While getting my car serviced (at the MINI dealership in St. Louis) earlier this week I mentioned the Takata airbag recall and the young man at the part window got puzzled look on his face.

“You’ve heard about the exploding airbag canisters and the big recall, right?

Nope, he insisted. He hadn’t heard about any airbag recall. About that time another young man came up to the next part window so I asked him. Same response. Had no idea what I was referring to.

I’m certain they weren’t fucking with me. Somehow they had missed seeing/hearing/reading _anything_ about this long-running story. I find that amazing.

Unless I’m missing something here, this means these two men could not have watched a network or cable newscast, read a newspaper, or spent 2 minutes on an online news site for the past 6 months (longer?).

How is that possible? And what else is going on in the world about which these young men are oblivious? I assume they’re on Facebook and would have seem some reference to this story there. No?