Anyone who knows me, knows of my disdain for new technology. My sons call me a dinosaur, my friends call me technologically challenged, and my wife says I’m simply bull-headed but, I doubt, at my age, my attitude is going to change.
It’s not that I don’t understand or appreciate the conveniences and efficiencies that modern technology has afforded us. I use the computer and internet every day to find information and communicate with others; I have a smartphone that I use to text, e-mail, and even keep detailed records of my cow herd and, sometimes, use it to make a telephone call; heck, I surprise most of my farmer-friends when I tell them that I have a GPS system installed in my tractor. You see, I use a lot of technology – I just don’t like it…and now, my worst fear has been realized – new technology is dangerous!
One of my coffee-drinking buddies (who is almost 20 years older than me – so he’s really old) traded in his flip-phone for his very first smartphone. His grandchildren had shamed him into the trade and promised to transfer all his contacts and information from his old phone, plus teach him how to operate the new device. Every morning for the first few weeks, he would ask me how to do something on the new phone, since his grandkids were either at work or in school and I became his “go-to-guy” for tech questions. How sad is it when Jerry Crownover becomes your “go-to-guy” for technology?
A couple of weeks ago, my friend broke his smartphone and when he went to purchase a new one, he went all-in and bought a top-of-the-line, ultra-smart phone. This phone has all the bells and whistles and is way above my pay grade. Again, his grandchildren were happy to transfer everything. Life was good, until…
My buddy was in his shop one Saturday morning, working on his old truck for which he had just replaced an engine. As he was trying to reconnect the wires to the alternator, he had to lean over into the engine compartment from the top of a small step ladder. While he was trying to thread three wires through a plastic tube, he was encountering problems that he described as, “trying to stick a wet noodle up a wildcat’s rear end.” After the third unsuccessful attempt, he began to talk to the wires by saying, in a not-so-quiet voice, “Get in there, you @#$%&*!”
Thinking he was alone, my friend was shocked to hear a feminine voice calmly say, “Now, there’s no reason to use that kind of language.”
Surprised, beyond description, my friend quickly raised up his head to the point it banged off the open hood of the truck. Losing consciousness for a second, he fell off the step ladder onto the hard concrete floor of the shop, spraining his wrist as he landed.
Evidently, the grandkids figured their PawPaw would probably want the ability that allows a conversation between the owner of the phone and the lady computer inside the phone and he had, unknowingly, said some semblance of her name when he was ranting over the side of the fender. He had the kids deactivate that function the next day.
New technology is dangerous!
