[ SHOWGSD-L ] electronically challenged seniors........
- From: "pmick12" <pmick12@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <Showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:15:01 -0400
Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world
of electronic madness.
My son informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I
must head down to the cell phone store and get a phone that is contemporary
with the time.
I pointed out that the fancy razor/slimline phone with camera built in that
he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two
years ago still works perfectly fine. Well, except for the camera thing.
Never could figure that out. Even the few times I actually did take pictures
I couldn't figure what to do with them and gave up.
That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the
ceiling or my feet.
Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3 character
buttons. "Hi, son," would come out looking like, "Gh Qmo." My grandkids
have even spoken to my wife about Poppa's crazy text messages. Give me a
break. Whatever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn't that what
they were invented for?
They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and
sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size
of my pinky finger.
One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly fishing. "Way
to go, son." Or in my text language, "Xbz um Io, rmo."
We were floating the Yakima River in his guide-quality drift boat south of
Ellensburg, Washington. We were miles from anything remotely resembling
civilization. Rock canyon walls were on either side of us. Bear with me as
I try to explain this strange thing.
His "Blackberry" rang. It was blue and I asked him why it wasn't called a
Blueberry. He shook his head with that dealing with an elder despair look I
get a lot these days. It was another realtor who called to say that the
sellers he represented had agreed to my son's client's changes and he had
the signed documents in hand.
My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed
and faxed back to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang
and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River
with us.
He then called his clients and told them he was faxing the papers to them to
sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office. While he was waiting,
he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22-inch beauty as
his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients.
He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers
back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, "You are a
little behind the times, Dad." I guess I am.
I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800
employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures
and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their
spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in
the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter
with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree,
Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and
something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program
within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything
except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to
live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost
every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that
in a box under my tool bench with the Bluetooth [it's red] phone I am
supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at
Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was
glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and got a
little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was
the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10
minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating." You would think
that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She
would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next
light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the
cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy,
the GPS lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless
phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't
figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and h ave to run around
digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry
baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every
time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on
something themselves but this sudden "paper or plastic?" every time I check
out just knocks me for a loop.
I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but
never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "paper or plastic?" I just
say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare
at me with a blank look.
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