My grandfather came to my house for supper. He's kind of hard of hearing, so conversation is louder than usual, and I had a headache.
I turn the conversation back to a topic that interests me: the iPad. We sat deliberating the various pros and cons of this new gadget, and grandpa was all lost. He asked what we were talking about, so my mother attempted to explain.
"The iPad is similar to the iPod, but it's bigger and has more capabilities."
Grandad was still lost. "Whats an iPod?"
I disappeared under the table in a fit of giggles. Mom kicked me and tried to explain. "It's a device that plays music."
He didn't seem to appreciate this. "I have a cassette player at home, it also plays music."
I had to defend my turf. I started to explain. I held up my iPod touch. "This little thing can hold your entire cassette collection."
My grandfather didn't get it. "But how could you get cassettes onto that?"
I explained. My mother explained. My father explained. My sister explained. At last, grandpa seemed to get it.
He nodded. "This thing does sound impressive." All around the table, heads nodded in agreement. Granddad continued. "In fact, if they keep on perfecting that thing-" he glanced over at my touch. "It might one day be as good as a cassette!"
9 comments:
He said that? He REALLY said that? That is PRICELESS!!! You should send that into reader's digest or something!
(and HAHA iPad! I think I have about 50 cents saved towards your present once im published... but maybe ill buy you a cassette player instead!)
LOL
this is hysterical!!!!
thanx for the good laugh!
Guess what - Grandpa doesn't care that he has no clue! He's perfectly happy with his cassette player. Just like I, an old lady of 43, am perfectly happy emailing and not texting. (Although this morning I had to reach the babysitter about something important for tomorrow, and I realized that texting was the best way to reach her, so I TEXTED - but it's not my preferred vehicle).
Laugh at us old people, BUT YOU WILL BE ONE YOURSELF ONE DAY AND I GUARANTEE YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE LAUGHING AT YOU! :)
Old people are hilarious, I love them. I think you sold the ipod touch a bit short though, I bet your grandfather never saw a cassette player with a Siddur or Face Melter.
Just so you know, you can throw a cassette (we used to just say tape) down the stairs and it will still work. You can record on one without any equipment other than the player, including straight off the radio. If you lose one, you've lost one. And I don't know what gift today rivals the arrival of a chunky envelope bearing a tape made by friends and family when you're feeling lonely in a dorm room.
Unfortunately, I have lost most of my tapes- my kids unraveled them. Everything has it's weak point.
Very funny!
Unfortunately...I can almost relate lol. I'm still not totally comfortable with the Ipod, and definitely not ready to tackle the Ipad.
Ha! I was just at my grandparents house trying to help them reconnect their internet and the whole situation was comical!! Mind you, my grandmother needs the internet so she could download her daily crossword puzzles and to see pictures of her grandchildren. She asked me if we'd have to email the pictures to her again because her internet wasn't hooked up yet. Hehe!
I told her that just like when someone sends you a letter, it's in your mailbox and they don't have to resend it, it will stay there until you open the letter, the emails are still there and she just has to go ahead and open it. She said, are you sure?! and wanted to call my aunt (her daughter) to make sure the emails don't have to be sent again...lol!
Yup. It's lots of fun to try to explain how technology works to older people!
When my grandparents got their first cell phone, here's what happened. The phone would start ringing, my grandfather would start to dance and then he'd say, "What's that music?!"
"Oh, the cell phone!" and then he'd take it out of his pocket and say, "Missed call, now what do I do?!"
We'd just laugh...we should have taken a video of them, it was so funny!!
That takes the cake :) You should've eased him in gently...first CDs, then cell phones, add a computer or 2...all invented before I was born :).
RD- Yeah, it was awesome.
TOL- My pleasure. :-)
Tesyaa- Yeah, I agree. That's the scary part of all this. I often wonder if our lives are really easier and better than they were before all this stuff..
BJG- LOL!!
SA- I guess everything has their plusses and minuses. I am embarrassed to say that I don't remember cassettes that well. :-o
MW- But you know what they are...
IAG- Yeah, old people are funny. :-)
Mushkie- we tried, he doesn't wanna learn. ;-)
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