Trena Eiden

My children bought me a travel mug that states, “I came. I saw. I forgot what I was doing. Went back but got distracted & have no idea what’s going on. Is this my cup? I have to pee.” This is like my mantra. I’m a dyed brunette but I’ve always been blonde on the inside. It’s hard to understand how God can give us such amazing brains, but not the how-to, to go with them. I’m not very good at repairing, restoring or rectifying anything, so duct tape and hot-glue are my besties.  

My offspring used to tell me, “Play around with your computer, that’s how you’ll learn what it does.” What it does is stop working, or makes things go away, never to return, forcing me to hire, with real live money, a repairman. My children meant well with their bad advice, they just didn’t realize how far down a rabbit hole their mother could make a computer dive.  

Being helpful, the kids have also explained how to fix my cellphone and the results haven’t always been rewarding, so I oftentimes use Google to assist with something amiss. It’s a sad day when I look up how to adjust my phone and the instructions given are so complicated I figure they took me for one of Elon Musk’s employees. It would be so great, if only I could find the “Assistive Access” they told me to go to. 

When our cellphone stops working, we’re told to turn it off and back on. If that doesn’t correct it, then we’re to make sure the phone’s software is up to date. Please, I beg you, don’t mention, “Software Update.” I hate those changes so much, I can’t explain how much without cursing. Updates affect, alter or modify everything, and usually for the worse. I have to teach myself to do things all over again, differently, if I want any semblance of what I had.  

The expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is contributed to Bert Lance, the director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Carter administration. He used the phrase to advocate for government focusing on fixing real problems and not attempting to fix things that weren’t broken. He said his words suggest that if something is working, there’s no need to change or fix it, as doing so could potentially make things worse. I know! If Mr. Lance would have had a cellphone, he’d have told Apple a thing or two. I want to tell Apple a thing or two.  

Obviously, there are people sitting in cubicles and the only way they get a paycheck is to cause my personal unhappiness by coming up with ways to foul my phone. Whatever software engineers do for a living, I’m pretty sure it’s criminal. And really, everything is probably like fashion anyway, and if we wait long enough, it’ll return to where we were 10 years ago. Bell bottoms are back in style and many people are again using flip phones. Wait, let’s not go crazy, I don’t want to go back to hieroglyphics, which is kinda what those were.  

In addition to my computer and phone, I honestly don’t know how anything works, not my mower, furnace, vacuum, car, coffee pot, or even a measuring tape, but that has more to do with my lackluster math skills than zero carpentry competency. I get by with saying, “It’s 3 inches and four little marks.” I’m everything you never wanted in a tradesman. 

There’s a simulator, developed by the University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute, that takes you on a virtual tour of a nuclear plant before handing you the keys to the control room. You’re to attempt to produce nuclear power while avoiding a meltdown. Well, OK then, but they’d first need to know that I’m the gal that rubs a bar of soap over a zipper so it zips better. Learning that, what are the odds they’d shriek, “Holy Cow! You’re a natural at this nuclear energy stuff, we figured you to be a brain surgeon or in rocket science.”  

I don’t know how to right the ship, and I oftentimes don’t remember how to fix things I have fixed months before, but you’ll be relieved to know that I do recall there’s a museum in San Francisco with 50 two-headed, taxidermied calves. It’s good God compels me to breathe without any collaboration on my part, and my kids tell me to my face.