Technology meltdown

Smart People Don’t Use Smartphones

They use their heads

‘What’s 16 multiplied by 5?’ I asked my daughter yesterday as I was measuring up a wall I would probably never paint.

‘My phone’s upstairs,’ she said.

I looked at her in disbelief. ‘Can’t you add it up in your head? A monkey could do that.’

‘Why did you ask me, then?’

‘I was thinking aloud.’

Truth was, I wasn’t. I’m really brain-dead these days. A walking vegetable who struggles with his date of birth.

The other day, I was adding up a supermarket bill outside the store. I have to do this because they constantly make mistakes. If you ever go to a French supermarket, check the bill afterwards, especially the offers. Invariably, it’ll be wrong, and you’ll have to go and beg for the difference from the cashier. Good luck with that.

So anyway, there were only five items on the bill, but as I didn’t have my phone on me, and therefore couldn’t perform basic arithmetic, I drove home. Once back, my wife informed me that I’d been ripped off on the steak (again!). I should have paid €12.32. Instead, I paid €18.12.

I can no longer use my brain. I need a smartphone to add up a shopping bill. If I’d added it up in my head, I could have gone back into the store, rectified the problem, and saved myself, err, just a minute…

Ah yeah, €5.80.

When did I become so stupid? I used to be clever. I used to be able to add up shit instantly. In the second-hand bookshop where I once worked, folk would hand me a load of books, and bang! €16.65 straight off the bat.

Now, I can’t even add up a couple of medium-priced supermarket items without my brain melting.

How to stop this rot, I’ve no idea. My father once told me, that around the age of 47/48, his brain started to fold in on itself to resemble the inside of an oyster. In other words, a bag of shit, seeing as an oyster’s prime function is to filter sewage. Remember that next time you eat one…

My father made it to 79, and he seemed to become smarter the older he got, contrary to what he claimed. Mainly because he had time to read, and do loads of crosswords.

Sometimes, I’d walk in to the house, and he’d say. ‘Philip, 6-down?’

‘6-down?’ I’d reply. ‘Is that the Leeds Utd score? I thought we’d lose, but not by that much.’

‘No, you fool. Not the football, the crossword!’

The flatter the face, the better the batter — (six letters)

‘Plaice?’

My father looked at me in disbelief. I was right, for once. True, it was a total guess. And my father’s crosswords weren’t the hardest. But it was a lesson of going with my intuition.

That’s what’s missing from my life. That mystery of the unknown. The wild punts in the dark. Everything in my life is too mechanical. Too broken down into units. My days coordinated like the railway timetables I used to enjoy memorizing as a kid.

I used to love this pastime. And people used to love me for it.

‘Philip, Derby to Nottingham on a Sunday afternoon?’

‘You’ve got three options: 1435. 1621. 1754.'

I used to be clever. My mind was like a miracle machine, whirring and spinning like a Turing computer.

Now it just splutters and clunks into action like a plastic toy cash register that doesn’t have any symbols or numbers. Just labels on the keys that say Dumb, Dumber, and Dumberer.

I need to wake up. Not just smell the coffee, but dive into a vat of it, drink it all in, and go with the flow. See if I can get a grip of myself before it’s too late. Otherwise, I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing crosswords.

‘The flatter the face, the better the batter — (six letters). Anyone?’

‘How about, f*ck off!’ my daughter will say. ‘That would fit.’

Thanks for reading this introspective piece. Thought that was shit, try these: