I bought a new gizmo this week, electronic, of course, and eagerly tore into the package to connect it. Actually, I tried to tear into the package, but I am wise to how companies package these days and retrieved my Swiss Army Knife, my screwdriver, and my scissors to open the seven layers of packaging and twenty minutes and one broken fingernail later, I poured myself a glass of wine, celebrating my success. It lay open, in front of me on my kitchen table with an instruction packet, four pages of words shrunken to fit on one page, in four languages, English, Spanish, French and Chinese. I only speak one of those, so chose that page and proceeded to follow the directions. Took a sip of wine.
The instructions were clear, in steps, you know step one, step two, etc. and I made it all the way to step eighteen before taking another sip of wine, which was more like a swig or a guzzle. Step eighteen said, “Congratulations, you have finished, and are ready to go” but none of the little lights were on and I had a cord and three little thingamajigs that I hadn’t used yet. I called in my reinforcement, and an hour later my thirteen-year-old granddaughter said, “Call the Help Desk, Grandma, they’ll walk you through it.” I think we both got mixed up at step eleven. I refilled my wine glass.
The Help Desk lady answered on the first ring. Hurray! I would be done lickity split. She thanked me profusely for purchasing their product and said we would be done quickly, which came out “kweecky.” I knew right away that she was a non-native speaker but had a strong British accent so thought I would be able to follow her directions. I only speak one and half languages (English and half of Spanish, if you don’t talk fast, so I am not one to criticize). She spat out her words faster than a toupee blowing down the street in a hurricane and when I asked a question, she answered before I finished asking so I was unsure if she was answering that question or the prior one. She said, “Don’t you see that box? It’s right in front of you, you do have your computer on, don’t you? If you are unfamiliar with computers, you should get some more education to make it easier.” She left unspoken asking about tech experts, like grandchildren, which I had already done. Guzzle, guzzle, I went once more to a nearly empty glass. We finally made it through every step, and everything was connected, and maybe works.
You are probably wondering what this gizmo is. It is a GPS tracking device, which my son in Nome suggested that I use so I won’t get lost. It’s kinda cool, if you hit one button, it sends a message, “I’m okay,” Hit another button and its “Whoops, Grandma drank too much wine,” or the third button, “Call in Homeland Security, she’s in the drink.”
Do I really want my children to know what I’m up to?
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