Strikes One And Two

I'm not always quick to pick up new technology myself, so I try not to judge people who have trouble figuring out gizmos too harshly. Hey, sometimes those directions are very poorly-written. Besides, I know plenty of smart people who can't figure out how to program their DVRs and I also know quite a few morons who could probably figure out how to call in a missile strike using nothing but their iPhones. I also want to make this clear - it is not an age issue. There are people in their 80s who can use an iPad for just about anything and people in their 20s who don't know how to text. All I'm trying to say is that technology comes really easy to some and not to others. My point is that you can't judge how smart a person is by one incident with an automated machine. Two, however, can be really telling.

This afternoon I was in the grocery store and waiting to use the self-checkout because after a week of Christmas shopping I have had quite enough of people commenting on the items I am buying. ("Oh, buying nothing but Diet Pepsi? Someone must be thirsty!" No, it's just on sale, lady.) The reason I had to wait was that of the three self-checkout lines one machine was in use, the other was out of order and the third was currently being clogged by someone who was having an issue. The woman having trouble with her machine looked young enough that you would have expected her to have some tech-savvy, but she was also cute enough that she might also have been able to get through life simply by batting her eyelashes and have someone do everything for her, which was happening now. Some guy who I assume was the manager was in the process of helping her to scan and pay for her two items, because it wasn't taking her card. [Sidebar: we'll leave the comments about how her items were Red Bull and potato chips as well as my thoughts about her paying for two items with a credit card for another time.] By the time they finally figured out the problem I was at the now-empty third machine and well on my way to completing my transaction.

Normally this would be the end of the story, but as I headed to my car I notice the woman was parked in the same aisle as me. She was starting to pull out of her spot just as I got to my car and that was when I noticed the second item she appeared to have trouble operating: her car. Her vehicle not only had a section which was a different color from the rest of the car (which means it had been replaced, but not yet painted), it also had a series of dents and scrapes that extended pretty much from headlight to taillight. Making it even worse was that there were gaps between the dents, which means it wasn't like she sideswiped one thing or had one accident - these dents all appeared to have been done at separate times, so this was a series of unfortunate events. And as I watched her need a five-point turn to pull out of her parking spot I was suddenly very glad she was not parked any closer to me, otherwise I could have ended up another dent in her bumper.

Now I'm not trying to make any grand assumptions about this particular woman's level of intelligence, I'm simply pointing out that it didn't look good for her in that moment. It is one thing to have an issue with a machine that probably has nothing to do with your job or everyday life (even if the fact remains we aren't talking about a complex program here), but to immediately show me that you are also a pretty bad driver doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. My advice would be to space out these kinds of technology failures by either using a register with a cashier or having a friend drive you to the store. That way you might still be failing at both things, but it won't happen in such a short span of time.