I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “It’s all about me.” Well, this week that’s the theme. In this column I often tell stories about my friend’s crazy lives, so now I’ve been encouraged to “fess up” about some of my wacky events. Actually I was more than encouraged. I was told it’s the least I can do for all those I may have moderately embarrassed, although that is never my intention. I’m pretty sure they were kidding about that.
So here goes: Being impatient may be my worst trait and my big-gest fault. I’m impatient if the golfers in front of me are making me wait to hit the ball because they are just dawdling around. Its poor golf etiquette for them, anyway. But in my defense most of the peo-ple I play with feel the same. Maybe they aren’t as vocal about it.
I’m impatient if I sit in a waiting room for an hour. I’m impatient if I have to stand in a grocery line with six people in front of me. (I al-ways seem to choose the wrong line. Oh yes, and when one of them has gone back to the back part of the grocery because she forgot something leaving her cart unattended in line.) But mostly I’m impatient with people who will not use the technology they own.
It became apparent to me 20 years ago that I was going to have to learn to use a computer and I did so by sitting there at it for hours at a time making mistakes and learning what to do. Now it is a huge part of my life and what makes my writing this column a little easier.
I have said before that someone very close to me in my life still us-es a flip phone. We can’t FaceTime when we’re in different parts of the country. I can’t send him a picture of something. And I can text him, but it’s way too hard for him to answer on that archaic device he hangs onto.
But then there’s my friend, Jill. I send her an email saying what time we will be meeting for an event and she never looks at it. Why do I keep doing that? An hour or two before our event she’s calling me to find out what time and where. I can send her a text, but she will rarely answer. I can’t count on her looking at it and when I call, of-ten, no one answers. Why do people have these things if they don’t use them?
See how impatient I am? You might say Jill is avoiding me, but no, there’s always that call to check on times, etc.
It’s hard for me to understand that technology is not big in their lives. I am tied to it and it makes my life so much easier in many ways.
Not only do my friends do wacky things, I do too. It was not too long ago that this occurred and I still wonder what was going on in my brain. Here’s how it went: There was a crockpot sitting on the coun-ter and my husband’s cell phone charging next to it. We were ex-pecting guests. The crockpot was set up in the buffet line so I asked him to please move the charger. It just didn’t belong there. We have many other outlets in the house.
That was the last thing I remember about that part. (And I’m sticking to it.) Later, I guess I wanted to plug the crockpot in and probably had to move his cell phone, because I believe it was still where it wasn’t supposed to be. After the evening was over I was cleaning the crockpot and I remember putting the electrical connection that plugs it into the wall, inside the crockpot. I replaced the lid and put it away in the cabinet. That all seems OK, right?
It was the last I thought of that until late that evening when my hus-band was looking for his cell phone charger. I told him if he’d keep it in the right place, he wouldn’t have to worry about where it was. Isn’t that the usual wife’s reply? I must have been tired.
So it’s two days of searching for the cell phone charger on his part. He kept asking me where it was and I truly had no idea. Of course, the old flip phone has died by now.
On day three I was gone for a few hours, but when I came back there was the phone plugged into the charger in that same place where I thought it shouldn’t be used.
A big grin on Dan’s face was evident. But now I had to know where did he find that thing? His story went like this. He decided to make an all out search and that involved the crockpot that had been sitting out but was now in a cabinet.
When he removed the lid, there was his cell phone charger inside along with the power cord for the crockpot. I swear I don’t know how that happened. Let’s call it another senior moment for me and was followed by sort of an apology, later.
Now that I have had to share some of my wackiness, I look forward to sharing with you more crazy stories about my friends!
(Melanie Behrens – melb@marysillejt.com)