Reminds Me Of An Old Joke

Jesus said, “If a blind dork attempts to lead an untutored, unsighted innocent through the maze of ordering a Bluefish Book online by telephone, they shall both get an an Access Denied screen and fall into a ditch”.

Maybe that’s not exactly what He said, but an experience yesterday convinces me that’s what He meant.

I got a long-distance call from a lady who’s been trying to order some Bluefish Books without success. She is 76 years old and she has owned her computer for at least ten years.

Her old system is a different brand from mine.

But, being an experienced computer illiterate who has never even heard of her kind of system before, I nevertheless tried to walk her through the order process step by step.

And the last state of the lady was worse than the first!

As she followed my directions, her computer screen turned black and no pixels would show at all.

Isn’t that odd?

Was it something I said?

It’s so simple to order one of my books. All you have to do is type www.bluefishbooks.info on the Google screen. That brings up seven listings and I’m the top one, Lulu/bluefish. Click on that and you go to my Welcome screen and John Cowart’s Online Book Catalog. Pick a book from the listing and click on Add Print To Cart (that means put a printed copy in a shopping cart). You can add other books to the same cart if you use the Back Button. Once you have picked out your books. You view the cart to make any adjustments. Then click Go To Checkout. The screen will ask where you want the books delivered and your e-mail address and for you to chose a password. Then you Save And Continue and Update Cart. And finally chose how you want to pay for the books, credit card or Pay Pal, and how you want the books shipped (US Mail is cheapest), then you click Place Order.

Nothing to it.

Except the lady speaks softly and I’m a bit hard of hearing and we had a hard time arriving at the step which says Google before her ten-year-old, dial-up computer would time out and kick us out into limbo.

Obviously, I have no business trying to help anyone do anything on a computer; I’m an utter child when it comes to these mystery machines. I can cut. I can paste. Anything beyond that is beyond me.

Finally the lady gave up and said she’d ask her son to order for her on his laptop.

That’s the answer to many of life’s confusing problems — Ask the Son.

Anyhow, our comedy of telephone errors, the blind leading the blind, reminded me of an old, old joke:

The boss needed to call one of his employees at home on a holiday weekend.

A little girl answered the phone, “Harris residence. This is Melissa. May I help you?”

Impressed with the little girl’s good telephone manners, the boss said, “Yes, may I speak with your father please”.

“Daddy’s not home; he went to gas up the car,” the child said. “Do you want to leave a message”.

What a well-trained, polite child, the boss thought.

“Well, may I speak with your mother then,” he said.

“She’s still asleep. She’s got a migraine and I’m not supposed to wake her.”

“It’s important that I speak with your dad”.

“Would you like to leave a message”?

“Yes. Tell him to call Mr. Morris as soon as he comes in”.

“Just a second, let me get a pencil to write that down,’ the child said, putting down the phone.

In a moment she picked up the phone, “I’m back. Thanks for waiting,” she said just as business-like as could be. Obviously this kid has been listening to the grownups, the boss thought. Sharp as a tack.

“Tell him to call Mr. Morris,” he said.

“How do you spell that,” she asked.

“M-O-R-R-I-S,” he said.

“How do you make an M?” she asked.