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What else will go remote—and when?

By Ed Goldman

One of my favorite one-liners is also the name of a comedy album from 1966 by Frank Kalil and Jay Taylor: “My plumber doesn’t make house calls!”

Turns out that mock-complaint is now a reality. “Virtual plumbing” is now an official thing—you go on Zoom so that a certified pipe fitter can walk you through unclogging your ramen-strangled garbage disposal.  

We were just getting used to virtual doctor exams. (And I’m still trying to figure out what my mom meant when she told my dad that if things got dicey financially, “I’ll take in floors to wash.”)

What’s next? As always, you’ve come to the right place.

REMOTE RESTAURANTS. We’ve had cooking shows for a long time. But how many of them will take your order, prep the food and email you a three-dimension pdf of Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes (my favorite TV dinner when I was a kid—except for the Hacienda Mexican Feast and General Tso Chinese Chicken Banquet. I may be misremembering the actual names, but isn’t your mouth watering, just a little? And if so, have you thought about having that checked?).  

DO-IT-YOURSELF ROOT CANALS. Dentist, schmentist! You can inflict pain on yourself in the privacy of your abode, as you have whenever you dropped your electric shaver into the tub or mistook a plastic apple for a very ripe Red Delicious one. Our staff assistant—the very one who cleans your teeth every six months and shows you how to floss—will send you all the tools you’ll need in advance via Amazon, which means they’ll arrive before she’s finished ordering. Then, on a Skype call because her boss forgot to pay the Zoom bill for 18 months, she’ll show you how to gag yourself as you remove the infected pulp inside your root canal, then fill and seal the space with wood putty or sugarless gum. You’ll also be sent a multicolored crown to install as a cap on the tooth, which will make you a hit at next year’s Pride Parade, Orthodontist Division.

AT-HOME HAIR TRANSPLANTS. This one requires two three-way mirrors at a minimum, since you’ll be instructed on how to razor-cut hair from the back of your head, chest or knuckles, preserve it in a Petri dish and insert them into the baldest areas of your scalp one-by-one using spirit gum, Elmer’s Glue or double-sided Scotch tape. Results vary, with anything going wrong being entirely your fault.

MAKE-YOUR-OWN EYEGLASSES. How hard can this be? Grind some glass, gently curve it and slash a line across the completed lenses to make it appear you made your own bi-focals. Your online tutorial will include such gags as: (a) fooling your optometrist into thinking you have amazing vision by pretending to make out “Made in USA” when you’re asked to read the bottom line of an eye chart; (b) making the optometrist think you have incredibly poor vision when you’re asked to read the chart on the wall and you reply, “I’m sorry, is there a wall in this room?”