"New" technology

This morning I had a hilarious reminder about how much things change. Becca came upstairs after trying to call a friend and said the phone wasn't working right. It was making this weird beeping sound every time she tried to make a phone call. I told her to bring me the phone and let me hear what it was doing. (I got nervous that maybe Vonage wasn't going to work, and I just signed my mom up for it last week!)

So, she dials her friend's phone number and listens for a minute and then hands me the phone. I listen to see what this weird beep is. I started laughing, which Becca didn't appreciate. I said, "Becca, that's called a busy signal!" She said, "Oh, I didn't know." I found that hilarious. I guess she's used to it going straight to voicemail or having Qwest say, "The line is busy. For only 75 cents Qwest will redial the number and call you back when it's available."

This reminded me of when my mom taught piano lessons about 20 years ago and a student was stumped by her phone. The student went to call for a ride home, but then came back to my mom and said, "I don't know how to use an old-fashioned phone." Maybe those rotary phones were trickier to figure out than I realized 20 years ago!

In any case, I'm behind the times with technology myself. I'm just now going to online banking. Paul would probably be embarrassed for me to admit that considering he is an IT smarty-pants, but we haven't done it in the past. (This is mainly because I balance the checkbook myself. If Paul were doing it, he would have gone to online banking years ago.) I wanted to start using MS Money a while back, but I didn't know how exactly to start it when the checkbook and the bank are never in sync. So, we've opened up a new account from which I'll go all electronic. I'll save some money on stamps and the headache of pulling out my calculator to do the math. I'm a little nervous since I know it may be a pain to set it up (which is why I've avoided it thus far), but I'm excited about the time it will save me in the long run. Wish me luck!