Dongles, hotspots and tethering - challenging the technophobe stereotype isn't easy
I’m hoping, today, that I might not have to replace my Nokia Brick phone, for not once has it demanded any foreplay and yet it has given me nothing but deep satisfaction for years. But I may be forced to; something to do with a dongle, a hotspot, and tethering, whatever that means.
“But I am determined,” I think, as I cross the road, “to challenge the worn old stereotype that anyone born before 1970 can’t understand technology. And I am not going to let the fact that I don’t understand technology get in my way.
“A sharp mind,” I think, gamely, “is not formed by doing what comes easily to it, no it is not. It is formed by contending with difficulty. And this is going to be difficult.”
I knock on my daughter’s door. In times of great necessities you need great virtues. I’m sure she’s got the right ones.
My daughter and I are standing in a Vodafone shop. “Do you want me to do the talking, Mum?” she says, “though I don’t think I’d be much better than you. I don’t understand technology either.” “No, love, I can’t run away from a challenge just because I’m afraid.” I approach a Vodafone salesman.
I am cantering down Oliver Plunkett St. I’m afraid that if I was a painting, it would be titled, “Woman Running Away from a Challenge Just Because She is Afraid”. “I wish I wasn’t wearing such distinctive clothing,” I pant, “humiliation is harder to hide when you’re wearing a stupid oversized pink coat.” “Your opener didn’t really help things, Mum,” she pants back from where she’s running alongside me. “What opener?” I pant, my mind a blank, “I can’t remember any opener.” We are parked outside Currys, in Mahon Point.
“Is it just me,” I say, “or do the doors look like a giant maw?” “Come on,” she says, “I want to have a look at smartphones, too.”
My daughter is calling my son; in times of great necessities, you need great virtues. We’re sure he’s got the right ones. “When you get here,” she tells him, “try and convince Mum to let you do the talking. In the Vodafone shop, her opener was, ‘I need some wifi for a cabin in a field.’”
My son arrives in an old T-shirt, with grass cuttings in his hair. “I was just mowing the lawn,” he says. “Oh, you should have said,” we say. “No hassle,” he says, “whassup?”
I have been delivered to the back of the shop where I give up all thoughts of mind-sharpening and find solace in the blank screen of a flat-screen television. I can see my son’s head over a display stand. He is nodding comprehendingly, quite as if he understands what the salesperson is talking about. He looks like the Divine Saviour, even with the grass cuttings.
He hands me a box. “Laptop and dongle,” he says, “check coverage when you get home. They can’t check it here. If there’s no coverage, just bring the dongle back tomorrow. Give me a call, I’ll meet you here and we’ll get a smartphone. If you have coverage, you’re in business. You should be fine.”
Home, in the cabin. I am not in business yet.
I am still not in business.
I am not fine.
Divine Saviour rescues me from the side of the road where I have run out of petrol en route to Currys; my humiliation is complete and easy to spot on the side of the road in same stupid pink coat.
Through Currys’ maw to back of shop. Stare at flat-screen.
Driving home with new dongle, which I am determined to activate, thereby challenging stereotype of middle-aged people not understanding technology.
Reading dongle activation instruction leaflet.
Trying to think of a better analogy for activating a new dongle than “trying to breathe life into the gills of a dead trout”.
Still trying to think of better analogy.
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