Technology... at the speed of life!

(sort of a MIL post, but not really...)

I am not tech saavy.

I don't have an i-pod. I don't have a Blackberry. I never even had a Walkman.
I had to take a class to learn how to use a computer, Windows, and e-mail.

If someone can show me how something works, I can usually make the item function. But as for going out and actively looking for new gadgets, that's not me. It seems that as soon as I get used to how one thing works for me, they go ahead and upgrade it into something foreign to me that I have to learn all over again.

And I explain all this because I find I *do* have sympathy for the mother-in-law when it comes to the speed of changing technology.

This morning, the phone rings at 6:20. It's the MIL. Someone had been calling her cell phone all night, but they hang up before she can get to it.

You see, the cell phone befuddles her immensely. We got her a cell phone while she was living with us so she could call for help if she ever fell down during one of her walks. But we had to fight tooth and nail to get her to TAKE the phone WITH her when she'd go out alone.
HOW the thing can function without being attached to a wall is just beyond her. So, she didn't bother taking it.

Well, when she moved out, she learned that having a cell phone was so much less expensive than installing a land line that she agreed to have one again. We just purchased a recharger and left the phone in it so she would feel that the unit was actually ATTACHED to SOMEthing, and she could deal with it.

Okay. Good.

But when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it takes an 80-something-year-old woman a bit of time to get to it, you see.

And people hang up. Or get transferred to voice mail.

The MIL doesn't know how to check for messages, and she doesn't know where the "menu" is to check for "recent calls".
Frankly, I don't know what half of the functions on my own cell phone are.

So, this morning at 6am, she began calling all her children to make sure everyone is okay in case it was one of us trying to get a hold of her.

And we were SO proud of her when the MIL suggested to herself, "Well, maybe I'll just take it with me, so I'll have it right there if it rings again."

Brilliant!