Story of a Challenged Senior…

At a certain age, everyone will understand this poor guy.

Hell, at a certain age that WILL be US…

I thought about the 30 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 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 as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I 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 run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings. (sounds familiar, please let it keep ringing until I find it. . . don’t laugh, I am serious)

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.

Comments

Story of a Challenged Senior… — 13 Comments

  1. I completely understand. I signed up, mistakenly, for Twitter one day when I realized:

    Am I REALLY so vacuous that I have to read every little damned item about other persons when, in truth, I really couldn’t give a s#!t? Plus, am I willing to have those social pages used AGAINST me in a court of law one day?

    The clear answer: no.

    I have an actual life to live.

    BZ

  2. Technology reached its peak with the No. 2 pencil, the DC-3 and the 1911A1.
    Everything since then is just so much clutter.

  3. I despise twitter. A few friends on facebook are about as bad. One chick lists every meal she has and what she’s doing immediately after it, 2 hours from then, etc…
    Yesterday is was some blah about a salad and now she and her “honey are sitting on the couch, watching tv”. I went to school with her, so I could add the appropriate whine to my voice (like she would have said it) as I read it and it was even more irritating.

    I think she got sorta pissy with me, because she deleted my question.

    I just asked if it was one of those intimate moments where they farted in front of each other or were they just making out?

    Go figure. 😀

  4. BZ- CONCUR, big time!!!

    Stretch- Yep, pretty much 🙂

    Snigs- Um… yeah, we ALL know those types… sigh…

  5. Twitter is for twits.

    Nor do I have a MySpace account. I did get a login to facebook because a friend (a real one) asked me to check his site.

    Fortunately, my daughter feels the same. We use e-mail and that’s about it.

    Works for us.

  6. Welcome to the wonderful world of the cantankerous dispeptic. Don’t worry, it’s not lonely here, there are millions of the super-annuated who share your revulsion with modern “technology.” This generally occurs when your capacity to buy stuff exceeds your tolerance for its presence.

    Cheer up, we shall all one day die and escape this crap.

    Cec

  7. My facebook account turned into old classmates I hadn’t heard from in 30 plus years that are freshly divorce, thinking about divorce, about to be widowed or is widowed to see if my hot looking brother back then is single and free. I write back he is currently being supportive by an old, rich woman. He spends half his day working out and the other half of his day he spends by getting his hair perfect. They aren’t interested in him any more…
    I am not fond of Facebook.

  8. “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual..” funniest thing i’ve heard in a long time …

    thanks for the laugh, needed it!

  9. I loved the bi-sackual, may have to use it in the future. The story about the rude GPS lady I had to share with my wife, since that woman was with us as we came back from dinner yesterday and we had been laughing at her then.

    My wife asks what is going to happen when she really gets mad – I like to think she will give me the silent treatment.

  10. Crucis- Concur!

    CEC- Yep, good point!

    WSF- agreed

    FM- Gotcha 🙂

    S Phillips- Now THAT Is funny 🙂

    Gia/Julie/Earl- You’re welcome 🙂