?” I asked, honestly startled.
He laughed a little and explained that, no, pizza was definitely off the table for him. We spent a minute talking about that strange reality—growing up in a world where one of the most beloved foods on earth is something your body simply won’t allow.
After that, I asked him about the school policy that didn’t allow phones and how they actually enforced it. That question lit him up a little. Suddenly he had something he knew all about. He explained how the school collects phones during the day and keeps them locked away so students aren’t distracted in class. It was simple, organized, and surprisingly well thought out. You could tell he’d had plenty of experience with the system.
Then he explained the part that made everything make sense.
He told me they don’t allow phones in ISS, which is why he didn’t have his. I realized he meant in-school suspension. The school had taken his phone earlier in the day, and now he was stuck waiting for a ride with no way to contact anyone. For a teenager in today’s world, that’s practically the same as being dropped in the middle of nowhere.
It was a small moment, but it felt deeply human.
When everything works, we barely notice how dependent we are on our systems. But the moment one small piece disappears, we’re suddenly back in the old human economy of trust.
You have to look someone in the eye.
You have to ask for help.
Someone has to decide whether to trust you.
That kid wasn’t asking for money or anything dramatic. He just needed someone willing to make a phone call.
And for a few minutes we shared a table, talked about school rules, cheese allergies, and the small inconveniences of modern life. Two strangers passing time while waiting for a ride.
It struck me that if civilization ever did go through the kind of reset people talk about—blackouts, infrastructure failures, technological collapse—the world wouldn’t instantly descend into chaos. Instead, life would probably look a lot like that moment in the Subway shop.
People needing help.
People deciding whether to give it.
Civilization doesn’t actually run on satellites and fiber-optic cables. Those things help, of course, but the deeper operating system is much older. It’s the quiet willingness of strangers to cooperate long enough to get through the day.
Someone lends a phone.
Someone shares food.
Someone grows vegetables.
Someone fixes something broken.
If the big systems ever fail, that’s the software humanity will fall back on.
And watching that kid sit across from me while I finished a meatball sub reminded me of something simple:
It’s the willingness to help another human along the way as we are called—for the sake of kindness and service to all the humans on Spaceship Earth. 🚀🌎
