Sassy Black Friend

Technology is good, really

My father is a sometimes technophobe. He pretends to hate cable and yells at the GPS in his car constantly. Yes, the GPS he uses all the time, picked out and pays for himself. Don’t ask. In his latest bout he’s been ranting about not having a “yellow pages” in the house. He wanted the number for some hardware store. Probably to buy a hammer to kill the GPS with.

So, instead of taking 1 minute to call information, or look it up on one of the two computers in the house, or just asking my mother, he spent 40 minutes looking for a phone book, growing more and more irate.

I sadly chose just that moment to call him, so I got the fury full force. I offered to look it up on the computer I was sitting in front of, but of course, that wasn’t the point. So I let him rant.

But technology is our friend. While I doubt I’ll be turning in my books for a Kindle anytime soon, doesn’t mean they’re bad. And the telephone (hardly newfangled) and computer really make things like the yellow pages obsolete for most people. I don’t even think we get them at the house. If I want to know what time a liquor store closes, or find out where I can buy a certain color of silk damask, or find a great Syracuse italian restaurant, I just ask the internet.

Settle down, Pops. Settle down.