Fruitcakes of a Certain Age

What a splendid idea - a stroke of absolute genius.  Australia has just suffered the greatest climate related disaster in its history and the government decides to cut initiatives likely to alleviate climate change to pay to repair the damage the disastrous floods have wreaked.  It's the greatest idea since Hitler said "I know what.  Let's invade Poland."  It's enough to make a cavy sarcastic.  Pea reckons it's enough to make him vote for Tony Abbott.  See, I told you he was a fruitcake.

Anyway, all that's by the by because my main topic today is technology and the extent to which it is embraced by different age groups.  For myself - a young, thoroughly modern guinea pig technology poses no great threat, indeed I utilise as many aspects of it as I can.  I have this blog, a Facebook page and a rather good website which I can thoroughly recommend.  Visit http://billythepig.yolasite.com/ as soon as possible.

When Pea and Chook have gone to bed and the house is dark and quiet (except for the snoring budgies) I often sneak into the office and work on Pea's laptop.  My little paws are very dexterous as I tap out my blog or post stuff on Facebook.  I must say I often wonder what Pea thinks of the bush chocolate I occasionally leave behind on the keyboard.  Some nights I just can't eat it all.  So far I have managed not to widdle on the computer and so have avoided shorting the thing out or frying myself.  So you see these things come easy to me.  And yet Pea and Chook, being fruitcakes of a certain age are utter technophobes.

Just the other day Pea was on the phone to a help desk regarding something to do with his lap top.  He had the phone on speaker because he has to get his tongue in the right position in order to type and he can't concentrate on doing that, use the keyboard and hold the phone to his ear all at once, so I couldn't help but overhear the conversation.  Each party was getting irritated with the other.  Pea was cranky and frustrated because the techno-dude kept using highly technical jargon like "hard drive", "browser" and "cursor".  Pea thinks a cursor is someone who swears a lot; like him when his computer won't work.  Then the techno-dude told Pea to press any key.  There followed a moment or two of soft but urgent muttering and then Pea, fighting to stay calm said "I don't have an "any key".  I have Caps Lock, Tab, Shift, Ctrl and Enter but no Any.  It was at that point that I thought I heard a muffled gunshot, but it may just have been the techno-dude hanging up somewhat abruptly.  Chook is no better either.  She thinks a megabyte is something you're likely to get from a great white shark and that AppleMac is some revolting concoction your can find at McDonalds.  Come to think of it she's probably right about the latter at least.

It's not all bad though, they are at least learning.  Glacially maybe, but they are learning.  If only governments around the world were catching on that quickly when it comes to climate change.