Change

I've reached the age where accepting change is getting harder and harder. I'm also learning that a bad attitude is the reason change is even harder. For example, when Walmart put in their scan and go option, I was very unhappy and since I often complain about how technologically challenged I am, I vowed never to use it. Last week, one of the clerks noticed I use cloth bags and she remarked how much easier and faster it would be to use scan and go. So, I sucked it up this morning and decided to try it. Voila! It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. Of course, I was awkward at first. It took a while to know how to point the gun and then, it took a while to learn how far away to hold it in order for the gun to read the whole bar code. Thankfully, someone showed me how to do produce. Someone else got away with several sweet potatoes because she asked me how to record lose items and I still hadn't been shown.  I also had to be careful about where I left my phone, which held my grocery list. Having it stolen while I was scanning an item would not be good. Finally, I had to learn how to take something off my bill or change it. That has to be done at the register.

Now to learn how to scan items on my phone for Weight Watchers information. That's next. The book we were given, of course, does not list all packaged foods and sometimes a packaged food has  to be used in a recipe.

One of the employees at Walmart and I were talking about how much we hate change. The older we get, the harder it becomes.  Unfortunately, the world is not going to come to a stop just because I don't want to accept change. Neither is it going to hold my hand and sooth my anxious feelings  or tolerate my whining. I either catch on or get left behind. Technology is moving so rapidly, the time is going to come when survival depends on learning to adapt.

Dial phones were an improvement over the ones on the wall where the operator came on and asked what number you needed her to call. My aunt had one of those on the farm. Neither they nor the dial phone exist anymore. In fact, when I was growing up, 911 did not exist. Some change is good. Those old black phones weighed a ton and the cord kept you from doing anything but sitting and holding the phone. With cellphones we can multi-task almost anytime, anywhere.

There was a time when I wasn't quite so intimidated by technology. When we moved to Florida, we got our first cellphone. Had a ball with it. Called everyone we knew every time we crossed a state line. In those days, there were roaming charges and we had a whopper of a bill for months, just paying the roaming charges. Roaming charges no longer exist, another advancement in technology that is an improvement. Reluctantly, I have to admit they're not all bad.

But, the biggest change comes when the attitude changes. A computer expert once told me to make the computer work for me, not the other way around. Now if I just get them to understand that, life would be even better than it is now. I've always said the day I stop learning is the day I die, but I never expected it to be technology. For today, I'm just pleased I took the chance and learned to use something I'm sure is vital in the future, whether I like it or not.