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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
1999 is only a few days old and it already has my utmost sympathy! All the talk rattling around the coffee cups and stirring up shouting matches across bridge tables is about that yet unborn problem child, the new millennium. Some famous writer once wrote down for one of his characters, ".... is it better to face the problems we have than to fly to those we know not of...." or something like that. I guess Shakespear was thinking about the uncertainities we face next year when at the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1999, the year 2000 might bring the entire universe to a screeching halt. Just why this is so, I'm not sure but it all has to do with the way computers read numbers. So far as I have heard, my computer will fly backward to the year 1900 instead of greeting me with the correct date and time on January 1, 2000.
I'm not real sure...... in fact nobody that I listen to seems to be real sure......just what all will go wrong in that fateful hour when the 1900's are a thing of the past. Mainly the fears that I hear about are dry water pipes and no juice in the wires to the television set. Since computers have taken control of most human comforts, the thought that suddenly they will all revert back to infancy and be out of control is enough to sober up a confessed wino. However there are areas where computer failure would bring joy to troubled lives.
Telephone answering systems is one. No longer would callers seeking information , be subjected to a morning of pushing buttons on their phones and listening to stupid "easy listening" music while a bodiless voice repeatedly states, "Your call is very important to us so please stay on the line for our next available representative."
As if this new millennium thing wasn't heady enough stuff all by itself, an afternoon's visit from my oldest grandson revealed further complications.
Stephen got his computer savy from professors in labs at Tarleton and is a handy e-mail source problem solver for me. On Saturday he explained that this is NOT the last year of the 20th century but that the year 2000 is. "We won't begin the 21st century until the year 2001," he said "because the lst century began with the year 1 not 0. So although this is the last year of the 1900's, the last year of the 20th Century is 2000. So folks are getting a year's jump on the new millennium."
To his bit of logic, this grandmother shrugged , knowing there's no way to get ahead of a smart kid. In fact without either my own grandchildren or some borrowed from friends, it would be just about impossible to ever make anything around here work properly. Take granddaughter Whitney, for instance. If she hadn't just happened to be staying on for a few days right after Christmas, we might never have got to see another television show .
It all started when Tom threw the remote against the wall and stated that it was indeed a sorry piece of equipment and needed go in the same burial ground as dead TV sets. Having no desire to live in the same house with a man who doesn't have the remote control in his right hand, I bundled up and went out in the cold in search of a remote to fit my husband's sweaty palm.
There were an amazing number of choices displayed at the store where I stopped, all snuggled in with the rest of the electronics stuff hanging on the wall. They had more buttons than the one I had just thrown in the dumpster, and they were smaller. Some were shaped thin on one end and fat on the other and the print on two or three said that they were pre-programmed. Sensing that pre-programmed would mean less down time, I grabbed up the most expensive one and trotted off home.
Once back in the house, I found out that pre-programmed may mean hitting the red "power" button will make the set light up, but it does not mean that you will be able to see anything. Half an hour of reading directions written in possible Sanskrit , I stuck the control back inside it's busted plastic bubble, said a few words over it and vowed to take it back where I got it. Just then our 12 year old granddaughter picked it up, looked it over, and without reading any directions, pointed it at the blank face of the television , mumbled something , blinked her eyes a few times, and presto, there sat Judge Judy spitting out a sentence to some bumbling idiot. Ahh yes, we sat back in our recliners. All was well with the world.
All misgivings about what will happen after 1999 faded away from our minds. If God had meant for computers to crash when that Big Year odometer flips over, then he wouldn't have invented grandchildren to take charge!