Maybe I Have Different Skillz

"Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you." ~Mark Twain

I have long loved this quote. It is true & makes me laugh.

Example, this past weekend, I found myself travelling with my parents & my sister. We started talking about our cell phones. I mentioned that I can never hear mine when it rings & that I don't care for the ring tone.

"Why don't you change it?" my sister asked, reasonably enough.
"I don't know how yet," was my answer. You see, I got a new phone for Christmas & it's a low-tech phone. I haven't played with it because I really don't use it often. "Usually if something doesn't work, I just tell my husband, 'It's doing this,' & then he fixes it & hands it back."

My parents stayed quiet but my sister was positively aghast. "I like doing things for myself," she stated.
"I like other people to do things for me," I replied.

I'm not sure if she actually heard me. Next thing you know, she tells me to hand it over. I did. She started pushing buttons & scrolling through options & we settle on a less-annoying ring tone, turn up the volume, set a tone for incoming texts & she hands it back to me. "There," she says. "Done."

"Thanks," I said. "See? Done, & I didn't do a thing." I smiled with satisfaction. My dad let out a little chuckle from the front. Then I shared this Mark Twain quote. My sister loves Mark Twain.

On the return trip, I rode back with one of my brothers so he didn't have to make the drive by himself again. We were discussing music & he said he doesn't use iTunes because he likes his music in a different format. He said he has a file on his computer where it's all stored in such a way as to give CD quality sound. I said that I didn't think my hearing was keen enough to discern the difference. Then, as he tried to explain, I got lost.

Highs & lows I understand. Notes? Nope. You see, he played instruments. He can read music. He is trained to hear things I just don't notice. As he tried to explain to me, I told him honestly, "You're talking gibberish again." He smiled, shook his head & let it drop.

It's not that I wasn't interested. It's that I just don't understand. I don't know the difference between a whole & half note. I don't have the most basic understanding of rhythm or tempo or anything....

I was watching The Voice the other night & one of the celebrity singers/judges/coaches said that the girls were kind of 'pitchy' & I haven't the foggiest idea of what that meant. They sounded pretty good to me. The one thing I can say for sure is that I like the country guy's coaching the best. He keeps telling the singers not to over-sing. "Just because you can hit all those notes doesn't mean you have to," he told them. "Sometimes you need to tone it down, so that when you do it, it's special." Way to go, Cute Country Guy. It's funny to me that he's the one I like the best when country music is near to my least favorite of the popular genres. Mostly because of the twang. I hear that.

It's not that I can't do anything. I'm not a complete tech-idiot. I know some things. I could do everything on my last phone. I could set the clock & set programs to record on the VCR back in the day. I can use the DVR. I can update my iPod & all apps. I figured out how to record video on my camera AND download it... Although, I got that cool soda-maker for Mother's Day & I can't use it. Both times I tried, I sprayed water all over the kitchen during the carbonation process. It didn't fizz the water. It just sprayed it everywhere! Since then, my kids do it for me & think it's great fun.

Speaking of phone addiction....hahaha


As far as my new phone, I got numbers into it. I just hadn't gotten around to playing with the rest because I don't use it often. It's not an iPhone, Droid or Crackberry so it isn't an extension of my hand. I'm not addicted to it. It's just a phone (& camera.)

Though, thinking of the one time I used the camera, I had to call my husband & ask how to put it into the camera-mode. I figured out how to text the picture, but I didn't know how to get it onto my computer files. I texted him & he then emailed it to me & then I saved it. I think that's a pretty good way around it. I think it's clever in its own way.