From My Dad:
I’ve been thinking about the 30-year business I ran with 50 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
Under duress, I signed up for Twitter and Facebook so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figure 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 Twitterific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something else 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 now keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag which I no longer use.
The kids then bought me a GPS for my last birthday as they say I get lost every now and then going to the grocery store or the library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue Tooth (which is red) phone I’m supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone within 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take out my hearing aid when I use it. Guess I got a little loud.
The GPS looked pretty smart sitting on my dashboard, but the lady inside was the most annoying and rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes she would say sarcastically, “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 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 names of the cross streets – and, while she is starting to develop the same tone as 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 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 reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them 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.