Losing ground fast

I listened to a commercial on TV the other night and realized that electronically speaking I am in the Stone Age. The ad was about cell phones or personal communication devices, and I didn’t get it. No, really. I didn’t understand what they were talking about.

My cell phone is about 2 years old. I know that it can take pictures and even videos. It will text message and download the pictures to...somewhere. But I can’t. I do have several pictures of my feet and the sky when I have accidentally pushed the wrong button. And the first day I got my phone, I read the directions and managed to take a video of the great room but haven’t been able to find it since then. Apparently there is a function for figuring out what the tip should be at a restaurant, but I haven’t found that either.

Now I am facing an upgrade. I think they should call the latest phone “The Mt. Everest.” I will never master it. My other half is making noises about getting text messaging. Yikes! Is that where I have to abbreviate words and get cramps in my thumbs?

I should be able to take pictures of my granddaughter on my phone and send them to my computer to send on to everyone I know. Other people can do it. As near as I can tell, they are all decades younger than I am, but I am not without hope. There must be someone out there who can break down the instructions so I can understand them.

I don’t want to know how it works – just how to turn it on and off. I’d also like to know how to text and to listen to music. At this point my other half is sputtering behind me – something about they’re not the same thing. That doesn’t matter to me. All I care about is the result.

Then my other half drops a watermelon (I would have said bomb, but that is not a word to toss around lightly these days): “CDs will be gone forever one of the these days.”

I survived the death of records. I loved those album covers. Then the cassette tape. They were handy until the tape tangled. I liked the click when it slid into the player. Now CDs are going down the same path to some museum. I like CDs. They come in those plastic jewel cases. I have saved them in my craft closet. I know I can find a use for them somewhere.

As the CDs disappear, I will have to turn to the Internet for music. You don’t know how good that makes me feel. Who is going to walk me through that?

This is an anxiety-producing milestone in my life. Am I going to rule my cell phone or allow it to make decisions for me? I wonder how many pages the new manual will be? It better have pictures.

Loose Ends RSS feed