Modern Doohickeys
Just as I have learned to turn my new phone off and on, to answer a phone call (usually) without cutting off the caller, I have a new car to figure out. My youngest borrowed my Ford Edge (three years old) to take on vacation. Meantime I'm driving his new Nissan Altima. My car does have remote start, and remote locks. That's pretty newfangled for me!! However, his has key-less driving. Key-less??? My Lord, what's this world coming to! What will be next, tire-less driving?? He gave me a crash course on how to use it. I listened...or thought I did.
So this morning I go to start the car. I have the little remote in my purse, so it's supposed to work. I push the start button. Nothing. I get the remote that I know has the chip and lay it on the seat. (Who knows maybe my purse has steel lining that blocks the zapper ray! It's heavy enough!) Push the button again. Still nothing.
Now understand, there is no key option. There IS a key option for the door should the battery on the remote fail. But the same remote has a chip that the starter reads and lets you start the car. Huh?? What if the starter doesn't feel like reading that day? I guess it didn't. I sit and think. Nothing occurs to me. I could call my son, presuming that I can get my phone to work. But that would admit defeat. I don't do defeat well. What's the rule? If it doesn't work at first, just keep pushing!!!
Try again. Push once. Nothing. Push twice. Nothing. Oh, wait!!! There's a light. It says "Brake". This car is not moving. Why do I need to brake? I hate electronic chips talking to me! But like an obedient humanoid, I obey the electronic order. I hold down the brake, push the button and . . . voila'! The car starts!! Whew!!!
To appreciate the depth of my ignorance, you have to know that in my childhood, a dial phone on a party line was a luxury we didn't have. It wasn't available in the country. My grandma had one in the city.
We had one TV channel, with a fuzzy picture on a snowy black and white set with rabbit ears on top. And I was thirteen years old before we, personally, had one. Previously we'd go to an Uncle's house to watch Saturday night TV.
In those days computers took up an entire room, a pretty big one at that, and were used only for military applications. Mostly for aiming armaments correctly. They had less power than is in that little zapper in my purse.
More to the point, I grew up with cars with WIRES. You could hot wire a car if the key was lost. You could have fun by reversing the position of the wire to the horn and the one to the brake light. That was especially fun if the professor in question was driving in the mountains followed by a busload of students howling every time he hit the brakes and the horn honked!
What we did NOT have was a little doohickey that sent out a little ray and zapped the starter to tell it to start at the push of a button. Nope THAT we did not have!!!
And that, folks, is a Modern Doohickey!!!!
So this morning I go to start the car. I have the little remote in my purse, so it's supposed to work. I push the start button. Nothing. I get the remote that I know has the chip and lay it on the seat. (Who knows maybe my purse has steel lining that blocks the zapper ray! It's heavy enough!) Push the button again. Still nothing.
Now understand, there is no key option. There IS a key option for the door should the battery on the remote fail. But the same remote has a chip that the starter reads and lets you start the car. Huh?? What if the starter doesn't feel like reading that day? I guess it didn't. I sit and think. Nothing occurs to me. I could call my son, presuming that I can get my phone to work. But that would admit defeat. I don't do defeat well. What's the rule? If it doesn't work at first, just keep pushing!!!
Try again. Push once. Nothing. Push twice. Nothing. Oh, wait!!! There's a light. It says "Brake". This car is not moving. Why do I need to brake? I hate electronic chips talking to me! But like an obedient humanoid, I obey the electronic order. I hold down the brake, push the button and . . . voila'! The car starts!! Whew!!!
To appreciate the depth of my ignorance, you have to know that in my childhood, a dial phone on a party line was a luxury we didn't have. It wasn't available in the country. My grandma had one in the city.
We had one TV channel, with a fuzzy picture on a snowy black and white set with rabbit ears on top. And I was thirteen years old before we, personally, had one. Previously we'd go to an Uncle's house to watch Saturday night TV. In those days computers took up an entire room, a pretty big one at that, and were used only for military applications. Mostly for aiming armaments correctly. They had less power than is in that little zapper in my purse.
More to the point, I grew up with cars with WIRES. You could hot wire a car if the key was lost. You could have fun by reversing the position of the wire to the horn and the one to the brake light. That was especially fun if the professor in question was driving in the mountains followed by a busload of students howling every time he hit the brakes and the horn honked!
What we did NOT have was a little doohickey that sent out a little ray and zapped the starter to tell it to start at the push of a button. Nope THAT we did not have!!!
And that, folks, is a Modern Doohickey!!!!
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