The "Technologically Challenged?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Trying to figure out how to send a "tweet" on my iPhone.  You know ... where you first strike the tic-tac-toe button on the phone's keyboard and then type something after it.  You know how long it took be to figure out how to to get to the phone's keyboard?  I've been working on that since yesterday noon.  Well, I got that far, and then I faltered.  Asked my wife and she was just as much at a loss for an answer as I was.  "Why don't you Google it?" she said to me.  "Then we'll both know.  And, it's not called a tic-tac-toe button."  Then I replied, "I know.  I just said tic-tac-toe to make you laugh.  It's really a number sign and someone told me it's also called the pound symbol."  Then she said, "You don't know anything, do you, about your phone?  And, it's called a Hashtag!  

The Tic-tac-toe symbol.

Here, give it to me and I'll figure it out for you."  Well, I handed her my iPhone, knowing that in no time she would have it figured out.  Gonna make me feel like a fool once again, just when I thought I knew most of the features on my phone.  Heavens, I got it two years ago.  You'd think I'd know how to use it by now.  I know I can make calls on it; even figured out how to put all my friend's phone numbers into it and how to access the directory when I wanted to make a call.  Know how to take photos with the camera feature and even how to attach my new toy, a clip-on camera lens that will allow me to take close-up photos, wide-angle photos and fish-eye photos.  And, I even know how to send those photos to my MacBook Air that I am currently using to write this blog story.  I know how to use the Messages, Mail, Calculator, Calendar, Clock and Settings buttons, but then there are the other 22 buttons that I haven't had the chance or need to use, or haven't the foggiest idea how to use them.  When I'm stumped, I ask my wife who then tries to show me, or if she doesn't know, since she still has a flip-top phone and uses it maybe once a month, I call my granddaughter, Courtney, who lives in another state.  She can usually talk me through what I want or need to know, but then unless I use it constantly, I forget what she told me and have to call her once again.  Now, I will give my wife credit for the last thing she did for me when I gave her my iPhone and asked her to try and figure out how to type or write the names of a few of the waitstaff at a restaurant in St. Martin where we were eating at the time.  She hit the "Notes" button and then used her fingernail to write the names for me.  Years ago I was the one who knew all the answers to all the tough technological questions.  I knew where all the keys were on the new electric typewriters we had in typing class when I was a senior in high school.  I knew how to use the 8-track radio insert I had placed in my Henry J car in the early 1960s.  My friends were amazed!  When teaching, I taught students how to use the electronic copy camera we had in the darkroom that made negatives. Also managed to teach more than 20 years of photograph students how to use their high tech SLR cameras and light meters.  But, my damn iPhone is a complete mystery to me at times.  How can someone sit and look at that tiny screen for hours on end anyway?  How can they take endless selfies while making all kinds of faces at that tiny screen.  How can they type emails using letters and nomenclature that I have no idea what they mean.  And how ... Hey wait a minute ... my wife just figured out how to open a Twitter account for me so I can "tweet".  "Nah, I don't want you to open an account, I just wanted to know if I could do it by using the tic-tac-toe key," I told her.  "Just wanted to see if I could do something that Donald Trump can do all the time and make an ass of himself."  And, I'll bet his wife had to show him how to "Tweet" using that tic-tac-toe button also.  No way could he figure that out for himself.  Just betcha.  Hey!  Don't throw my iPhone at me!!"  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.