[BJ forward this candid look at growing older in a technologically-young
world]
When I bought my Blackberry I thought about the 30-year business I ran with
1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos,
pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under
duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grand
kids 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 grand kids 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 Blue tooth [it’s red] phone I am
supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at
Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was
glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I may have
gotten a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside
that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long
time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-u-lating.” 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 if I made a right turn instead . . well, it was not a
good relationship.
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 have 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 reusable bags to
avoid looking confused, but I 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. And I was recently asked if I tweet. I
answered, “No, but I do toot a lot.”
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
[email protected] www.grif.net
“Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!”