Grandma Henke

I am experiencing technical difficulties … and they aren’t temporary.   Anything technical and I have difficulties, and it is chipping away bit by electronic bit at my self esteem.   You name it … computers, sewing machines, televisions, DVD players, mp3 players, microwaves,  remote controls … they intimidate me.      

Intimidation by association has become a big problem for me because there just isn’t a way to get around associating with electronics in this fast pace day and age.      It isn’t fair that toddlers know how to work a mouse before they are potty trained and I can’t and I’ve been potty trained for 58 years (until recently).   For the last twenty years babies have grown up learning “Geek” as a second language.    Give them a remote control and they can control it.    Give me one and I can ruin the schematics in the blink of an eye.

For years I could watch television whenever I wanted … even if I was home alone … find any program I cared to see on one of  three available network channels.    All I had to do was stand up, walk over to it, and twist the dial to a number … click click click.   It worked for me.   In the old days I sewed clothes for my children on a sewing machine that could do forward, reverse, and zigzag.   It was easy!     I was somewhat of a novelty when I could type over 90 words a minute without errors on the brand new electric typewriters.    I could spell, too, in the old days  … and add a column of numbers.   Now I can’t operate without spell check or a calculator, so the two talents I did have aren’t even useful anymore.    I remember the day when I could bake potatoes without having to get out the microwave manual.      Now, if someone moves the icons around on my desktop I can’t even find my programs or files!    Progress is stressful for old dogs.

Every single day I go nose to nose against some piece of brainless equipment, and I lose.   Do you know how it feels to be dumber than brainless equipment?    It is demeaning and it brings out the worst in me.    I don’t yell and rant at people but give me a machine that doesn’t take my command and I get ugly.   I can’t take much more of this.   It’s making me look real bad in front of my grandchildren.     I can’t even turn on the television unless I turn on the thingamajigger first.   The thingamajigger has its own remote control but I don’t know which of the 4 or 5 it is.    If somebody has previously been watching a DVD then I need a remote control to do something with that before I try to figure out the thingamajigger.  I went to tend my grandchildren once, who were ages 4,2, and a baby … and when I got to the door and they saw Grandpa wasn’t with me they started to cry, “Now we can’t watch television!”     Now that hurts.       Oh … and one more thing.   Do you know how stupid it sounds when I tell the grand kids not to play with my computer because they might break it?     Even the smallest of them know how to roll their eyes at me.

Did you know that in a couple of years they aren’t even going to sell ordinary plain televisions like the ones we have come to know and love?   They are going to have a whole new set of doodah’s and instructions.  I heard it from a very good source.    It scares me to think about it.   

I’m not a real old lady yet.    I mean sixty might have sounded old forty years ago but now that I’m there I know it really isn’t old.   Trust me … I have seen really old.   But there is a conspiracy going on right now that is going to turn the tables on us Boomers who are technically challenged.  You know how ”The rich get rich and the poor get poorer?”  Well, I have news for you … “the dumb get dumber”.    It’s a conspiracy.  They are going to keep on changing all the gadgets and issuing more and more remote controllers and we are going to keep on getting older … and that’s the truth.    That’s it in a nutshell.

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