The future is stupid!
I have contributed to this and now I feel completely ridiculous. I had a moment where I could have shown like a Gen-X beacon in a night of Millennials but I simply burnt out and extinguished any hope of a bright future.
The other day, I was helping a friend out at her store that she and her mother co-own. It’s an antiques store and sometimes, especially during busy special events, I will help them out for a few hours. The work gets me out of the house and they let me leave anytime I start to feel exhausted, which is nice for both parties involved, and so that’s what I do. Now, in this store they use a phone app called Square, which comes with a handy credit card reader. Anytime someone wants to use a credit card for a transaction, we swipe the card, have them sign the phone screen and ask if they want a text or email receipt; that’s all we have to do. For cash transactions, we still ring it up on the phone’s Square app, and it tells us how much change to give and everything is fine with the option of a text or email receipt.We give them change from the cash till and everyone goes home happy. I’ve never seen this process fail to work, so I’ve never asked any other questions about it. Now I know, I probably should have.
Two older ladies came into the store (during a short period of time when I had been left there alone, of course) and they made their way to the counter with their various items. I rang them up, they paid with cash, I made their change and then asked if they would like a text or email receipt. One of the sweet ladies looked at me and said, no, could she please just have a paper receipt.
Y’all, I was not ready. I looked at her and then looked down at the cash register and then looked back at her. It was like that dilating hallway effect in horror movies. What she didn't know was that in my head, I was frantically looking for any clue on this cash register about how to actually use it. I knew the silence was getting awkward because the ticking of the wall clock became progressively louder. All I could do was be honest. I looked at this older, Baby- Boomer generation woman and just told her “I’m so sorry, I don’t have any idea how to actually work this register. I have no idea how to give you a paper receipt”. She looked at me the way older people look at younger people when they wish they could spank you for being stupid and she just smiled. I felt ridiculous!. I honestly had no idea how to hand someone a piece of paper with numbers on it. I couldn’t do that transaction without a cell phone. I was totally unprepared to do anything with a customer that wasn't in some way connected to the internet. I was lost without technology.
Well, the poor woman, laughed (not in an amused way) and shook her head and left without any receipt at all. I felt bad, but I also had a huge laugh at my own expense. I’m a big fan of being 39 and talking about “kids these days”, just as my mother and her mother and her mother before her had done. It makes me feel like I’m somehow a better person for drinking from water hoses as a child and never once wearing bike helmets. However, I have never felt more dependent on technology than when I could not give this woman a four- inch paper receipt.
I have slowly evolved into “kids these days”... I am one of these kids. I have no idea how to do anything by hand anymore. If it doesn’t require a charge, I don’t know how to use it. Honestly, I even have to charge my cigarette now, which I think is stupid. I stopped smoking regular tobacco cigarettes and now smoke a “Vape” which is filled with CBD oil and a little bit of nicotine oil with a strawberry flavor. This apparatus must be charged and has a screen on it to tell you all of the settings on it, and if you let this bad boy die, you must wait until your battery recharges before you can smoke again. The future is so, very stupid. Because of this, I have nearly quit smoking altogether because I never plug anything in, including this vape, and it's never charged enough to actually use it. So, I really have to give it to kids these days, I mean at least they have enough sense to carry portable chargers with them and to keep their electronics charged. Not me. My phone is never charged, my cigarette is never charged, my portable charger is never charged up, nor are either one of my tablets charged. My computer has a bad battery, so must stay plugged in, and cannot be charged. I simply cannot be trusted to keep up with and maintain my personal technology, but apparently I can’t live without it either because the future is just so stupid.
Sheesh. Kids these days.
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