Modern Times

Well, I can say in all honesty, I have never been a technophobe. In fact, I like gadgets, All kinds. Big, small, normally fairly simple type of things but still classed as a gadget or some of the unusual. I was the first person I knew to own a Rubic Cube about 20 odd years ago. I never solved Rubics cube, but would spend hours trying.

Anyhow, my father, who is 86 and tho my dad, age-wise is old enough to be my grand father or even great grandfather, comes from a very different line of thought on new technology. His mother, was terrified of the telephone. My other Grandmother, was also not overly confident with the phone. She died in 1978 ages 84 so was actually born in the 1800's.

Anyhow, to cut to the chase. (GASP do I hear you say?) Washing machines and all the modern machinery almost every home has. we've had one for years and years. But I have to say, they don't make them like they used to. The first one we had, was one made by a washing machine maker called Servis, (sp?) and it very rarely went wrong, and we had it over 20 years before one day I flicked the switch and smoke came out of it! (Yikes) It was mom and dad's. We've had two since then. Both Indesit brands. And this latest one, its a washer/dryer, but the way it is programmed, if you turn the dial and it hits on one of the programmes whilst the power button is turned on, then what it hit, the programme is stored in its digital memory, and unless you clear the memory, it will not do anything else beyong the programme its got on its memory board of a programme you never meant it to accept in the first place! My dad who maybe over the last 12 months or so, has had to do his laundry for the first time in his life, (he is amazingly fit and healthy and out and about town every day, nto because he has to but because he wants to) but this washing machine and dad do not go together. Simply because of the how the memory stores things digitally, and dad not being able to move with the times at all, and the washing machine is a thing to use only if you must, possibly while mildly cussing about it at the time, lol.. and its "new fangled technology... and I wish the days where we washed evrything by hand were back" And I had a repair man in the second time in a month this week. And the guy came up here and explained the problem to me of what is happening. As My kitchen is not accessible to my wheelchair at the moment, I haven't been physically able to get downstairs for a week, so, obviously I had no idea wht was going on. But the guy advised me, if dad cannot cope with this washing machine, for me to get a second hand type of older washer machine, which were not controlled digitally and were much simpler to use. So, the motto of this story would be, is that progress is progress is progress, and I am not against it per se. But often progress, just makes things much more difficult for folk, when its involving machinery and/or technology.

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