Every so often, a term comes up that I can fully embrace. “Retro” is one of them. In fact, I like my retro life. I like my eleven-year-old car, with the dashboard clock that comes on and goes off with sporadic whimsy and the rear lift-gate that needs to be gently assisted as do I most of the time. Oh, I know I should have traded it for something more fuel efficient and eco-friendly. To me, it’s eco-friendly to replace the floor mats every eight to ten years and the registration fees are down to where I can almost pay them with pocket cash.
While I have a “smart” phone, I’m definitely overmatched. It feels strangely out of place. I use it mostly to make phone calls, which my daughter and others tell me is treasonable underuse. The best part is the app for my local coffee shop, where I get the occasional free beverage. That should be on a “Life Is Good” t-shirt. Oh, I do send the occasional text, which takes me much longer because my generation is compelled to use correct spellings, punctuation, and write in complete sentences. I used “OMG” once to let my family know I’d seen Rita Moreno in person, only to be told, again by my daughter, that she didn’t know what was more amazing – seeing Rita Moreno in person or reading OMG in a text from me. In truth, it could go either way. I’d be that person that uses initials in totally the wrong context and thus be either banished from the communication superhighway or laughed off the planet. Are landline phones really so bad, I ask you? We seldom had “dropped calls” unless we put the receiver back down, and we certainly didn’t have to contend with an action movie soundtrack in the background. I received a text on my old flip phone years ago, and was in a panic because I had no idea how to answer it. Was on a trip with some of my high school students, and they walked me through it. Twenty minutes later, I’d texted back, “ok”. The first time I really sent a text on my own from my new iPhone, and of which I might say I was very proud, one colleague nearly drove off the road, and several others wrote back in variations of “wait, what??” It was the “sent from my iPhone” that startled and confused everyone. Being in a professional organization that required my attendance and participation in meetings and conferences, my colleagues would beg me to “keep your phone on”. I did, and I strongly suspect that my phone ran out of power deliberately in protest. I’d have to run to my hotel room to plug it in and find out what I missed. I’d silence it during meeting sessions, then forget to put the ringer back on, so would miss the next five or six messages and texts. This is all just so stressful.
Being on the advance guard of culture, my wife and I were some of the first to get EZPASS. I will say I don’t miss waiting in long lines at the toll booth and dropping coins on the ground right around those curved baskets designed to prevent what I’d just done. Of course, toll booths themselves are going the way of the woolly mammoth, so perhaps I’m not quite as clairvoyant as I like to think. Besides that, installation and use didn’t demand any expertise from me other than sticking it on the windshield. That’s my kind of technology! It’s unpretentious and undemanding. My phone and my iPad, on the other hand, beep and blurp at me constantly, so . . simple solution – I turn them off. Then someone will call me to say they’d sent a message, and did I get it? I respond that I must have been “out of range”, which technically, my couch is.
Being an avid watcher of “House Hunters” and other home-buying shows, I’m constantly amazed that young couples and older obsessive-compulsives feel a need to “update” whatever they see. This kitchen needs an update – it hasn’t been renovated in six months and “we need to make it our own”, as if they’ve won design awards. (They need to remember we saw “their own” at the beginning of the show). How can one possibly live with white appliances? The bathroom is a “gut job”. (That phrase is rapidly rising to the top of my least favorite pieces of language, having leaped gracefully over “hands-on”, “pre-owned”, and “initialize”.) What that desperate cry for renovation usually means is that the tub doesn’t have jets and the shower isn’t big enough for a soccer team. Can anyone in all seriousness imagine a bathroom with only one sink? How are couples, nay, entire families, expected to crowd in and properly prepare for the day with a single sink? Even the Visigoths sacking Rome required dual sinks. Apparently, carpet has become the new black plague and popcorn ceilings cause identity theft. Who knew? I’ve lived comfortably with both for years, with to my knowledge, no toxic side-effects. Heaven knows what these house hunters would think of our ‘80’s kitchen cabinets and laminate countertops. They go well with the black appliances we . . . .oh, wait. Might as well be scavenging wild berries and sharing caves with bears.
My sister-in-law casually mentioned in conversation that she ‘couldn’t believe our car doesn’t have a navigation system.” This from a person who won’t drive into Boston, so she and my brother-in-law take a bus to the train to the subway, and a taxi or two may be involved, to get where they’re going. Technically, I do have GPS – my wife. Well, actually, my wife and her iPhone, which has a directions app. The bold, honest truth is that, I’d be rather like Forrest Gump in the Houston Space Center control room trying to use one of those small screens in the dashboard. It’s much safer for humanity if I just watch the road and try to figure out where I’m going the old-fashioned way – a few wrong turns here and there. In my defense, I am willing to stop and ask for directions, pulling up at the nearest convenience store. There, I typically find a clerk who is “not from around here”, just having arrived from the Middle East and speaking limited English. So, I get back in the car and proceed in the wrong direction. When I’m lucky, I get the guy that’s lived in the area all his life and gives me a “short cut”. I manage the first four or five turns correctly but after that it’s as sure as Powerball.
Social media is another life experience that frankly, terrifies me. I guess we’ve all heard stories of “posting on Facebook”, followed shortly by a visit from the FBI or a dismissal notice from their employer. I did join Linked-In, because I thought it rude to decline “accepts” from friends, though I don’t go on to correspond or converse with anyone there. As I updated my password and contacts, which included my daughter, she was sure her account had been hacked rather than a polite response from her father. The hacker scenario was much more plausible. I know of a number of family and friends that chat effectively through Facebook and Twitter. Some of them may even have something of importance to say. I just figure if it’s that important, they can call me on my landline phone. Lest you get the impression that I’m a complete Luddite, I grant that technology and innovation have made life much better, more efficient, cleaner and safer. For one thing, I’m not using a typewriter and carbon paper. That being said, though, I wish the world wouldn’t make me feel like I’m a peasant living outside the castle. There are some hardwood floors in this hut, and my cart has a few more miles on it.
As the holidays approach, I’m off to the grocery store to pick up the necessary supplies for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We’ll be having the traditional turkey with avocado, kale, and almond milk stuffing in a seaweed wrap, hot mulled microbrew, and for dessert, curried jackfruit pie with a whole grain crust, dusted lightly with a mix of jalapeno and pine nuts. Bon appetit, everyone!
I'm Thinking...No! 