Living Retired — ‘Dings & Pings’
Living Retired – ‘Dings & Pings’
By Gary Chalk.
It is May and life is busy. Spring cleaning, gardening, waxing the cars it has been one thing after another which means for my iPhone it has been one ding after another. Or is it one ping after another? Anyway, the technology that alerts you that someone has sent you an email, a text message, a telephone message, a video, or responded to your Facebook post is annoying to no end.
“Jan, something is up with my iPhone. I am receiving way too many dings.”
“Dear, if you want me to hear you you’ll have to come to my office. Did you say something about your dink?”
“Jan, be careful. The windows are open. John next door may be outside trimming his shrubs.”
I am not alone. If you own a cellphone you are a walking circus calliope. Back when I was a radio announcer we screamed, “And the hits just keep on coming!” These days it is the dings and pings that just keep on coming.
Jan suggested I go into ‘settings’ on my iPhone and simply turn the notification button off. Why would I do that? The whole point of social media is being available all the time. Who wants to be accused of being anti-social? When your spouse posts something on their Facebook page from the living room, their partner needs to post their comment nearby from the bedroom. This is how couples keep in touch. Here is what I mean…
Last evening, I posted I was trying a new recipe for potato-encrusted halibut for dinner. Right away Jan posted her comment, “Gary, why didn’t you simply come over and tell me? I am sitting right here in the den.” So, I walked over and said, “Don’t you remember the last time I tried to speak with you, you completely misunderstood what I said. We had to run around the house closing all the windows.”
DING! DING! My post about potato-encrusted halibut solicited many comments from followers. “Hey, Gary I will be over soon.” “I’ll bring white wine.” “My wife has a seafood allergy, can you makeup something for her?” All these dinner dings were deafening.
I learned from my friend Kevin – when my iPhone dinged! – that one of the basic rules of social media is that you should manage your hashtags very carefully. “Kevin, I don’t know my hashtags from my hashbrowns!” Kevin posted, “#hashtags.” I posted, “#WTF?”
I made a reservation online for Jan and I to have dinner at our favourite steak house. It was a piece of cake, until my iPhone began to ding – the first ding confirmed my reservation, the second ding asked if it was a special occasion, and the third ding suggested I should update my settings to ensure every-ding was in order!
All day long Jan’s work colleagues’ phones continually ‘DING’ scheduling meetings. Each evening at 5 o’clock my iPhone goes ‘DING” – it is Apple alerting me to their news stories of the day. Each morning at 5 AM ’DING” the Buffalo Bills awake me with their story for the day. DING! Its my dentist – ‘Gary, your cleaning appointment is tomorrow.’ DING! – its the housekeeper – “I will be coming Thursday morning.”
Jan and I share our daily Wordle result using direct text messaging with our son and oldest granddaughter. DING! DING! DING! – it is flurry of dings between our three iPhones – each one dinging within seconds of each other.
This morning ‘DING’ I received a text message alerting me that tomorrow I have an appointment at the garage for Jan’s car. Tomorrow morning an hour before they will ding me again with another reminder. After the appointment the garage will automatically text me with a request to rate the service they provided. DING.
I have friends who are on Twitter. Their phones constantly ding each time one of their followers tweet. I don’t use Twitter because of all the negative tweets out there. My thinking is ‘Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted.’
And who hasn’t had this daily discussion with their spouse: “Dear your phone just dinged. Or maybe it was my phone!”
If you follow me on social media your phone just dinged or pinged. It was me: “We are being dinged to death and pinged to purgatory!
Living Retired is written by humour columnist Gary Chalk.
For more laughs visit www.LivingRetirfed.press
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