By: Chrysa Smith
Technology and dinner don’t mix. As a mom, you may have told your kids, or grandkids, to put the darn thing away—or else. So why then, when I go to a restaurant to relax and have a nice meal, does the waiter hand me a tablet for ordering? I mean, come on. I just spent the day on the computer and my smart phone and I’m ready for a glass of wine and some human interaction.
Funny thing was, he would take our order himself, if we wanted. Or if we wanted, we could order on the tablet. Well, you must understand that our son, now 24, has consistently been the last one to be served most every time we go out. In fact, it’s become a running joke. So, as a wiz on the computer, unbeknownst to us, he zipped through the menus and entered his order. When the waiter came around, my husband and I were still trying to navigate it all, so he took our orders and we found out that my son’s dinner would come out ahead of ours because he ordered first. Huh?
Again, come on. If I wanted to eat in piece meal, I would have stayed home. In fact, home prepped meals come out together for anyone who happens to be home. I just didn’t get the whole tech ordering system. I feel like it was tech for tech sake, and not some real financial reason—like hiring fewer waiters. But then again, maybe it was.
I don’t know about you, but most of those living in ‘the middle’ struggle with some of this stuff. Are we old? Resistant to change? Or was it more relaxing when we didn’t have to play with machinery every time we do some menial task that should only take a minute? When I think about it, from the time I get up, I take my phone out of the charger—though it’s usually into the charger, since I forget to plug it in most nights. I check email, Facebook and enter my stats on the Weight Watchers site. I check my answering machine and also my business website to make sure it’s up and running because as I know all too well, it can disappear at a moment’s notice. At my fitness club, I scan my membership card and when class is over, the gal behind me pulls out her phone and tells me just how many steps we did in class. I write my grocery list in my notes section, so I add needed items there. I probably check my email just a couple times more and head to the bank. I like to visit the teller since I don’t like to do battle with the machine when there’s a problem—and there can be.
I might get my dinner recipe online, but once that’s done, I pour myself a glass of wine and rejoin the flow of real life. And if I decide to dine out, I really don’t want to see another computer in my face. I’m thinking we may just wind up revising the old smoking battles years ago. If I had my way, there would be a ‘No Tech’ zone, so nobody will hand you a gadget, you won’t have to listen to others on theirs and you can actually have a conversation and some relaxation—-all without interruption.
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