Not Technically Smart

 I am a Dinosaur

            I flew to Seattle recently to visit my son and grand-children. It was not my first trip, so I was familiar with the procedure. I made sure I had shoes I could easily take on and off, no belt, and a readily available photo ID. Fully equipped I confidently walked into the terminal and proceeded to the automatic check-in area to discover the boarding pass machines were no longer there!! In their place was a sign saying I could get my boarding pass on my smart phone. That would be peachy if I had a smart phone. But then I would have to learn how to use it. With no other plan, I stood there and looked lost until a friendly lady at the airline counter took pity on me and printed me a boarding pass.

            My wife took smart phone lessons and can and can easily check the weather in Bangkok, or the traffic conditions in Melborn. That’s cool, but I have never felt the need to do either one. I thought I would never need a cell phone, but I ran into difficulty when ATT&T removed all the phone booths. I was still doing fine until my car broke down in the Pet Smart parking lot, and I had to call AAA. I asked the cute young clerk if I could use the store’s phone and found they didn’t have one. I looked helpless, I am pretty good at that, and the clerk called AAA for me. After that incident, my wife insisted I get a cell phone for emergencies. I am still waiting for the emergency, but I can now use my $19 flip phone to check to see if she needs me to pick up anything from the store on my way home.

            I have discovered I can work around most high-tech requirements. I can print my boarding pass on my old computer before I leave home. I considered having my son print one for me, but he is absolutely paperless and doesn’t own a printer. Or, I can do what I do best, stand in the terminal and look lost until someone takes pity on me.

             When I landed back in Spokane, I called my wife and she asked me to pick up some brie and a baguette on my way home. I made my purchases and headed for the long check-out line. The self-service checkout was empty except for the cute young attendant, so I gravitated in her direction and gave her my best “lost” look. She walked me through the procedure and I was out of there before most of those standing in line.

            My lost look doesn’t work when there are no attendants. Netflix notified us that our TV was too old, and we needed to get a new one to watch movies. We came home with a brand new 50-inch beauty, plugged it in, and the screen message said we needed to have an account with the manufacturer to proceed. Two frustrating days and five new passwords later, we were up and running but too tired to watch a movie. The customer assistance representative on the phone advised me that if I ever need to get a new one, I should have one of my grand-kids turn it on.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.