Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Mnemonic
Word Daily does it again. Mnemonic has to do with memory – something aiding or designed to aid the process of remembering. Well, it is that time of year when my memory completely fails me. It actually happens twice a year when our time is adjusted arbitrarily and we either spring forward or fall back. This is a practice that goes back hundreds of years in the Western hemisphere. Benjamin Franklin wrote a satirical piece saying that its use enabled people to save money by arising early in the daylight and not burning so many candles. He also coined the phrase, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”.
Benjamin Franklin never had to remember how to change the clock in his vehicle. For some reason, this simple procedure escapes me. I always try to do it without consulting the cliff notes version of my car’s book of how to do stuff. I am determined to remember how it’s done without any outside help. That is my first mistake. I have many times instead set the lane-warning function without knowing I was doing it. Of course, I then couldn’t figure out how to turn that very annoying noise maker that scolds me each time I veer slightly off course. But at my age, veering off course is a daily part of life in so many ways.
Back to the clock. Some years I have given up and just left the clock alone. I find that when I do that I often get a jolt of “oh crap!”, thinking I’m either too early or too late for an appointment. This is a serious issue. When my pride allows me, though, I shuffle through the stuff in the glove compartment to find the “Help me I’m an idiot” manual. Even then it’s hard to find the page about clocks. I have a theory that there is a secret cabal of auto manual writers that laugh when they are writing the part about changing the time on the dashboard. The thought of millions of people completely befuddled as they study the dashboard clock twice a year must give them some sort of sick pleasure.
It’s bad enough that my smart phone is way more clever than I am. Now my car holds secrets that I can’t figure out. (These days even our refrigerators are able to remind us when we’re out of milk. I’ve seen the ads, so I know this is a thing.) Pretty soon we won’t need a mind of our own to navigate the world. And, speaking of navigation, the same woman lives in billions of cars. Her job is to say no-no-no when we stray from her planned route. The more she says, “make a legal U turn”, the more irritated she sounds. Sometimes I decide to make my own shortcut just to piss her off. Now that’s a pitiful attempt to outsmart technology. I should know better by now.
And don’t get me started on the woman who lives in Alexa. (Or the fact that if I show an interest in a particular product on the internet, ads for whatever it is suddenly appear on my Facebook page.) I have a laughter opportunity for you – check out the Saturday Night Live skit on “Alexa for Seniors”. I guarantee you will laugh yourself silly. Unless it’s too close to home, which it sometimes is. My son-in-law is a technogenius and he has programmed Alexa to change the temperature in the house, to turn on the lights in a particular room, and do God knows what else. Not me, not ever.