I am not inherently stupid. I am capable of certain small tasks. Like I can open a pistachio nut without cracking my teeth. At times I have opened full 2- pound bags of pistachio nuts without cracking my teeth. Clearly, I have talents.
So let nobody label me dumb. Possibly “limited” would be more apt. Maybe “challenged.”
My situation is, I look in awe at the simplicity of opening and closing a window. I wonder, how does that work? Push it up, it rises. Pull it down, it lowers. Position the thing halfway, it stays. How this operates is beyond my comprehension. Whoever created such a mechanism seems even more brilliant than the cipher who conjured up TV’s reality show idea.
The buzzer or bell. Which type brain masterminded jamming your finger onto a little gizmo, which then results in noise, which somehow activates a body inside, which then opens a door.
We talking a contact lens? What nearsighted Mister Magoo called out to his wife: “Hey, Edna, let’s us make a smidgen of Saran wrap to stick onto an eyeball so we can read a newspaper.” Brilliant, right? If my 20/20 was good enough to find this guy’s phone number, I’d suggest he now reconfigure it over a magnet so the stupid little bugger doesn’t always fold up in my finger, slip onto the floor, or adhere invisibly to the sink so that, without it in my eye, I can’t see to find it.
I mean, take Nancy Neanderthal down at the riverbed in BC washing her caveman’s loincloth against the rocks. Maybe, tired of that slob dropping his frozen Birds Eye dinner peas, she invented a utensil that beats scooping them up with his rusty Boy Scout knife. Forget Purelle. Even Duz Detergent isn’t PC when you’re having Mr. & Mrs. Cro-Magnon over for potluck. His manners were a shame for the neighbors. Thus was born the idea of a fork. A dinner fork, salad fork, cake fork, teeny amuse bouche forklet.
OK, so I can’t fathom aerodynamics. Rocket to the moon? I don’t even get how a twin-engine flies to Syracuse. I know zip about jets except they’re charging too much, they took away my cardboard chicken lunch and they know what they can do with their dirty reused blankets. But what possessed Orville and Wilbur — who really should have spent their time changing those names — to come up with the idea of an airplane?
Clearly, I am not technologically adroit. To open a childproof aspirin bottle cap, an engineer must be summoned. Shove their printed directions. The thing just won’t open. Nor can I manipulate one of those newfangled brass-plated superkitchen automatic electric can openers. All it’ll open is a cut on my hand — never the can. It drills only a hole so the soup dribbles out but its bits of noodle or potato get stuck.
My latest problem is a new cellphone. Miseries were that my old cell was either defective or my hand cream had clogged its arteries. Also I spilled coffee on it. Also it crashed onto a cement sidewalk. Twice. Again, I think it was that damn hand cream. Anyway, comes now the new cellphone.
Nice. Except the new one’s gizzard was not in sync with the old one. This I discovered when I tried switching over my original contact list. Lotsa luck. Easier to open that aspirin bottle. My techie — who may soon live in — made an emergency visit. I was told it’s my SIM card. My SIM card wasn’t adapting. My SIM card, which reeked of Dunkin’ Donuts, was damp. My SIM card didn’t translate. I don’t even know what SIM stands for, and suddenly it was ruling my life. I only know I couldn’t cancel my dentist’s cleaning appointment because I couldn’t find his stupid number because I had a cranky SIM card.
Technicians conversing in Hindi blinked like I’m so dumb that if I saw a moose head hanging on a wall, I’d go into the next room to see the rest of it.
Try reprising an entire contact list with each digit and area code and plus sign in case of dialing overseas, and a star-82 should the callee not accept unidentified calls. And speed dial for frequent calls. Try redoing every single number for a friend’s home, weekend house, office, cell, the person’s husband’s private number. Every e-mail address. Besides, there’s fancies like annexing each contact’s nickname, photo, title. And wipe off last names for any VIP so should you lose your phone the whole world isn’t calling them. I mean, please! It’s either find the hours to program a phone or give up your whole career.
Sunday mornings 8:15ish or 8:20 I’m on WNBC-TV’s “Today in New York” program. An alarm wakes me Sundays. My week-old BlackBerry, programmed to ring promptly at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, behaved well. Tingled and jingled promptly, right on time, 5:30 a.m. But it did that the previous Thursday and Friday. And Saturday. Also roused me from a near-coma the following Monday. A network of us tried to rejigger, re-educate, reprogram it. Masses of experts memorized instruction manuals. We pressed “Help” buttons. Navy Seals in tandem with CIA agents couldn’t have analyzed information and coordinated better. Forget it. This thing has a mind of its own. We no longer use the alarm app.
The ringtone is too loud. A caller’s voice is too soft. Shutting it totally in a theater means pressing the thumbnail elliptically into a tiny spot. Result? My nail cracked. Doesn’t pay to call me because I cannot yet learn to retrieve messages. And, while I haven’t enough trouble, some friend sent me an iPad. So, instead of a clutch bag when sashaying forth for an evening, I now need schlep a shoulder tote bag large enough for a notebook, pencil, glasses, wallet, hanky, makeup, cellphone and . . . the iPad. With the cloth to clean it. With the enlarged keyboard. With rechargeable battery. With the textbook “iPad for Dummies.”