We Have Met The Enemy and It Is Us...

A visiting seminary student was preaching at a church one Sunday morning. He was extremely nervous about preaching his first sermon and was shaking considerably by the time he had to begin his message. As he approached the pulpit, he froze, only able to remember the first three words of his sermon; "Behold, I come!", which he said in a squeaky voice. Using a technique taught in seminary, he backed away from the pulpit to give himself time to collect his thoughts, and then once again quickly approached the pulpit, only to say, "Behold I come!" again, stopping with no clue of what came next. The third time he launched himself at the pulpit, loudly saying, "Behold I come!", and hurdled forward over the pulpit, landing in the lap of an older woman in front row of the church. He began to apologize profusely about what had happened, but her wry response was, "Don't worry about it sonny; you warned me three times!" This serves as your disclaimer - a warning to not read further if:
a) you love technology,
b) you don't want to hear complaining, or
c) if you don't want to hear complaining about technology!

The cartoon character Pogo may have said, "We have met the enemy and it is us", but recently I learned for certain that Pogo had it wrong. It should have been, "We have met the enemy and it is technology". Or maybe it should have been, "We have met the enemy and it is companies that sell technological services!" OK that one is just too cumbersome to catch on.

Like every common drug dealer, "they" come at you with the old bait and switch ploy; "here, try it, the first one is free" routine, and then you're hooked and it's too late. Remember the old days when a "mouse" scurried across a floor, a screen was on a door, the "net" was something you put on your hair, and "digital" was an adjective preceding fingers and toes?

Did you see the movie, "He's Just Not That Into You"? Drew Barrymore bemoaned the sad fact that today you can be rejected by someone in five technologies without ever seeing them face to face. Isn't that ironic? We can Tweet, share our status on Face Book, email, text message, voice mail, as we see our friends less and less frequently face to face. All this in the name of social networking. Remember when social networking was when people actually got together and talked, laughed, debated, or even argued? Well now it can all be done from your iPhone.

Alright, I know that I'm rambling and very disgruntled for someone typing a blog, on a computer that is connected to that same Internet...yada, yada, yada! All technology you rightfully point out. But please indulge me as I've spent the last five days, with too many phone calls to count, navigating more automated phone systems than I care to think about, trying to sort out the latest complication of Internet connection issues. The Internet company I use says it's the mac computer I have; the mac people say it's the Internet service, one technician says that the other one did something wrong, and a technical support guy named "Irish" from the Philippines, (after a long conversation where I expressed my frustration over this Internet thing never really working properly since I've had the service), closed his conversation with, "Well, Mrs. Witook, I hope that we have provided you with very excellent service!" Ahhhh! It just kind of makes you go "hmmmmm!"

Anyway, today's technician, arriving at 5:30 for a 12 - 4 appointment time range, could apparently see that I was "on the edge". Without so much as an argument to "give wireless one more chance", he agreed to hard wire the computer. Two holes in my wall, an hour and a half later, I stood looking at my insulation and dust strewn floor, just as hesitant to click on the Firefox symbol as the young preacher was to approach the pulpit. Boldly, I clicked on the Firefox icon. I'm finally back online. Will it last? Will I need a new fix in a few days? Will I be back cursing the technology that I rely on more and more? Who knows?