ONCE IN A WHILE IT’S GOOD TO PUT PEOPLE ON PEDESTALS


Grant County Journal

January 2012

Janet Warren



I learned something about myself in the last couple of days and I am not proud. I am a spoiled brat. I had suspected as much when I whined so much about my high efficiency washer and dryer not being on pedestals that Mike took his stash of money he had been saving for his surround-sound equipment and bought me the pedestals. I had to sit on the ground to fold clothes out of the dryer for cryin’ out loud. Then I learned of a woman whose old washer and dryer and car died all at the same time. My good friend stepped in to help her, sending a repair man to her house. The woman offered him all of $16—probably the last of the month’s money—but he refused to take it. Hey, but I don’t have to sit on the floor to fold my clothes anymore.

The coup de grace came yesterday when my desktop computer died. How was I going to write my column? Why hadn’t I replaced my laptop when it started running so slowly? I even shot an email from my iPhone to the editor of the Journal telling her I may not be able to get the column to her this week. Then my husband, who is always saving me, offered to leave his iPad home so I could write it on that. Not optimal, since the keyboard isn’t that comfortable, but doable. As I started to get set up I realized the iPad didn’t have any data processing software. I couldn’t write on it. What the heck was I supposed to do? Write it in longhand? Wait a second—I once had those skills. I used to have good handwriting until I learned to type. I used to be able to spell—until I started using SpellCheck. I realized I was way ahead of those youngsters who were bottle-fed technology. So I started to write out my column in longhand. This is really pathetic, but I can’t write like that anymore. The way I write is to think about a topic for quite a while. Then I finally sit down at the computer to type it and I basically write it in “stream of consciousness” which is to write everything I have been thinking about without really thinking about it. Then I go back and cut and paste and fill in and take out. I can’t do it that way when I’m writing longhand.. Longhand forces me to write in a logical pattern, thinking about what I am going to put on the paper. I can’t do it. How am I supposed to know how to spell coup de grace when I can’t look it up on dictionary.com. I don’t think I even have a hardcopy dictionary in the house anymore. I have become a slave to technology unable to relate to people who haven’t hopped on the technology bandwagon. I can hardly communicate with my children since my skills are still so rudimentary compared to theirs.. I am stuck in a time warp….can’t remember the old ways, can’t figure out the new ones. So I stamp my feet and feel frustrated and yes, realize I am a spoiled brat.

This isn’t what I expected to write about this week, but sometimes things happen in our lives that make us take stock.. My daughter made a comment when she was visiting me at Christmas about a certain young family who works three jobs and sacrifices some of the comforts of life to raise a family and to make ends meet. She was amazed at how hard they work. Many of her friends are very educated in fields where there is still work and the only problem they have is waiting it out for the highest paying job. I’ve often thought how beneficial it would be for my children to visit a third-world country to see how other people live, but I should have been making them look around themselves at what people in this country have to do to survive.. In fact, I should have been doing the same.

I don’t think my epiphany is going to change me much. I won’t go back to trying to write longhand because my writing has improved over the years with the use of technology. I will get my computer fixed or buy a new one if I have to. But maybe I will appreciate not having to sit on the floor to fold clothes a little more. Maybe once my computer is up and running I will marvel at how it has changed my life. Maybe I will count my blessings a little more. And perhaps I will learn to recognize other people’s efforts more. Instead of only lamenting when things are taken away, maybe I will appreciate them while I have them. That goes for the people in my life too. Thanks for the pedestals, Mike. But thank you more for the sacrifice you made to give them to me.

I ended up writing this column on my old laptop, and I will hand-deliver it on a thumbnail drive to Kerry Moser at the Journal since I can’t attach my laptop to a printer. She’ll have to scan it, run it through SpellCheck, and check for grammar since for some reason I can’t get the print big enough on this laptop to see what I’m typing. That Kerry—did you know she has been working at the Journal since high school? I wrote a column on her husband a while back. She and her husband are some of the hardest working folks I know. I kind of put her on a pedestal too.