Our family is no stranger to miscommunications. When our son was just a little tyke, we had a giant one when we enrolled him in pre-school. He loved the first day or two and made a best friend right away (they stayed best friends all through school, too.) But when we told him, happily, that he would be attending every day, he grew quiet, and then tearful.
The next day, he balked at getting into the car. This was an unusual behavior for him, and he cried quietly all the way to the preschool. My husband was stunned and felt a little out-of-depth at this. When I picked him up, he was quiet. He said he had fun, but pleaded not to go back the next day.
Finally, we sat down with him after dinner and asked why he didn’t like it anymore. He confessed he liked it a lot, but didn’t want to go “every day.” Then he added, “You don’t go to work every day! I want to be home with you!”
Duh. “Every day” does not include weekends, but we didn’t think to mention that. When we explained it was only the days we worked, he was suddenly all smiles again.
Many years later, my husband and I were contemplating retirement. We were driving along one day and I asked him what he wanted to do with his upcoming new, non-scheduled time. He replied that he’d like to use his creativity more.
I immediately went to a dozen places in my head. He is very creative in both music and art, so I imagined him joining a men’s choir, or perhaps taking art classes. Maybe he’d even open a little studio. We could create one over our garage just for him!
I took out my pad and pen from my purse and began writing notes furiously. Glancing over, he asked what I was doing.
Replying that I was making a list of materials for a studio over the garage, he looked puzzled. “What for?” he asked. I said, “Well for your retirement.”
“Oh,” he laughed. “I don’t need a studio for it, just my head! I want to put my organizational skills to work in some way.”
Hmmm. Organizing to me is a left-brain activity, not a right-brain one. But to each his own!
These days, we don’t have many verbal miscommunications. We do, however, have many with our technological devices. Almost daily in fact!
Just yesterday, I opened my phone to see two texts that had come in. I read the second one first and answered it, also asking a question. Then I read the first one, and it had the answer to my question in it! So I responded quickly and apologized for responding without reading the first text.
“What first text?” came back her reply.
So I put on my glasses and reviewed my texting. Sure enough, two different people had sent me texts. Geez Louise!
But this morning, my husband had the biggest one yet (though I’m sure there will be more on both our parts). I was out running errands and asked him to text me the number of our accountant. So he said to his phone, “Okay, Google” to ask them to look up the number.
While he was doing that, our photo device on the counter responded as well – “looking up accountant.” His phone and the photo device were both looking up the number and dialing.
Well, who knew our photo holder could make phone calls? Apparently many people know that, but we aren’t among them! My husband didn’t know how to tell the photo machine to quit dialing without canceling the call on his phone.
It took a while, but he finally texted me the number. And now we know that more of our technology is listening to us than we imagined. I’m not sure that’s comforting!
the technology thing is quite helpful for me = I am asking Alexa, for info I used to look up myself in a pone book or list that I have made – occasionally, I even ask her a bible question – and she gives accurate stuff (I checked) – was NOT expecting that – but one of the very best things I get to do – is read your stuff – always gives me pause for thought and many a good laugh when I compare my life actions with what you shared – also, love the exclamation –
“Geez. Louise!” brought back many found memories of Louise Ball and her clan and the mountain cabin we shared so much with them and family – good memories for sure!!
We have no talking devices in our home. My grandson mentioned MacBook to me today and I didn’t have a clue what it was. He told me it was Apples laptop. You can do FaceTime and everything you do on your phone you can do on the laptop. I refused to show my ignorance and ask him, ” What’s FaceTime?”
Now at one time, we did have Chatty Cathys and Woody and Buzz Lightyear. It seems you had to pull a string for them to talk. I feel I do good just typing, storing, copy and paste, text and take pictures!
However…. we do have a breadmaker, microwave, KitchenAid self-cleaning thermal convection oven, dishwasher, toaster, washer, dryer, texting phones, ringing phones… all making different kinds of sounds. But it was the shrill sound of a smoke/carbon monoxide detector that woke us at 4:26 this morning. Why do those things always go off when you’re sleeping? I jumped out of bed and asked my beloved, “Is it smoke or carbon monoxide?’ He said, “It’s the battery, go back to bed.” It’s definitely a blessing to have someone who knows about these things. But you know, our three cords of firewood and our 26 -year-old furnace decided to go out simultaneously. Not dating — just on the blink. However, the furnace can be jenny-rigged to give us heat until we can find and purchase a new circuit board. So naturally, in my mind, we are being carbon monoxided to death by the furnace!
You know, sometimes I long for the days of the sounds of rippling streams on our farm, the sounds of rain falling on our old tin roof, the lulling sounds of the singing whippoorwills that put you to sleep. Peace. Just pure peace. Now that’s comforting!
And Susie, I’m sure you added your accountant to your phone contact list right after your main squeeze sent it to you. Right? 😊
Bets – you need to start your own pod – this is great stuff and always causes thinking souls to engage – others may not have the tie to READ stuff – but if they would just ask Alexa things would be okay, NO???
John, I am honored that you think I could start my own blog. Thank you. It seems Susie can take any little thing and just run with it. She has the knack for making things interesting, informative, funny and out of the ordinary subjects that hold your attention. I’m not sure I could come up with something every week that would interest people, but I surely do enjoy reading hers. Yes, Alexa would be great for asking Bible questions or scriptures. I wouldn’t have to use the Concordance or Google!