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Reflections April 2012

Oy, My Aching Internet

By Eda Suzanne

I’m not one who needs to impress people with my possessions, thus I have no need or reason to purchase the latest Smartphone — especially because I know I’ll never learn to use it.

Contrary to popular belief, old people do not spend all day complaining about aches and pains. On the rare occasion that we kvetch, we tend to kvetch more about frustrations with things that didn’t exist 10 to 15 years ago than our own health issues. Most complaints have to do with either keeping our newest hi-tech acquisitions in the “best of health” or the difficulty in learning how to operate them.

I entered the computer age in the ’80s. I remember being advised to buy an Apple 2C, so I would not have to pay someone to type my Master’s thesis. I was misinformed that the purchase, which was double what a good computer would cost today, was all my husband and I would ever need to be part of the future. I’m thrilled the same person was not our financial adviser — but come to think of it, even he, when doing our long-range planning in the early ‘90s, never envisioned the cost of upgrading and maintaining internet access, cell phone, and cable services.

Today, I have two different exterminators who make house calls. One sprays poisons in and out of my home to prevent multi-legged bugs from crawling around the house, or funguses and such from devouring the lawn. The other “exterminator” kills the invisible bugs and viruses that somehow get inside my computer despite all the “vaccinations” that are supposed to prevent such mishaps.

Instead of seniors in my Seniorville (aka active adult community), bragging that they have the “best doctor,” they now boast that their computer specialist is the best diagnostician in town, and more important to those of us on fixed incomes, the cheapest. I’ve yet to hear people of any generation brag about their cell phone or internet carriers. Instead, the complaints I hear about those two services remind me of my mother and her sister vying about whose aches and pains were worse. Last month, when my husband went to the pool to exercise, he forgot to take his cell phone out of his bathing suit pocket. Unlike his watch, the cell phone wasn’t waterproof. My husband doesn’t have a back-up, old-fashioned phone book as I do. He enters numbers solely in his cell phone. I am sure his cousin, who only has a cell phone and as of yet there are no yellow pages for cell phones, is bummed out that he hasn’t returned her call. Ten years ago, neither my husband nor his cousin carried cell phones.

A few days ago, one friend asked if I had received an answer from another friend to an email I had sent to her. “No,” I replied, “which is weird because she has instant internet service on her cell.”

“She doesn’t know how to get to her email on her new phone, but she won’t admit it,” my friend informed me.

I’m not one who needs to impress people with my possessions, thus I have no need or reason to purchase the latest Smartphone — especially because I know I’ll never learn to use it. It took years for me to learn to retrieve messages from my present, very basic cell phone, and I’m still not able to enter phone numbers. For this South Floridian, investing in a Smartphone is like buying a snow sled for my grandchildren to use when they visit. Life was easier for status seekers when all they needed were jewels, cars, or manufacturer’s labels on apparel to bolster their ego. I’ve never known a Gucci outfit or Coach bag that was attacked with a virus rendering it DOA.

Recently my husband announced that not only our cell phones, but our computers are near the end of their life span. “It just doesn’t pay to fix them again.”

He literally has spent more time in the last few weeks investigating what kinds of computers and phones meet our current needs and budget — laptop, desk top, or tablet — than what he should be investigating — which Medigap policy and which Medicare Drug Plan is best for us next year. (If you aren’t aware, these plans’ benefits change every year).

I questioned his priorities since, if we have to switch plans, it needs to be done soon. His answer explained why seniors now kvetch more about cell phone and computer problems than aches and pains. “How long will either of us survive if either our computer or cell phone burns up, and the tech guy can’t retrieve the information?”

I’m in better (communication) shape than he is. I still have my little black phone book, which has land line and cell numbers. After his question, I now will enter all the important email addresses in my little black book!

 

Eda Suzanne, a retired teacher, is now a free-lance writer and author of the humorous book, "Retired, NOT Expired."

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