dropsinthewell

When I was a child, television was simple: We watched Lawrence Welk and Gunsmoke on CBS and Bonanza on NBC. Those were the only two television stations we received and we got great reception–as long as someone stood beside the set with the wire antennas strategically held aloft in their hands.

We were enthralled. It was the modern world where the Cartwrights and Marshal Dillon came visually into our living rooms and we were grateful for the opportunity to see I Love Lucy solve all the world’s comical problems in a half hour of running around like a chicken with her red-haired head off.

Every time I watch television today, I remember those days with nostalgia. While I used to long for more than two or three choices on the television, I could at least make the television work by myself. I walked up, flipped a switch and there! The television came to snowy life. Then, squinting carefully to see which shows were where, I cranked the channel knob like cracking a safe until I was watching those channels. Easy, right? The television was a large, cumbersome piece of furniture where you placed a bowl of flowers for decoration and directed that mystifying collection of tubes and wires in whichever was the most convenient location for maximum comfort in viewing.

Today, the televisions have shrunk to a very light, very flat computer-style screen with a dizzying number of remote controls for a) the one to turn it on; b) the one to manage cable; and c) the one to flip on Netflix and Youtube, and d) the DVR which opens up even more selections. Gone are the days of two channels. Cable offers you a staggering range of programming; so much so, that it is almost impossible to choose the thing you should most wish to watch.

It has become a challenge: No more Marshall Dillon and Ben Cartwright: Now, you can watch fantasy, humor, movies, “reality”, documentaries, horror, sports, home shopping, cooking shows and religion. You can find any of these at any time and what’s more, if you can’t wait to watch the show you are panting for, you can do something called “livestreaming”–don’t ask.

I could deal with all of this, I really could manage, but I have run up against another problem with using my friendly television–you must be a technological wizard to set it up. Now, I tried to be a grown-up about this, but I can only hit “Set-up” so many times only to have it disappoint me when it fails to “set up,” before I am a weeping, whining, frustrated, furious mass of humanity hurling insults and sometimes objects at the impassive blank screen , which steadfastly refuses to be moved by my hysteria.

Feeling like the foolish old woman I am, I have resorted to calling the cable company and they come to my house (eventually) and expertly manipulate all of those remote controls like so many guns in a holster. “Now, this one is for turning on the television,” some kid younger than my winter coat will tell me. “Oh, great, and do I use this number key pad for channels?” I ask eagerly.

“Oh no! You have to use this one to change the channels,” he says handing me a second one. “Great, I can do that,” I say, doubtfully. “Where do I go on this one for Netflix or Amazon Prime or whatever?” I am so hopeful.

“You use this one,” he pushes another remote into my hands, ” and if you want to LiveStream….” “I don’t,” I say sharply as he reached into his toolbelt for yet another gun…I mean remote.

“Well, I’ll just leave you to get acquainted with your new television system and enjoy,” so saying, he headed for the door. I won’t say he ran to his truck, but he wasted no time getting there.

By labeling my remotes—“power,” “cable,” “DVR” and “I don’t know”…I was able to limp along for about three days. I began to be very proud of myself for how quick I got on the draw. And then it happened: we had a power outage. It didn’t last too long and everything was back on within a half hour—except the television system. It seems when it loses power, it must be “set-up” again. There are two things which should never lose power–hospitals…and my television system. I plan to look into that as soon as the delivery guy re-does everything so I can use it again. But I’m willing to bet that the service guys at the cable office are flipping a coin…and the loser has to come out and set me up again. Marshal Dillon wouldn’t do this to me!

It’s been a few years since I thought about them. I was raised in the Woodstock era, with a lot of free love, peace and brothers in harmony. I always admired them a little, those free thinkers who lived in communes, eschewed things like clothes and allowed others to refer to them as “hippies” (even then I was sensitive about my anatomy).

I respected a lot of what they stood for without ever wanting to be one of them. Oh, I wore those shirts that were psychedelic in design and I wore lots of beads and bell-bottom pants, but the one thing I could never come to terms with was the use of drugs. And let me be clear when I say that I know not everyone who identified with the “brotherhood of man” group used drugs and certainly, plenty of folk from the rest of society did use drugs. But I always thought of peace-loving hippies and marijuana use as somehow connected, I just didn’t want to join the crowd.

I’m sure most people by now know that I have been struggling for the last year with a painful spine issue in my neck. I know people are aware of this because I have whined to everyone who would listen and a great many who probably would rather not have had to hear me. Because of this pain, I have tried everything from over the counter painkillers (which didn’t work), to topical applications (which also didn’t work) to essential oils (which had some effect) to massage (which is painful but helps in the long run).

Doctors have spent the year rubbing their heads and trying to find an effective medical solution, but two things they would like to avoid are opioids and surgery. I am fully on board with their concerns and have endured a year of feeling like a I have burning ball on the back of my neck and a feeling like an abscessed tooth in my shoulder and arm, because I, too, would like a less drastic solution.

Slowly, inexorably, I am drawing nearer to surgery, but as I go, I look more and more frantically for a different solution that will end the pain. Today, I had someone finally make a suggestion that I will admit, left me a little flabbergasted.

And that brings me back to my hippie roots. Because the solution he had was the possibility of medical cannabis, known among my 60s buddies as “weed”, “wacky tobaccy”, “maryjane” or just plain old marijuana. When I was young, I was proud that I avoided smoking the “good shit,” so it takes me a little aback that in my aging body and mind, I am considering this avenue–when it becomes available, obviously!

Of course, there are caveats on this. I wouldn’t be able to use it except at bedtime, because it wouldn’t be a good idea to show up for my job in the daytime and then get toasted on a high grade marijuana cigarette. Even so, the idea that I might be able to get a good night’s sleep is attractive enough for me to consider this rather bizarre solution.

Since I had this conversation, I have been busy envisioning myself in a pair of bell-bottomed pants, a fringed jacket brushing up against the flowers in my hair as I sat cross-legged on the floor and lit up a joint. Of course, in order to get me into bell-bottomed pants, cross-legged on the floor would take drugs far more powerful than marijuana. I don’t think the medications that would require are very good for me either! In addition, I am pretty sure I’m too old to learn to smoke, so there’s another problem.

Needless to say, I haven’t made any decisions on this issue and until it is cleared for use, I won’t have to decide. But in doing research on the issue, one of the warnings about it gave me pause: even if we have it in this state, it is not legal everywhere. So before I pack up my innovative pain solution and light out (no pun intended) for other locales, I’d better check on the local weed laws or I might make headlines for infamous reasons and I’m too old for that as well! Groovy man!

Today, I sat in my doctor’s office (for the hundredth time) to discuss why it is that my arm, shoulder and neck keep reacting like they are a runaway abscessed tooth with no regard for treatment. Medical personnel are always very sympathetic, but they will persist in treating me as if I were a woman of reasonable medical knowledge. This is a waste of their time.

The worst thing they do is show me x-rays that are supposedly images of what is inside of me. “Now, if you will look between the 5th and 6th (word I did not understand), you will see that there is (another word I didn’t understand.)” the doctor said, pointing to his little slide on its cool light-up screen.

I find the screen very neat and I would like to borrow it sometime to watch the light go through my fingers (I have strange habits), but as for showing me the x-ray image, it might have been my neck or it might have been the secret plans to blow up some poor third world country; it was all the same to me.

“Is that what is causing me to be in so much pain?” I ask, holding onto my offending neck. He nodded, looking slightly deflated that I didn’t respond in some medical-eze. “Well,” I said, trying to look intelligent, “could we just maybe scribble out that white part with your ink pen and erase the problem?” I’ve never actually been thrown out of a medical office, but I am pretty sure he thought about it!

It’s not just x-rays of my neck that cause me to sound uneducated in medical things. I have never had the remotest talent for them and what’s more, I have no curiosity. I have never googled a disease, symptom or rash, because I will either not understand it at all or I will understand it well enough to have it scare the heck out of me.

Other people are so much better informed. “I have a righteous curvature of the scoliosis,” my friend informed me one day. “I looked it up and it said on the Internet that I will be too crippled to walk before I’m 60.” Dr. Internet aside, it concerned me that she sounded so happy about it. I guess knowledge is power, but I’d rather be medically ignorant. This is what we have doctors for.

Medical professionals are proud of their images. I remember looking at an ultrasound of a baby and thinking, “Oh, isn’t that cute, she’s got her thumb in her mouth.”

“Oh no,” the expectant mother told me, “the doctor says that is her little foot tucked under her butt.”

“Ah, I see it now,” I said, nearly standing on my head and lying like a rug all at the same time. All I really saw was a grayish blob that may have been the baby, or a stack of buttermilk pancakes—with the thumb in their mouth!

I look at dental x-rays and don’t see the teeth, let alone the cavities. I saw an ultrasound of my thyroid, and nothing about it suggested that this odd-looking thing was in my throat, but the doctor assured me it was. I woke up from a colonoscopy to a nurse holding up photos and chirping, “Guess what this is?”

“The cave where Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher got lost? That is really dark, those poor things,” I replied. Yes, I knew it was the inside of my colon, but unlike her, I didn’t find the photos they took something I might post on Facebook.

Let’s face it, I am not looking for medical knowledge. Tell me in plain English what the heck is wrong and what I can do about it. I’ll believe the doctor, he doesn’t need photographic evidence that he can read, but I can’t. Give me the pill, the therapy or the surgery that your photos suggest, but for goodness sake, don’t SHOW ME and talk about it!

I admit that I am a lazy housecleaner. If the dust bunnies aren’t choking me and the bathroom odor doesn’t grab me by the throat when I enter the room, I have a tendency to let sleeping dogs (or dirt) lie. And if I can’t figure out a way around it, I simply grab a Clorox wipe to cover any deficiencies.

This working relationship was rudely disrupted by a little thing called the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the first things to disappear from store shelves were all of the Clorox supplies intended to last for the next five years. I had only a small supply of bleach wipes in the house–how would I possibly clean and kill all of the Covid germs with that?

I came home from an unsuccessful store run and assessed my cleaning assets. I had enough toilet paper, enough dish soap and even enough shampoo. But none of these would guarantee that I was killing those little Covid devils!

It was time to do something drastic…and so I did. I cleaned out the cabinets under my sink in the kitchen and the sink in the bathroom. And you know what I discovered? I discovered that I’m a true hoarder and that was long before it was the fashion in a toilet paper shortage!

Crammed at the back of the cupboard were three or four bottles of spray cleaners, but the one that really stood out was the one with those magic words, “Kills 99.9% of bacteria and germs,” written on the label. Forget those bleach towelettes, I had SPRAY!

I loaded up on this, as of the time, unknown little gem and I sprayed everything. My husband complained that the whole house smelled like bleach. He pointed to the little rivulets of bleach running down the wall under the light switches and doorknobs. He protested when I sprayed down the laundry baskets and hangers (I did lose a few nice clothes to bleach there) and he accused me of spraying his toothbrush with bleach (I washed it afterward). But I didn’t care: I was fighting Covid, and I was doing it without bleach wipes!

Since then, even when the bleach wipes made their reappearance, I remained loyal to the spray. It has served me well in hard times and I will stay with it for good. It beats the wipes with its quick draw and wide shot.

I’m not sure Roy agrees with me, however. The other day, he came into the living room holding his good watch. “I think there may some dirt trapped here under the face…” he began.

“Say no more,” I answered, quick as a wink. “I can take care of any dirt.” And I grabbed my spray bottle of bleach cleaner and went to work. He looked at me for a moment, then looked at his own hand, dripping with spray and holding a watch thoroughly soaked. Then he simply turned and walked away.

I don’t what made him so upset, though. I’m sure the watch will work again once it has dried out…and you can be sure there’s no Covid in there!

It happens every year. And I complain about it every year and every year, it does me no good to whine. This is the time of the year when the flies make their presence known in all of the most unpleasant ways.

During the height of the summer, they are less noisome. They fly fast–so fast that I could not hit them if I wanted to. However, they also don’t annoy when they are flying fast and ignoring my presence. It’s the fall, when they suddenly slow down and begin to make a murderer out of me.

I can hit flies at the speed they are flying now. They fly along at old lady pace and land in places where I can finish them off with one good crack of the flyswatter. The real problem is that they are suddenly so many in numbers that I wonder if they have organized a family reunion in which they have invited every one of their many thousands of relatives, all of whom are gathering in the Fauth household.

While I can hit them at this stage, there are so many that after a few rounds with the flyswatter, my kitchen floor looks like a fly killing field. Not to mention the mess to be cleaned off every surface in the house. It is a sad little fly blood bath and never makes me feel good. At least one of them got his revenge, however. I was drinking a nice cup of coffee with a plastic cover which contained only a small hole to drink from. I drank from it all morning, enjoying my daily coffee fix until I poured out the dregs and discovered a drowned fly carcass was in that liquid. I don’t know when or how it crawled in there, but I’m pretty sure I had enjoyed a lot of fly-flavored coffee that morning; a just revenge for all the flies I killed, I suppose, but definitely not the way I want to get my protein!

If it was just the common housefly that had invaded, that would be bad enough, but because of my inattention to a banana slow death on my counter, I have now had an invasion of fruit flies. These little devils make the common housefly a pleasure to deal with. They multiply faster than rabbits in season and they are MUCH faster and more elusive than a housefly.

I was up to the challenge, however. After an afternoon of killing houseflies, my blood was up and when I went to the kitchen sink to wash my hands, a cloud of fruit flies rose from the accommodating pipes of my sink. It was the last straw.

Without devising much of a plan, I snatched the Clorox spray from the counter and, screaming a war cry worthy of Braveheart, I began spraying bleach everywhere, on the sink, in the pipes, over the stove, along the counters, on the floor and even into the kitchen curtains. Fruit fly corpses littered the counters and the floor and the colors in my curtains turned white from fear (or bleach, whatever). It had been an ugly battle, but I emerged victorious.

Feeling mighty and terrible, I put away the bleach spray and the flyswatters and settled down in my favorite comfortable chair to relax. Just as I had begun to read my book, something went buzzing past my nose. Impossible! I had killed every fly for ten miles and besides, none of them was flying that fast. I jumped from the chair, and followed the trajectory of the unidentified flying insect. Crawling triumphantly across my living room windows was a boxelder bug! So excuse me, ladies in gentlemen, while I get my spray and my swatter for round three of the Insect Wars!

Now, I’m the first to admit that my best days as a grandma of babies are probably behind me. I have gotten used to throwing a towel, washcloth and clean night things on the bathroom counter and saying to my capable older grandchildren, “Okay, time for a change and a wash, get to it.” They do the work and Grandma relaxes in front of the television until they emerge squeaky clean and ready for bed. Now, I took care of them as babies, but it’s been 9 whole years ago since I dealt with diapers and sleepers and baby baths.

And then, almost a year ago, along came Emmett. He is such a bright and happy baby, and I love spending time with him, but I have realized that my skills for efficient baby care are a bit rusty. In addition, Emmett isn’t too sure he wants to trust me anyway.

This weekend was a prime example. Emmett is at that age where he takes a while to warm up to Grandma and Grandpa when they come for a visit. After this weekend, he may have even more issues to deal with, because he ended up in the rather inept hands of Grandpa and Grandma for a few harrowing moments.

I love to get the babies out of bed in the morning because I always think me releasing them from the crib makes me the hero. When I walked in, Emmett was standing up, leaning against the side of the crib. He was calling something in baby-ese, but judging by the look on his face when he saw me, whoever he was calling for, it wasn’t me.

That didn’t stop me from picking him up. He gave me a suspicious look all the way to the changing table, as if to say, “I called for Dad, but you’re not Dad.”

Ignoring the odd looks, I called for Grandpa to come in, but he, too, got a somewhat odd expression. Nonetheless, he needed a diaper change and some dry clothes (Emmett, not Grandpa), so I went to work. Of course, he had a messy diaper and it took me only three times as long to clean him up as it would have his parents.

After I had a fresh diaper in place, but not on, I noticed a little bit of rash. There was some cream on the table, so I applied some. Now, everyone knows what happens when you leave a baby without their diaper, and sure enough, Emmett peed and I mean, he peed everywhere.

Another clean diaper switched out the newly soiled one and I began to use wipes to try and clean up the baby. While doing so, I noticed that the pee had run under the baby and so he, and the new diaper were a mess all the way up the back.

New diaper number three had to be put on with Roy holding him in midair, because he couldn’t be placed back on the wet changing table. After that, we took him to the living room, where his grandfather declared, “He still smells like pee.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” I crabbed, “I don’t know where the baby tub is.”

At this point, one of my self-sufficient grandsons looked up from his video game and advised, “You better wait and ask Mommy. She knows what to do.”

Well, I am certainly capable of doing anything that “Mommy” can do, so I wet down and soaped up some paper towels. Using the same method as before (Grandpa hanging the baby in midair), I soaped down and wiped down the baby, who by this time, looked pretty grim indeed over the inept service he was getting.

Relieved, I laid him on the couch to put a fresh sleeper on. He immediately tried to escape, which I think shows some intelligent thought on his part. The sleeper was unlike any I had ever seen and I only put it on backwards once. Snapping four million (okay, maybe not that many) snaps on a squirming baby who is seriously trying to put a safe distance between you and him is a process that could take as much as a half hour–which it did.

When his parents returned, he lit up like a man up for execution who just got a reprieve. I lit up like a grandmother who has forgotten the finer points of baby care. I really want to have him come and visit for a week next summer like his brothers do. Do you suppose he will be showering and changing his own underwear by then? I didn’t think so!

I have a strong reputation at sporting events. My reputation is that I always sew at any athletic happening. People think that I do this because I am too bored with the sporting activity, but this is simply not true. I sew because it keeps me calm and reasonable…which I am not if I concentrate too hard on what is going on in the arena, court or field.

If I am sewing, I remain calm and friendly and interested. If I stop sewing, I turn into this crazy sports biddy that I do not personally recognize. I sew and I am serene (at least until I stick myself with a needle). It’s only when I drop my sewing in my lap that things get ugly.

I try, I want you to know that. I tell myself that I am the superior being and I can control myself and show the spectators on both sides what a good sport I am. This attitude lasts for at least the first five minutes I spend watching the game Then it all unravels (forgive the sewing reference–I couldn’t resist.)

“Oh, look, the other team scored a point, good for them,” I say with a look of Christian charity on my face…that lasts for the first point the other team scores. After that, it’s open season on the other side. “Look at that girl in the second row on the opposing side,” I snap at my husband, “she is cheering every time we miss a point. I just want to slap her.”

Normally, my husband is too wrapped up in the competition to sense the danger right away. It takes a little while to sink in. “That kid is making me crazy. If she gets up and cheers for the other team one more time, I’m going to demand that she be removed,” I declare through gritted teeth.

“Relax,” my husband responds, “that kid is the other team’s coach.”

“I don’t care,” I fume. “And I’m also going to get a pair of magnifying glasses for that line judge. She couldn’t tell an inbounds volleyball from a hailstone on a tin roof.”

It doesn’t matter the sport. I find soccer fans for the other team to be apt to rudely cheer for their players. I think referees at a baseball game should go into a profession more in keeping with their talents–like scrubbing toilets. Football coaches have no idea how to guide their teams (as I am apt to inform them at the top of my lungs) and as for basketball, well, forget it. Can you believe that they will call fouls on our team when the other team is obviously at fault?

“Oh look,” my husband will say, after I threaten to impale the opposing coach on my sewing needle, “you still have several rows to sew. Why don’t you sooth yourself and sew that and leave the commentary on the game to the professionals?”

I sew for a few more minutes before I can contain myself no longer. “Did you see that?” I exclaim, dropping my needle down among the popcorn bags and empty candy wrappers. “That girl clearly slammed the ball down on our court when she knew there were no players to return it.”

I shout a few suggestions as to the eye surgery needed by the referees while Roy frantically searches the debris under our feet for my sewing things. I could give you any number of other examples, but I think by now you understand why I sew at athletic events, whether I am there in person or watching on television. It’s hard to count the number of needles, thread spools, embroidery scissors, etc. that have been lost because I give them a heave in disgust over some ridiculous action by players, fans, coaches or referees.

This week has been particularly exhausting and my sewing has certainly suffered because of it. From, “Nice serve, sweetie, right into the net–let’s have another!” to “Why is the ref letting those boys jump on our players? They can’t play the game when they’re flat on the field! Come on, boys, give ’em a cleat in the eye!” ending with, “You can’t call back that touchdown–it’s the only one the Vikings have made! Eat my shoe, you darned TV”, I haven’t managed a lot of sewing, but they do say self-expression is good for the soul. I’m going to look upon my cheering in that very positive light.

It’s been a long year, full of new and unusual medical procedures. I will admit that I’m becoming a little jaded about the miracles of modern medicine, since some of those miracles come from really uncomfortable moments.

In this year, I have had x-rays (and don’t tell me they are no problem…ever had a mammograms?). I have also experienced an MRI, which in itself wasn’t too bad because I didn’t have to use that machine where they slide you in a little hole like a loaf of bread in the oven. My objection to the MRI involves the noise, which had all the volume and soothing effect of a jackhammer being operated right by your ear.

Add to that spinal injections,, ultra-sounds and physical therapy sessions to work out the many muscle knots that were tied while I was undergoing these treatments. And in case I hadn’t scheduled myself for enough fun, this is the year I decided that I should have an implant put into my mouth just to give me enough teeth to chew with! It’s been interesting to say the least!

This month, I decided to have a little fun with something called a thyroid biopsy. This is a procedure where they basically put you head down, feet elevated and draw fluid from the thyroid with needles. I was so stupid, I thought you went down the throat to get at the thyroid, but I quickly found out that they had to put needles in the one place I had probably never had them before–my exposed neck! I had a bit of an idea how Anne Boleyn felt at the block!

I truly admire medical personnel and I feel for all they have been through and what they have to go through to help people to get well and remain well. But sometimes I wonder if they forget that the body they are working on isn’t as used to the procedures as they are.

For instance, when you are in a chair that is tilted so that your head is pointed to the floor and your feet are sticking in the air, and you are about to have a needle thrust into your neck it is useless for a medical professional to tell you to “breath normally.” If I can breathe at all, I’m lucky! They also instruct you to “not swallow.” Of course, as soon as they say that, all I can think about doing is swallowing!

When you are lying face-down on a table while they prepare to stick a needle directly in your spine, the instructions “don’t move,” and “relax” are counterproductive. I can manage the don’t move thing (although I really want to) but as for the relax part–forget it!

I think the phrase I am most resentful of during a medical procedure is “you’re doing just fine.” In most cases, I am in such a position that I’m not doing anything at all–except maybe silently screaming! In a dentist’s chair, having a post screwed into my jawbone or standing in front of a mammogram machine, so squished and positioned that I am forced to balance on tiptoe, the last thing that comes to mind is “fine”.

I understand the necessity of medical tests, but since they scare me more than a horde of Viking raiders, I am less than sympathetic to any attempt to make me “feel better.” I just want them to get finished, don’t stop in the middle to tell me I’m “doing fine.”

Because I am both terrified of all these medical tests and frustrated with the meaningless instructions to “breathe normally” and “relax,” I have developed a comeback that frequently causes them to pause a little. After the dentist told me I was “doing just fine,” I got around dental equipment, fingers in my mouth and a Novocain fat lip to reply, “so are you.” That stopped him in his tracks for a minute and in spite of the grinding he as doing on my jaw, I felt like I won one.

When the fellow about to give me a spinal injection told me to “not move,” I replied, “Don’t worry, I like where I am.” It got very quiet and I felt triumphant. During my last appointment with my biopsy test where I was told to “breath normally” I replied, “define normal.” She was so startled, she actually launched into a definition of the word.

So beware, medical community, I have decided the only way to deal with you is to use my smart mouth. And just for the record, I really am “doing fine.”

It’s a humbling experience when you reach that point in life when you realize that even your nine-year-old grandson has outdistanced you on the technology superhighway. But that is precisely what happened when Arthur was visiting a week or so ago, because apparently, he’s a technological little wiz.

“Grandma, what are all these books that are the same?” he asked, while I was busy in the kitchen. He was bent to a lower bookshelf in the dining room, peering at the contents with a kind of offhand curiousity.

“Those are my encyclopedia,” I said, not listening as I rushed around, trying to get the meal ready.

“Why did you buy so many that are the same?” came the next question.

“They are not all the same one,” I answered, thinking maybe now was a good lesson for him about “the good old days.” Bending down to join him at the shelf, I pontificated, “These are like your internet, but they are in book form. For instance, suppose you wanted to look up squash.” I pulled out the S encyclopedia, which happens to be divided into two books. I pulled out the wrong one first, of course, and then I fumbled, searching desperately for squash.

“Here we are, squash,” I said, triumphant at last, pointing to the page and looking up at Arthur. He was wearing a look that was a cross between, “oh, my gosh, my grandma is old,” and “in the amount of time you took to look that up, I could have grown a squash.”

As he wandered away to play on his tablet (which I have discovered has nothing to do with paper, by the way), I was left to contemplate the fact that the “information age” has passed me by for certain. I still use those encyclopedias to look things up and not only that, I am in possession of what might be the last paper dictionary in existence.

I admit, I have not even tried to keep up. The advent of the cell phone has left me cold. I don’t mind sitting in one spot and talking on the telephone and I don’t care that my telephone will not take and distribute pictures. Cell phones today do a great deal more than provide vocal communication, they do just about everything but wash your hair (side note, when they do that, or clean the bathroom, sign me up).

It is impossible to go to a restaurant or a social event or even a classroom without seeing those phones in everyone’s hands. They apparently provide all the social contact some need, because I see so many people in restaurants sitting across the table from someone, conversing with someone entirely different on the phone. I used to wonder if I took off my clothes in one of those public places, how long would it take for anyone to notice? Of course, if they did, there would be some interesting pictures of me on Snapchat or something! There are actually support groups out there for people who are too attached to their phones…usually they communicate with each other on phones!

Phones have even affected my conversations with people– those who will look up from their phones long enough to talk. I never say, “I think squash was introduced by Native Americans to….” because I get that far before a forest of phones have cropped up in the hands of everyone there to check out that fact for me. For the record, I was okay with not being sure!

If there is anything worse than the cell phone age, it might be Alexa or Google or whatever invasive, know-it-all machine you want to let into your house. Okay, I get it, this is information at your fingertips, without having to do anything but say, “Alexa, what can you tell me about the origin of squash?” I’d still rather look it up on my own, in the quiet of my dining room, in one of my books that “all look like the same book.”

I once heard a disturbing story about the family with an Alexa, who all scattered in different directions one morning except for one daughter, who slept late, got up and wondered aloud where everyone had gone. Alexa answered her and was correct. Seriously, people are afraid of a tracing chip in their arms, when they tell Alexa everything, everyday, and they don’t know–maybe she works for the CIA!

So my grandson may have to grow up with the fact that his grandma is still addicted to her “analog internet,” and a phone that connects to the wall. And who knows what his grandchildren will be doing when he finds that he has taken a sidetrack on the railroad of progress into the future?

I’m old. I’m the first to admit it. There are so many years between me and the kid who is happily operating the computer in the picture that it taxes my math skills to figure it out. This, of course, leads to the observation that my technology skills are about as useful as a shovel digging a hole in the water.

My humble excuse is that when I was born, computers were not an everyday item. I took classes in college, learning how to write cards for computer systems and then I walked across campus to feed them into the only computer in the school, which encompassed an entire room. There were so many people who would feed their cards into the computer and they would produce something wonderful. When I fed my cards into the computer, the computer made strange beeping noises and spit my cards out like they were so many pieces of burned meat.

My computer skills have never improved. As computers began to shrink, they took on more and more tasks. And each time, I was left further and further behind. By the time computers were controlled on keyboards and they fit on a desk, so many tasks had been taken over by computers, while I continued to write with paper and pencil and manage my checkbook with a calculator and even more significantly, I continued to talk on a telephone…attached to the wall.

I think it was when the computer switched to a cellphone that I realized I would never make it. I have just learned to type on a computer, maybe do some Facebook and even, check e-mail, and now technology is moving on leaving me in its gigawatted wake.

I have become that individual who knows just enough about technology to be dangerous. “Okay, I got my e-mail open, how do I check for new correspondence,” would be a typical question I have. “Click on the little envelope icon,” my child (who else would we consult) says with studied patience. “I hit the wrong thing, I hit the wrong thing. Now I’m in something called The Help Store. How do I get out of it?”

As if that weren’t enough, they have now moved all of those programs, or “apps” if I want to be up to date on terminology, to cell-phones. They have made these hand-held devises the new norm for most people. For me, I have trouble turning mine on and I usually pray no one calls me, because I don’t ever remember which way to swipe it to open it–is it right or left? Then, when I get in, I have to remember my password–no not the password for my e-mail or my Facebook that I can never remember, it’s the password for my phone that I definitely don’t remember!

Most people use their phones for everything: paying bills, reading the news, buying tickets. You name it and there is pretty much nothing that a phone can do today that I won’t be able to figure out. I ordered a plane ticket the other day and according to those cell-phone people I will be able to bring it up at the gate, show them my phone, and get on the plane. I figure there is a fifty-fifty chance I will be successful at that, so I’m either leaving for a four-day vacation, or I’m planning to sit in an airport lounge tomorrow morning and cry.

I know that my game of “continual get with the program” will not get me very far, but it has gotten me listed as the dinosaur of the technology community. And you know what? I think I’m okay with that, until the technological meteor strikes!