There Are Some People in this World Who Should Not Be Allowed to Operate New Technology

Most of them are 82.

But before I get any deeper into the content of this post, first, you should know, said content was funnier 5 days ago when I started writing about it.

I still thought it was funny when I was sitting in Peter Piper waiting for my pizza and contemplating writing the whole blog via text message.

But then it dawned on me, the 15 minutes it takes to brown the dough and melt the cheese of a 4 inch in diameter pizza, was not going to be sufficient for me to type each word on the keyboard of my (not quite) 4 inch in length phone.

So I gave up on the idea and decided to stare at the Peter Piper Pizza party-goers and contemplate what sort of psycho mentality convinced me in my freshman year that I should apply to work at that joint.

Thank goodness for the apple juice, or water, or some form of liquid, which happened to spill on that application. Without that spill, I might still be burning pizzas and counting coins at a Peter Piper near you.

Now, moving on.

I, although, not 82, am one of the people in this world who should, generally, not be allowed to operate new technology.

And I will tell you why.

In 6th grade, with my cell phone strictly for emergencies, I did alright. I only made phone calls when it was time for my mom to pick me up from the mall.

I didn't have voicemail, a phonebook or any fancy card games.

And really, that suited me.

Then, in 8th grade, my mom heard about texting.

"Apparently we can send short messages to each other without talking," she said.

"Oh, so like I can talk to you during school."

I can't tell you how many hours I spent trying to turn those numbers into the right letters to spell "hello," and "how are you," just to text fail.

Every time I tried to send that stupid text box, my phone would think for a second, and then go back to the original screen.

"Did you get it that time?" I would ask, on the phone.

"Nope," my mom would reply.

Apparently, you actually had to have texting service for that texting thing to work.

Then came the flip phone with regular, letter for letter, texting.

By now, all my friends had texting, so I got the concept quickly. I even got to the point where I could text without looking and without thinking. Clearly a giant leap forward from my 7th grade struggle to say hello.

But then I learned about T9 texting.

I sent approximately 1,000 texts that said something like, "I1m going good this weekend and taking rowx, isn.t that book.

Eventually, people just started loling everything I said--the smile and nod of text messaging.

But even though I couldn't handle T9, I thought it would be a good idea for me to have a phone with internet access.

You know, so I could have 24/7 access to my email account and google maps.

This is the result:

Facebook Status 11/13/09.

Alec is just going to handle one thong at a time.

That's right.

I'm just taking everyday one thong at a time.

Not going to move on to the next thong until this one is done.

I'm going to take deep breaths and deal with all the thongs.

Someone, PLEASE, cancel my service before I do anymore damage.

(And then buy me medication for my email separation anxiety.)

And then sign me up for an Amish community.

Or a retirement home.