Part Nine
Is it just me or are most people technically challenged?
I am basically too lazy to learn how to do the technical things that need doing around the house. My husband, Dave, has been doing all these little jobs for fifty years and I have just left him to it.
Simple things, that I know I could easily learn to do, but I just leave it to him. The clock on the microwave or the regular oven, changing the car clock twice a year, changing the direction of the ceiling fan, all very simple but I leave it to Dave. However, the item that beat both Dave and myself was the VCR.
In 1981, we bought our first VCR. It cost over $1100 and a single recording tape, back then, cost $20. However, it was simple to program and, as I was the one who really wanted the recordings, I quickly learned how to do it.
I’m not sure why but programming of these things can not be done from a sitting position. Because the unit sat on a shelf, under the tv, the only way to program the unit was to lie flat on the floor. I would lie on the floor, instruction book in hand and push the buttons. No problem, it was a breeze to operate.
This machine lasted a long time but was eventually replaced by a new $100 model. The instructions for this unit seemed simple but for some reason, I always programmed it wrong. After many attempts at recordings I gave the job to Dave. He had no more luck than I did. Dave would study the book while pushing buttons, the set/rec light came on and all looked well, but when we played back it was always the wrong program.
For the past fifty four years I have followed the British soap opera Coronation Street and, it is the main program I wanted to record. It is a silly program, full of nonsense, but it reflects life from the area that Dave and I were brought up, so I still enjoy watching.
My son-in-law kindly bought me a DVD player but the recording of programs was still beyond both Dave and I. No matter how the instructions were followed, we never got the desired programs.
Both of us are intelligent, Dave is a qualified millwright and we both have no problems handling whatever life throws at us, so why can we not record a program on a machine designed for that purpose?
Recently we have changed to optic tv, the recording system for this is very simple and, voila, I can now watch Coronation Street whenever I want. However, this has a whole new numbering system so it will take a while to familiarize ourselves with the new set up. There are options for several thousand programs, but we are only interested in less than twenty. I cannot read the numbers unless I stand close to the tv, so I will have to memorize the programs, if I want to watch from the comfort of my chair.
Several weeks ago both our laptop computers froze up at the same time. Dave has owned computers since the early 80’s so is very familiar with them, he tried to figure things out, but to no avail. He called a friend whose 16 year old son is a whiz at computers. The boy fixed the problem, on both machines, in less than ten minutes.
Maybe that is the answer. We need to have a teenager around the house. On second thoughts, we once had four teenage girls around the house and I seem to remember that they brought home so many other problems that we probably didn’t have time to worry about technology. Maybe life without a tech whiz isn’t so bad after all.