Wednesday, July 21, 2010

OVER 50 AND LAUGHING OUT LOUD

FOR A GOOD LAUGH......This is for the over 50 generation:

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 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 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.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot."


Thanks to Suzanne

13 comments:

  1. I liked bi-sacksual, too, Mimi. Also, I have a car full of every store's brand of reusable bags and never seem to make it through the door with any of them. At least the plastic ones go to the church's food pantry and leave with our clients' food in them each week.

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  2. BooCat, my reusuable bags remain in the trunk of my car on most occasions, too.

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  3. If you want to understand what your grandchildren are saying on Facebook, Twitter, and the like, you need to consult the Urban Dictionary at http://www.urbandictionary.com/.

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  4. Quite an amusing blog entry ... and very much my kind of pace. Thank you.

    Our rector once shared that she has come to realize that some parishioners text each other during the sermon. I suggested that it might be because of the appropriateness of the message -- "Wendell, r u listin, this 1 is 4 u". She didn’t think that was the reason.

    Given my lack of technological savvy, I could rest assured that I was not among the guilty. You see, to date I have never texted -- is that actually a verb? Now ... I did once receive a text message ... but I wasn’t sitting in church when it happened. I remember because I had to stop the car and attempt to figure out what was happening to my phone. It was quite an event trying to determine how to actually get the message via the limitless layers of "menus" (no food) my cell phone features. I finally found it -- by accident -- some months after the fact. Wrong number.

    One would think someone out there makes a phone for the "over 50 crowd" ... one with features limited to making calls and hanging up. If anyone knows, please share.

    But back to the rector ...

    She also claims that certain others balance their checkbook (again, during the sermon). Now that one's not necessarily technological ... so I had to think about it. Was it a rector's general observation ... or an admonishment?

    Does he, or doesn't he? Only his rector knows for sure.

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  5. Ormonde, I make good use of the Urban Dictionary, and not just to translate my grandchildren's language.

    Speaking of grandchildren, only one will agree to be my Facebook friend, my only granddaughter. The boys ignore my pleas for friendship. I wonder why.

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  6. Does he, or doesn't he? Only his rector knows for sure.

    Robert, you can tell us.

    The first time I received a text message was last year when I was in England. My friend Doorman-Priest texted me. I saw how to respond, but I didn't know how to space between words, so my response looked like one long, run-on word. DP is so smart that he was actually successful in working out what I said.

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  7. Oh, I'll tell. I have occasionally read the announcements during a sermon ... but I was not one of the elect balancing a checkbook.

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  8. Robert,wouldyouhavetold,ifyouhadbeenbalancingyourcheckbookduringthesermon?

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  9. Mimi,I'mhonest.YesIwouldhavetold.

    Ohmy,Iseeyourpointaboutnospaces.

    :)

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  10. I got a nice chuckle from this one. Must admit that I am technologically aware, but refuse to use twitter or text messaging. It's enough for me to be on Facebook.

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  11. Amelia, I finally got the hang of texting, but I mostly just answer messages that people send me. As for Twitter, I want no part of it.

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