Facing computer gremlins and coming to terms with being 50+…
I am a writer, so, very obviously, I need to have a working computer. About a year ago, my old one still worked, but it was getting so out of date that sometimes things would just look…flooky. I knew it was a matter of time, and I didn’t want to be left in a tight spot when it failed, so, you guessed it, I bought a new computer.
Then, because my new computer was so new, the old printer didn’t work with it, and, of course, I had to buy a new printer. I bought a new printer. It was very exciting: the first brand new computer I’d had in too many years. Now, the computer didn’t look flooky, but my new printer came with its own set of issues.
My new, star-spangled printer stays on all day…and all night. It’s annoying, too. It’s supposed to save energy without needing to go on and off all the time (?). I wish it could go off. I wish it would go off. Instead, what that actually means in real, human terms, is that I have to put a shirt over the printer, because the printer light is really bright, and the office (therefore the printer), is right next to our bedroom. No big deal, right? Wrong. The light is on and it’s bright, but if I close the door between the office and our bedroom, the cat gets upset and wants us to open the door, and then he meows incessantly. He doesn’t like the new computer, either. So, now I have a new computer, and a shirt for the computer to cover the printer light. Who knew that computers need clothes? Mine does.
However, I HAD to buy the computer, which meant I HAD to buy the printer. It would not do to have word documents that harken back to the days of “Wordstar,” which is what I had when I was in college. It’s what everybody had. Apple was still just a big idea in somebody’s basement or garage or whatever, and the internet was the wildest thing I had ever heard of. Email was mind-blowing. “What do you mean,” I asked my friend who lived in a different state. “I can send you a message and you get it, instantly?” “Yes,” he said. “Yes.” I tried it, and it was, indeed, magic. Unbelievable, even. Until then, we had been writing letters. (There once was such a thing, honest).
Today, what I wouldn’t give for some of that Apple stock. I was in college, though, so even if someone had told me what was to come, a’la “Ghosts of Christmas Future,” I probably couldn’t have believed it. Or, even if I had believed it, I couldn’t have bought stock, because I was just a broke college student. I didn’t even have health insurance. If I got sick, I’d go to the College Health Center. The rest of the time I just hoped I wouldn’t break an arm.
In fact, I even had one class that you had to submit papers to the secretary in advance of class. She would then make a mimeograph (I kid you not) of several copies for my classmates to read. It was an English class, so we were required to bring a certain number of copies for our classmates to critique. {Scary music here.} It was right after taking that class when I stopped doing creative writing, when an unfortunate, “He took out his six inch… (page turn) knife” made what was meant to be a horror story turn into a really bad porn scene. The class laughed, I laughed, but I didn’t write again for years. The shame.
So quickly does technology move, that what was absolutely flabbergasting in the late 80s-early 90s is a daily miracle that younger people don’t even recognize as such. Calling someone on a phone is now, like writing letters, a thing of the past. What’s with making appointments to make phone calls, anyway? Cards are a rarity. “Sorry about your Mom,” is an actual text I got in the aftermath of her death, the hardest, most brutal time I have ever known. (It still is. I’m still grieving like a bad-ass, and it hurts like a spike in my heart). These days, instead of sending flowers, people send flower emojis. (Or maybe my friends are just cheap?) Except for N, who sent flowers AND two cards (yes, plural. She spaced them some time apart with the thoughtfulness of someone who knows you don’t just “get over it,” in a matter of days.). Thanks, N! Love you!
A few other folks sent me cards, too. One of them is a friend who, like me, always seemed a little older for her years, and, also like me, isn’t quite like anyone else. She called me and we had a lengthy conversation. She sent me a card, too. She doesn’t have a landline, though. (I do). A few of the other folks who sent me condolence cards are older, friends of my Mom, actually, who have known me and my family for years. My entire lifetime, in fact. I reminded myself that few people send cards these days, and it doesn’t mean they don’t love me. (Probably).
My husband said calling is way more meaningful than sending a card, which surprised me, but when he explained why he thought so (time spent, sincere connection, etc., etc.), I realized that made sense, too. The point is, what is meaningful to some doesn’t have the same meaning for others. A card, a text, and email are all ways to show someone you care. I shrug at the flower emoji, though. I like real flowers, please. You know my address.
Miracles of technology have taken us from ear trumpets and Pony Express to telegraphs and telegrams, “party lines,” to landlines, old cell phones the size of shoe boxes, to the now-sized cell phones which are, of course, ubiquitous. Yes, cell phones which people don’t use for phone calls, but for FaceTime or sending witty GIFs or emojis of flower bouquets and eggplants. Or is it zucchinis? (I don’t know for sure, I’m 52, married, and submitted college essays on mimeograph, remember?).
When old people yearn for the days of yore, it’s because we remember things like ice cream trucks, instead of creepy white vans and Amber alerts. We remember the days of getting letters from Grandma, who baked chocolate chip cookies, and we played outside without worrying about drive-by shootings. My husband, who is older than I am, played kick-the-can with his friends in the neighborhood. One generation later, my brother and I played “HORSE,” in the back of our house. We also played Nintendo, and the ancient (now, by today’s generation and attention span) Pong, was the most exciting thing ever. Ding. Ding. Ding. Wow, you returned my serve! Then I returned yours! It was magnificent, and thrilling, and it was never boring. My nieces, the next generation, have access to all the world’s literature, all the world’s art, at the click of their pocket computers (aka, a cell phone). Do they read any of it? They do not. Instead, they text endlessly, and live in a near-constant state of boredom.
Many of today’s young adults (and many older ones, too, unfortunately for all of us) are so bored and impatient we can’t spend more than a few seconds without looking at our phones, our texts, our Instagram or whatever the young whippersnappers are doing these days.You see them–us–at the traffic light, checking our urgent, emergency messages. “Yo, what’s app?” “Nothing, whatcha doing?” To which I want to scream, “that’s right! You aren’t doing ANYTHING, because you are supposed to be driving!” Never mind the fact that a simple Honda or a Toyota Camry weighs 3300 pounds (and trucks so much more). Any driver, no matter their age, has a deadly weapon at their disposal, and they could hurt, maim, or kill in an instant. Oh, well, at least it wouldn’t be boring, and an accident would definitely make for some interesting images for Facebook or Instagram. I’d rather have pong.
