By JUDI TABLER
O.K. So Fred and I are not the sharpest knives on the block when it comes to the new electronics.
But so far, we are surviving.
We can operate our cell phones, send e-mail and surf the internet, start and turn off our car without it beeping at us, look at our telephone I.D. to see who is calling, and self-check out our groceries if nothing irregular goes wrong.
We once hoped we could handle the gadgets in our car, but have finally given up. There are no knobs, and the touch controls that select the radio station usually amp up the air conditioning at full blast so we concede we will never get those gadgets tamed.
Several evenings ago we almost lost our cool with another challenge in the world of modernization..
We decided to watch a movie. Tilly, another BFF, told us to watch the Clint Eastwood movie, “Absolute Power.”
I happily suggested to Fred, “Hey, let’s get our supper ready, and watch that movie.”
“Do you know how to order a movie on Demand?” he asked.
“No, but how hard can that be?” I boasted.
Locating the “Movie” tab, then the A-Z tab, we scrolled down to find the A for Absolute Power. Nope. Not there. So we repeated our first efforts; found the movie tab, looked at the A-H choices. Nope not there either. Oh well, we don’t know where else to look so we gave that up.
I remembered that we both have “Prime” membership on Amazon. I scrolled the Amazon movie list and found that particular movie the first go around.
“Yes. Making progress here!”
I pulled “Absolute Power” up, plugged the laptop into the TV screen..( I KNOW. YOU ALL ARE ENVIOUS of my knowledge, aren’t you?) Well hang on!
It wouldn’t work. The TV screen had to be programmed to DVR, or something like that.
“Where’s the little remote?”
“I don’t know. Maybe in the basket over there?”
We finally found it.. O.K. Now the TV is ready for the movie.
Nope.
The picture did not come up on the screen. I used the finger control and the computer kept jumping to another site and I lost the movie order.
“I’ll look it up on my computer,” offered Fred.
He found it. The movie came up and he got it ready. Then he carefully, oh so carefully, carried his laptop to the front of the TV screen and we plugged it in to the special cord that hooked up to the TV.
At this point, I had ordered the movie and so had Fred. We had TWO charges. One movie — TWO charges.
“I’ll wait before I start the movie and you get Amazon straightened out so we are not charged twice,” said Fred.
I didn’t want to do this. My enthusiasm was running out of me like a sieve.
I marched back to the office, to the big computer, where I know what I am doing — and I have a mouse to navigate.
I couldn’t get it done.
Meanwhile, the movie was waiting on Fred’s laptop, which is plugged into the TV screen in the living room.
Our food is getting cold.
Fred comes back to the office and together we find the place where I can get a refund and claim that we ordered two movies by accident.
It gets done. Whew!
Next, I stumble back to the living room. I want to babble inconsequential words and sputter profanities.
Is this worth it?
The laptop computer is lying on the floor because our connecting cord is not long enough to reach us in a chair. I get on my hands and knees in front of the TV and using my finger, I push the button to begin. The movie comes up on the screen!
It worked — IT worked! It only took one hour and 15 minutes to get the darn movie going. To tell the truth, we were both frazzled. So what if it was a good movie!
We watched the movie. It was good. We forgot we didn’t know what we were doing.
Now, the lesson of this story is this — if technology moves by leaps-and-bounds in the next 12 months, we will not be leaping and bounding with it.
Oh yeah. Clint Eastwood was tough and got his man again, but I’ll bet he can’t work these gadgets either!
“A Woman’s View” is Judi Tabler’s reflection of her experiences and events. She is a wife, mother, writer, teacher, grandmother, and even a great grandmother.
