I have always admitted, loud and clear, that Roger and I are not especially smart when it comes to the various technology that's available today. I have no idea how to use about 90% of the features on my cell phone and, without my cheater glasses on, I can't even see well enough to use that remaining 10%. I routinely surprise perfect strangers by shoving my cell phone in their faces and asking "Who's calling me?" Yes, I'm an IBM Selectric II girl, living in an I-Pad, Kindle, SmartPhone World. It's lonely and cold out here in the Land of the Obsolete.
Still, just when I thought I'd reached the depth of my personal technological ignorance, I find that I can still humiliate myself even further with my complete and total absence of knowledge. Really, it's a gift.
Our oldest son, Alex, bought himself a new hi-def, flat screen, plasma tv the other day, at least I think that's what it's called..all I know is it's about as wide as our old mini-van and it took three people to move it.
Feeling generous, Alex volunteered to give us his "old" hi-def, flat screen, plasma tv, which, being only the size of our dining room table, was inferior and out of date..obviously.
This was great news for us, especially since the television we were currently using was several decades old, wasn't hi-def and came no where near being flat, in spite of the several attempts by the dogs to knock it off of the table.
In fact, our old television was so out of date, our across the street neighbor would routinely comment on how badly we needed a new one. The neighors would come over for a visit and Dave would sit there, staring at our gigantic dinosaur of a tv, just shaking his head and sighing. When Alex made us the offer of his leftovers, we thanked him with the heartfelt sentiment of "Yes, thank you..you've made Dave a very happy guy."
Roger and Joseph got the new baby in the house and hooked up and Alex instructed us we'd have to call the cable company and upgrade to the hi-def service. No problem, the televisions, computer and cell phone may be a challenge, but calling the cable company? That we can handle.
One quick call and we are the proud new viewers of all things Hi-Definition. Roger and I are marvelling at the wonderful, detailed picture, vibrant colors and sharp images. Oh yes, we should have done this YEARS ago...who knew this type of viewing paradise was available?
A day or two later, Alex called to see if we'd had any problems getting the extra service from the cable company. We assured him it was no problem at all, the company merely flipped a switch at their headquarters. "No one came out to give you a new cable box or install a new hi-def cable?", he asked. "Um, no", we replied, "But the picture is amazing."
I should stop this story right here and save myself the further humiliation of telling you what you, being the technologically smart person you are, probably already know. We needed a special cable to receive the hi-definition signal from the cable box. Oh yes we did.
Roger and I had been sitting there, oooohhing and ahhhhing over the very same television signal we'd had all along, it was just bigger and kinda stretched out on this larger screen. At first, I didn't believe it could be true. Surely the cable company would have TOLD us if we needed a special cable, right? Apparently not. According to Alex, the cable company probably thinks if you're smart enough to get a hi-def tv, you'll be smart enough to know how to use it.
Hah! That's what THEY think! Look who's being ignorant, NOW!
