Techno-handicapped
Mar 18th 2007
RachelGOn Writing!
Yesterday I bought a new cell phone today. I chose it for two reasons. One: it’s pink. Two: it has something called V Cast which I thought sounded cool. I don’t really know what that is, but I figured I could download ring tones really easily. Right?
Wrong. I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to download my freaking ring tones. I finally stopped when my head hurt and my eyes started to bleed. If any of my kids were home, they’d figure it out in ten seconds. They’d give me that you’re so old look, grab the phone from me, and do that rapid-fire text stuff that I just can’t grasp.
So, after a long frustrating day, I decided to relax with a DVD I rented last week and already owe a huge fine on. I needed to de-stress, but I forgot that somehow I’d programed the language of my DVD player to be Italian. Which drives me crazy. Pause is inmovil and volume it volumen. I don’t know what menu juste hora means. I’ve tried to switch it to English, but I can’t. Oh, and I can’t get the closed captions to go away, but for some reason, my son can. And I know that he doesn’t understand Italian any more than I do.
Years ago I accepted that I am techno-challenged. I figured I must be missing the techno-gene. I’m okay with that. I figured I’m also missing the loves to cook and lives to clean house genes. I am surprisingly okay with that too.
Are you too techno challenged? Or maybe you’re missing the gene that gives you a burning desire to whip up an omelet or run a vacuum?
13 Comments »
13 Responses to “Techno-handicapped”
Claudia Dain on 18 Mar 2007 at 10:49 am #
I’m beyond techno-challenged; I’m techno-deaf, dumb, and blind.
I can’t do anything with any sort of technology and I know it. I don’t even try anymore.
I think technology looks fantastic. All those wonderful features, all the power at your fingertips…well, at someone’s fingertips. Not mine.
This is how bad it is for me: I went to put gas in my newish car. Nothing remotely techy about that, right? I couldn’t get the gas cap off. I had to void the transaction and come home on empty.
The good news is that my husband allowed himself one quick double-take and then went out and gassed up the car. The man’s a saint.
Stephanie S. on 18 Mar 2007 at 12:04 pm #
I have a phone . . . in pink . . . just let that one. I got it about a year ago and simply love it. You made a good choice.
While I may not techno-challenged, every so often electronics will go haywire around me and I have no idea why. In the span of a week, my printer at work came up with the code RIP (yes that literally means rest in peace), my home computer crashed (all the info on my hard drive is currently lost to me . . . fingers crossed my cousin can retrieve the info), and my sister was kind enough to let me use her computer . . . unforunately, now there seems to be a problem with her internet explorer (oops!). I have no idea why every so often this happens to me. We all joke it’s my magnetism going haywire.
MizMacgyver on 18 Mar 2007 at 12:36 pm #
I am semi-techno challenged, I can program a vcr and a dvd, I have got the cell phone down to the degree that I don’t panic when it beeps at me (but I have a stream-lined model and it doesn’t do a lot).
I do not get video games, I will never get video games but when my son, who is special needs, decides to talk to me about his games I try very, very hard to understand and answer fairly intelligently. He doesn’t talk a lot so when he does I do my best to get in there and stay with him on it. Considering I can’t for the life of me make my fingers work that fast (or my mind) I can pretty well discuss all the latest games on the market, I can also (with the speed of light) veto a game I deem unsuitable. He isn’t crazy about that part but you know you gotta take the bitter with the sweet sometimes. LOL
I am missing any and all genes pertaining to housework in any form. I do it but it doesn’t come naturally too me. I try to keep things neat and clean but I don’t go into fits if they aren’t for a short period of time. My son’s room is never neat and clean for any period of time. I call him “piglet” and have often just shut his door (Shades of Scarlett O’Hara….I will think about it tomorrow). Since I have books everywhere I really can’t get too ugly since his stuff is usually in his room.
Ladytink_534 on 18 Mar 2007 at 1:24 pm #
My mom is techno-challenged and I’m clean-freak challenged. Don’t get me wrong, the house never is as nasty, but it usually is messy unless I get bit by the cleaning bug about once a week or so. I don’t understand all things about technology but my husband does. He was one of those kids that either took things apart to learn how they worked or read all about them.
lisapbailey on 18 Mar 2007 at 2:36 pm #
as technology seems to change faster than we could possible keep up with i have vowed to only learn what i need to get by at work and home. i can answer my phone, make a call and program a number to speed dial. i cannot operate the DVD player at home but I can watch a DVD on my computer so I get in bed, put the laptop on my lap and watch away. i know how to use all the programs on my computer that i need or enjoy and i “hide” all the others. if i’m missing out on some great technology or time saving thing or whatever, so be it. ignorance is bliss in this regard. AND i still get up and actually turn the TV on and off by hand–but that’s just rebellion.
Suzanne Enoch on 18 Mar 2007 at 4:54 pm #
Rachel, are you talking about the magic boxes that make sounds and speak in the voices of my friends? I also have a magic box that shows me people from faraway places — although during the summer they seem to have the same adventures over and over. They must have short-term memory loss.
Nicole Jordan on 18 Mar 2007 at 5:37 pm #
Hmmm. I guess I have a fairly decent techno-gene but not a single housekeeping gene other than an obsessive need for order. I would much rather take a vacuum cleaner apart than use it.
And I suppose my cooking gene is well-developed, but only because I love to eat!
NicoleJ
Brandy on 18 Mar 2007 at 6:12 pm #
I’m a techno’goober. When I wanted to add links on my blog, I had my hubs do it. I studued what he had done and the next time I wanted to add it, I mimiced what he had done. IT DIDN’T WORK! It’s in the coding, but won’t show up. Also, we have a DVR, and it hates me. I’m not kidding. It practically purrs for my hubs, but for me? Nada!
I do have the clean gene, but even I get tired of being the only one who cleans sometimes. And both my hubs and myself have the cooking gene. Although, with the work schedule he’s on, I do most of the cooking.
dbrown3400 on 18 Mar 2007 at 6:37 pm #
Last night I broke my Napster. I was traipsing merrily along downloading songs by Elvis when I heard that lovely piece of four-cheese quiche in the refrigerator calling my name. I did the two-minute bit in the microwave and plopped down back in front of the keyboard, plate in hand, and started picking songs again. (As if they were going away while I ate my quiche.)
I had my finger hard on the mouse, rushing to return to my former position in the middle of some 500 songs, somewhere halfway down on Elvis, so to speak, when the screen filled with code that essentially said, “You stupid b*tch, can’t you wait to eat your quiche then slowly resume your search?” The beautiful album covers of Elvis were gone, but yes, I could still search for songs. Heh. Heh. Heh. Maybe it wasn’t broken after all. I backed out of Napster, went back in and voila! Elvis was back in the building. But now I’m nervous. I keep checking to see if my library of thousands, well hundreds of songs, is still there. I guess I will email Napster the lines of code that I dutifully copied after going into a TOTAL PANIC in the middle of the night.
But it was good quiche.
Donna
Sabrina Jeffries on 18 Mar 2007 at 8:51 pm #
Maybe there’s a connection between techno and cleaning, because I am not remotely techno-challenged, but I am DEFINITELY cleaning-challenged. I wish they’d hurry up with the cleaning robots they keep promising us. Then I could marry my love of technology to my hatred of cleaning, and voila!!
RachelG on 18 Mar 2007 at 9:27 pm #
Love the microwave. For those of us like Suzanne, that is the magic box that you put food into, press a button and a minute or two later, you take out your dinner and dig in. I don ‘t cook, but I’m great at reheating. Oh, and I love take out. I have someone clean my house, but I still have to load and unload the dishwasher. Again, the box you put dirty dishes in and they come out clean.
I don’t really know what Napster is. I buy CDs because an ipod is beyond me.
TheNightPoet on 19 Mar 2007 at 12:11 am #
I am not techno-challenged, but there are times I honestly don’t know anything about the new technology out there today. Where I work, at one time, we carried iPods. The common question we received from our customers?….”What’s the difference between an iPod and an MP3 player?” ‘cough’ “ugh….what?” Okay, I may be 24-years-old, but I am still learning about all the new gadgets that keep coming out. I recently got an iPod for Christmas and now understand what’s the difference between the two. But thankfully we no longer carry iPods and MP3 players where I work. lol So no more questions about how many songs they can get one of the two to hold. haha
But the more they come out with, the more I have to keep on learning. I feel behind at times with learning about all this new stuff.
Andrea
Kathy on 22 Mar 2007 at 8:36 am #
I am not techo. My son and I went out for breakfast last weeknd and my cell phone rang and he turn the sound off. After he went his way to see his freinds and I was on my way out of town and I remember he turn my ringer off. I couldn’t figured it out how to put it back on so I went to his freinds and get him to fix it for me. Some tech things I can work my solution to the problem with tech stuff is unplug and plug it back in and maybe it will work right.