I know I've written many times about the dangers of old people attempting technological feats, but recent events absolutely require another post. Besides, I had a shidduch relate post all typed up, then realized that I posted about shidduchim waaaaay to many times lately, and I'm in danger of being thought of as obsessed.
By recent events, I don't mean my father's triumphant entrance into the house bearing a new HTC Aria, an android smartphone priced at the scandalously low price of 9.99. What the salesperson wisely neglected to mention is that an android phone's ideal user is not a man of my father's age and technological abilities.
My siblings and I all groaned as my father plodded through the manual, turning to us for frequent help. They thought he would last a couple of days before returning it, but I won the bet. He returned it the next day.
What happens, you might ask, when the old person in question is too ignorant to even realize that they can't operate their phone. Kind of like the lady who sat next to me on the bus last week, the recent event I mentioned earlier.
I can sum up the woman's type in one word: bubby. Or two: yiddishe bubby. After discussing all of her children and grandchildren with me, a complete stranger, she donned her glasses and took out her blackberry. Now, I'm no great expert on blackberries, never having owned one myself, but her help requests were simple. She wanted to know how to move an icon, things like that. It took a while to explain the overwhelmingly complicated process to her, but she finally got it. Then she had another request.
"I have an icon here and I don't know what it is. Can you show me?"
"Sure," I replied, "which one?"
"It's called sims, or something like that."
I started to panic. Which idiot loaded a game like Sims on to the phone of their bubby? And how can I explain to her what it is, and worse, how to play. Or was it the store, Syms? I couldn't spot the icon, so I asked her to point it out.
"Right here," she said. "Sims. What is that?"
I looked at the icon. SMS. I kid you not.
And that, my friends, is why old people should stick to rotary phones. Or at least flip phones.
10 comments:
yes, and no..there are loads of "older" people who get the technology..and i do hope that when i get older i will be able to keep with the times..i have no intention of becoming archaic and out of touch but thats probably what they all say..eh?
Priceless!!!! I love this story! But I'm still shaking my head, wondering how your father got a droid for just $9.99? Send your father an email from "Teach Parents Tech" - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/teachparentstechorg-keeping-tech.html
P. S. You should enable immediate comment viewing, instead of forcing us to wait hours until you approve the comments.
couple of spelling typos, and they now have the blackberry style, which is a flip phone.
Not 100% related, but it reminded me of this.
"Hello Operator please connect me to number four"
Gee -
I've noticed this before...
When you go off on "old people" you get really harsh.
You're not going to be young forever you know...
G6, old people poke plenty fun of young'uns, too. Don't you forget.
Oh, but they won't have to EAT THEIR WORDS someday....
Remember, make them palatable, dear ones.....
That is hilarious!
That's really funny! Making it oh so much funnier is the fact that my 14-year old brother got that exact phone today (phones are dirt cheap in Australia) and he's been showing off his new toy all day! Oh, and there is hope for older people - my grandmother gchats, skypes and even facebooks like any teenager (well not the status update bit).
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