Technology Grandma

Simple living! Slow times! Hah! You can't do it in these times. I have a new cell phone and the manual is an inch thick. I feel like Andy Rooney, making all these things work.

In the last few months I have felt totally incompetent trying to use an amazing array of such things as laundry equipment (in New Zealand), microwave ovens in other peoples' houses, t.v.'s with five different remotes, international cell phones, digital ovens, air conditioning that is 'smart' and can figure out when you are home and when you aren't, garage door openers that you must 'teach' to let you open the fucking door, and of course, the quirks of one's own computer.

I used to smirk at the incompetencies of people I knew who couldn't manage e-mail. Or whatever. I am now humbled. I think that there are gremlins out there who delight in bringing me to my knees. I am totally reliant on my computer, and when it slowed down to a very slow crawl, I thought it was some horrid virus. In the heebeejeebies of the middle of the night, I imagined that I would throw this computer into the pond and buy a Mac. I thought I would humble myself and ask my wonderful friend Jeff to help. For two days I struggled with this, and then, miraculously, it healed!

But, mostly, I am faced daily with sorts of technology I must learn. The other day I took my old Honda in for service at a state of the arts dealership. They put it on the computer to diagnose every little thing. Seven hundred dollars later (and four hours plus a fresh baked cookie ), I have a perfect car. Does this computer diagnosis thing really work? I wish one did not have to learn everything new for every new product. I don't want to read another manual for each thing I buy.

At the farmers feed store, where we went last weekend with Quincy, our three year old grandson, we looked at the baby chickens for sale ($2.49 each for Andalusian hen chicks). Nothing digital here. I am still thinking of getting chickens.

I wish I could be alive at the time when there was some kind of standard for how things work. In the meantime, I am thinking of what words to have on my main cell phone interface. Maybe it will be 'throw a bad tool in the bushes'.