I fancy myself a pretty hip guy. I wear clothes that are at least from the last 5 years or so. I can speak some of that lingo them young folks speak. I am past words like "groovy" and "right on, daddio." I can use words like "sweet!" and "word!" I am on Facebook. My daughter pulled one of those "Wow, you finally came out of the dinosaur world!" when I started. I have a Droid phone and even know how to text! I must admit, if you're anywhere near my age, there are so many things now that we find we can't live without - though we did for most of our lives. You've all seen the list, so I'll hit only a few highlights:
WE were the remote for the TV. Dad would say, "Get up and change that to channel 6."
The phone was a wired device that either hung on the kitchen wall, or was on the nightstand in Mom & Dad's bedroom.
A calculator was about as big as a small paperback novel and only did four functions.
Email - forget it. A stamp on a hand-written letter or postcard.
Spell check was Sister Johanna and a ruler!
You get my point. But, as always... I digress!
I have no idea what this world of ours has come to. We can't function without Social Media sites. As I say, even I am on Facebook. I asked my dad if he ever thought about getting on Facebook. He said, "What the hell's Facebook?" I told him, "You can keep up with what all your friends are doing." Being 80, my dad said, "If I wanna know what somebody's doing, I pick up the damn phone and call 'em." That would be the phone on the nightstand in his room.
But what kills me more than anything else about any of the sites is how people tell you every single cotton-pickin' move they make! I love my family and friends, so I won't name them here (you know who you are!), but this is a normal day:
Joe Smith (see how that's a fictitious name?) is at Place of Employment.
Joe Smith is at Applebee's having lunch.
Joe Smith is at Bob's Daycare - picking up little Joe.
Joe Smith is at The Grocery Store - picking up something for dinner.
Joe Smith is at home.
Joe Smith is watching NCIS.
Joe Smith is going to bed - "Goodnight FB friends!" (REALLY??)
On and on and on and on and on. I expect to see ones that say things like:
Joe Smith is in the bathroom.
Joe Smith is out of the bathroom.
Joe Smith just sprayed Lysol - love that Applebee's!
Aaarrrgghhh!
Another one I don't get are those who tell you every move on their vacation. After about their fifth post, when they tell me they and the fam are finally in Nebraska "looking forward to 6 days of relaxation", I want to write a note that says, "I am on my way to break into your house - thanks for the heads up!!"
And then there are the abbreviations. Holy Crap! Something ELSE I have to learn! It was OK at first. LOL and ROTFLMAO I was able to grasp. Then they added OMG! and SMH. Now I got OMG pretty quickly, but I gotta tell you, it took me a while to get SMH. (I'm gonna help some of you oldies -- SMH is Shaking My Head. Ssshhh! Act like you've known all along.) And there are many others. And for the life of me, I don't get the use of (#) before a statement. "#I'llnevergetthere." WHAT??
I still contend that with all this technology, there are too many problems still remaining. For example, why in the world can't I ever have a cell phone conversation with my wife without the dang signal dropping??!! "I went---- Debbie's and she---- that her---- open---- ibk---- opor---------------" *beep* Dropped call.
Maybe I'm not as hip as I thought I was. Maybe I'm just not hip enough to get it. We can send a man to the moon in a rocket. He can drive around on the moon in a car. He could probably post a Tweet on the moon. He can even play golf on the moon, and get back in the rocket and come back to Earth - but I can't talk to my wife on the damn cell phone in the same city!!
SMH
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