OPINIONS & EDITORIALS » CONNECTIONS

Written by Dolores Bader, 06/17/2009

The world of electronic devices is not plain and simple.  At my house there is always something blinking, beeping or buzzing. Once in a great while I know how to solve the problem…ninety eight percent of the tie I don’t have a clue. One week it was the telephone, the next it was the answering machine problem. The first problem bowed to the keen eye of the telephone company’s Jim Jennson. I’m still waiting for a teenager to settle the answering machine problem. I’ve read and reread the instruction book, punched and poked every button as advised by the nameless voice providing oral instructions…still messages are not getting recorded. I replace telephones as regularly as I set out the can for bi-weekly recycling! Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration.

My TV is telling me to reset the clock…fat chance! I follow the microwave directions to the dot, push start as directed…and nothing. It works fine until I expect one of the promised special services to perform. Forget it. Calling for help with the computer services is also a lost cause. I can’t explain the problem and the person on the line can’t make the solution understandable. Then there is the battery situation. If I had fifty of them stored for emergencies not one would be the size I need at the moment.

My email to news@theprogressreview.com no longer goes through. My daughter-in-law showed me how to solve the problem when the printer decides to drop to a print size so tiny I can’t even read it with a magnifying glass! One problem solved, at least until the beasty decides to show me once again who is boss. Global Warming isn’t going to be the death of me…but Electronic Frustration could take me out. Even so, in spite of all my complaining I would not give up the devices that prove so challenging. They give new meaning to the times when the only things in sight are the stars in the sky. I don’t understand them either.

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