The joys of old school, or how I detest technology

“(I’m not online.)
I don’t have a fax.
I don’t go in for any of that stuff.
The typewriter is as far as I went.”
Walter Kaylin

(an old school Roman “truck” or Ape Piaggio–three wheeled truck, Campo di Fiori/ Rome Italy /Julie Cook 2018)

Yes, you have read correctly… I hate technology.
I think I’ve mentioned that little fact before.

“But aren’t you actually using technology as we speak—or is that ‘as we read’???”
you perceptively ask.

“And so if you hate it so much, then why are you using it?” as you counter your own observation?

I’m with Walter Kaylin in his quote from up above…oh for that simple typewriter.

My poor technologically inept husband needed a new computer, a new laptop.
So that is what I surprised him with for Christmas.

But I knew how it would all play out…and I was right on the money.

The new computer has two new and very different USB ports from that of his old computer.

A conundrum.

He needed a new i-tunes account, separate from me, finally…as all of our stuff has been
basically merged together as if one account–a huge messy mishmash.

A conundrum that we’ve managed to live with for quite some time because due to
the business, it was kind of okay.

Yet when he closed the business, he lost his old e-mail.

A huge conundrum.

And since no business-related emails can be accessed, despite hours spent on the phone with AT&T…
did I mention how he loathes AT&T or how I now concur??—we’ve had a conundrum.

Not only can’t he get into his old email account (thank you AT&T) he can’t even pull up his
deer trail cam images–and that is more of a crisis than a conundrum…

So today would be the day.
I psyched myself up for what I knew to lay ahead.

I’d sit down after I had taken down all of the outdoor Christmas in hopes of beating these
6 inches of rain they keep warning us about…all in order to create a new I-tunes account,
separate our phones and computers, as well as set up a new g-mail, a new I-tunes,
and finally a new computer.

Yet oddly in the process, I managed to lock myself out of my own computer.

WHAT???

I typed, I typed some more, I pondered, I pulled out my phone, I re-set everything I
could think to re-set but sadly it was to no avail.

I considered throwing my laptop over the back deck.
Why not?
It was locked up tighter than Dick’s hatband.

Where are those savvy hackers when you really need one???
Hiding out in some dark room in Siberia I suspect.

I groused, I cursed, I wailed…my husband said “here, take mine”…
“it’s not that simple” I snapped.

For you see I knew this would happen.
It always happens.
Despite my diligence, despite my best-laid plans, I knew what should have been a 1 2 3 sort
of flow would become an entire day’s nightmare.

My son complains that at his work, they keep hiring people my age who don’t really
“get” technology and so he wastes most of his day teaching “old” folks how to do the job
they were hired to do because it was thought they knew how to do it.

I took offense to that until today…I now understand.

I called Apple.

I spoke with one of their “geniuses” who did not speak fluent English.

I take offense to that notion of genius—

How arrogant of Apple to call their techi gurus geniuses…
…as if they are all that and a bag of chips and I am… but a mere moron.

With no help from Apple, I spent 5, count them, 5 hours figuring all of this out…
the sun rose and the sun set…all while I pecked and panicked.

Finally, blessedly, joyously, I managed to get myself unlocked and my husband free and good to go.
Plus I managed to migrate my old computer info to my own new little laptop.
(You need to be proud Phyllis because I am finally finding my way in the dark without you,
Sue or OP!
FYI, that’s a school thing…sorry)

I regrettably feel this same way everytime it’s time for me to get new glasses.

I go for the vision test, they think they have it all figured out, I get the new glasses
and bam, I can’t see a thing.
It takes visit after visit, retesting, refitting until they finally get my eyes and glasses
‘synced.’

And to think, I’m a year over going in for my eye appointment, imagine that…hummmm.

Each year I ponder going “dark” for Lent…meaning cutting myself off from all technology.
If the Queen can cut out all chocolates from her Royal world during the Lenten season,
surely I could go technology free…

Today was just one more step closer to a vote for a true technology blackout!

They don’t have pay phones anymore, do they???

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us,
either by our spoken word or by our letter.
2 Thessalonians 2:15