EDITORIAL: Stop the world. I want to get off.

Life is becoming too complicated. I’m old. Life is too complicated now. I am faced with a constant barrage of change.

I learned to use a desktop computer. They threw a laptop at me.

I learned to use a laptop. They threw an iPad at me.

I learned to use an iPad. They threw an iPad mini at me.

I learned to use a mini. They threw an iPad Pro at me.

I learned to use a flip phone. They threw a smartphone at me.

I won’t even talk about software, programs and applications.

Bell telephone gets a couple of hundred bucks a month for a variety of features, programs and services and I have to do my own installation of an antivirus program.

Something’s really screwy with where the world is going. Personal service, going the way of the dodo, becoming extinct. Oh, forgot, young people don’t know what a dodo is. They think it means, “Do. Do,” and they have an app for it.

Worse, younger people look at me as if I am a Neanderthal, “You don’t know how to download, install, find the SN and activate it? Oh!” What, “Oh?” and ‘SN?’ like I am a lapsed Catholic in need of a priest and a confessional. Whoa, confessional? Google it, kid!

You people created this endless treadmill of computer modernization but you never finished the job. Shouldn’t the computer do the things for which it was designed? Do the work for me? Oh! It’s coming!

The technological world insists life is becoming easier for me. Meanwhile, I have to constantly learn new devices, new procedures and new apps. ‘Apps,’ geez, I just learned ‘abs.’ Now I have to learn about ‘apps?’

I used to go to the grocery store and a clerk itemized the product prices for me at the checkout. That clerk’s gone now. I do my own scanning now. I used to scan a page. Now I scan prices, item by item. If computers are so damn smart why don’t they just scan the whole cart at one time? Oh! It’s coming.

Then the pandemic. Life becomes more complicated again. Line up. Keep your distance. Go this way. Stop. Proceed. Move back. Wear a mask. Well, at least one thing remains constant. Mama always said, “Wash your hands.”

OK let’s revert to more simplicity:

NEWS

1. BBC
2. CBC
3. CTV

INTERNET

1. Google CHROME
2. Mozilla FIREFOX
3. Microsoft EDGE

COMMUNICATION

1. Gmail
2. ZOOM
3. Telephone

COMPUTER APPS

1. WORD
2. NOTABILITY
3. Google CALENDAR

FINANCES

1. Any bank
2. Your wallet
3. Robbery

WORK

1. Good luck
2. Government EI
3. Pray

ISOLATION

1. TV
2. Radio
3. A book

SOCIALIZATION

1. Family
2. Friends
3. SKYPE

Things need to be simplified. Stop the world. I want to get off now.