No doubt about it, technology improves and enriches our lives. And anything that comes into popular use early in our lives feels normal soon after we embrace it.

 

But when some interesting and helpful new invention comes at us after we’ve pretty much settled into complacency about the world, the new device will always feel just a little foreign. No matter how enthusiastically we buy, use, enjoy, and appreciate all the new gadgetry, a small part of us, somewhere way off there in the far recesses, will always remain stuck in a time when all this stuff wasn’t available.

 

You can spot those of us who grew up with fountain pens and soda fountains, rotary dials on telephones and rotary dials on televisions, slide rules and parental rules:

 

We’re the ones who make lists before we go to the grocery store, and don’t even think to call someone on our cell phone as we walk up and down the aisles to ask if we are out of peanut butter.

 

We’re the ones who own devices with buttons we never use. Sometimes we don’t even know what those extraneous buttons are for. We would buy a simpler version if they offered it, but nothing simpler is available.

 

We’re the ones who know how to make change. We know you can give a customer the correct change without doing the slightest bit of arithmetic in your head. We even know how to count the change back to the customer to prove the amount is right. They used to teach that in school, you know.

 

We’re the ones who think it’s easier to multiply by ten or a hundred or a thousand in our heads than to get out a calculator.

 

We’re the ones who, when picking up lunch for a friend at a fast food restaurant, make a guess as to the salad dressing she wants instead of calling her on our cell phone to ask.

 

We’re the ones who prefer a phone number like 232-1112 to 798-9989 because, with a rotary dial, it could be dialed faster.

 

We’re the ones who are astonished when we accidentally stumble onto a game menu on a device we really thought was intended for placing and receiving phone calls.

 

We’re the ones who, when we see someone walking down the street, alone, with his hands free, talking loudly, assume he is mentally ill. We’ve noticed a lot of very well-dressed mentally ill people recently.

 

We’re the ones who, driving home in a rainstorm, smile and feel gratitude for the garage-door opener, because we remember so clearly what it was like before we had them.

 

We’re the ones who, even though we may use an answering machine to screen our calls, still feel a sense of urgency when the phone rings and we can’t get to it in time.

 

We’re the ones who don’t confuse instant messaging and text messaging shortcuts with correct usage. Mark Twain said, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” We understand that the person who refuses to spell, capitalize, and punctuate properly is easily confused with the person who does not know how to spell, capitalize, and punctuate properly.

KsSmallBiz.com, June 28, 2006

Posted by Sharon under Laughter | 3 Comments »