Your Age is Showing
I heard a comedian once – a young guy – joke that you can get a good idea of a woman’s age simply by asking for her email address. ‘If it’s a Gmail account,’ he nodded, ‘that’s good. If she gives you a Hotmail address…’ he paused, and in his pause – laughter. I think of this ‘joke’ every time I give my email address to anyone, especially young people. I rattle off my Hotmail address and though I’m tempted to add, “I also have a Gmail account,” I don’t, because what’s more age defining: having a Hotmail account or explaining that you don’t use your Gmail account because you haven’t figured out how to transfer your contacts from one to the other. Is that even possible? I’m not sure.
My son set up my website and painstakingly instructed me on how to add things, delete things and generally make the website my own. I’ve forgotten every one of his tutorials and I hate to bother him yet again, so the picture from 2020, with my COVID length hair remains the first thing you see if you go to my website. Every now and then, I go in there intent on changing things, updating things. And then I leave, fearful to experiment; fearful to delete something important.
For the longest time I was locked out because I couldn’t remember my password – again, something my son had created. It’s not that I couldn’t remember it, but the creative way he put it together with caps and digits and such. Do I use a symbol here and do I capitalize there – nope. Try again. Too many wrong tries and you’re out. So, recently, all the symbols and caps and digits aligned, and I was finally back in. I found sweet, encouraging notes in there from a couple of people who had actually visited my website. Their comments were about a year old. I’ve got to get a grip on technology.
Another way we show our age is in the words we use. When I’m covering a story for the local newspaper and, while distracted, mention my ‘tape recorder,’ I get a vacant stare from the young person I’m speaking with – ‘tape recorder’? In a digital world, tape is an archaic term. It reminds me of my great-aunt Helen. My sister Patti and I were in awe of her. She was sharp witted, bright; she smoked Camels with no filter into her 90s. Conversing with Aunt Helen was always an adventure…when we’d come by for a visit, she’d invariably say with surprise, “How did you get here, by machine?” Now, this was in the 70’s, when the automobile had been in existence more than ½ a century. We would reply with a smile and a nod. We couldn’t look at each other because we knew we’d burst into laughter. “Yes, Aunt Helen, we came by machine.” Though I always admired her vim and vigour, I’m going to try to keep abreast of the current jargon. I do want to stay hip and happening. Ok, I realize just by saying hip and happening my age is showing yet again. It is also quite apparent when I text – I refuse to take short cuts with words or sentence structure. Perhaps because writing is something I hold dear; I cannot jump on that band wagon.
I guess I’m never going to convince young people that I’m hip and happening, and if I keep say hip and happening, they will laugh as Patti and I did about the machine we traveled in to visit our great-aunt. Age is age and technology, I must admit, is beyond me. When, on my website, things like, ‘customize design with site settings, theme builders and pop ups’ causes me to hyperventilate, a quick call to a young person is advised, my 7-year-old grandson perhaps?
I’m not throwing in the towel. There are many ways I plan to defy the ageing thing, but I wave the white flag when it comes to language and technology. And yes, my email address is Hotmail, ok? No jokes, please.
