Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become
lost in a world of electronic madness.
One of my sons 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/slim line 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 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 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.
Gun Runner
