I didn't authorize any of this

I’m sitting here drinking my coffee with Brad Randolph-honey and avocado oil. It's a thing.
Frankie and Jonny are out of their cage flying around the house, and I’ll be chasing them with a paper towel and a spritzer very soon. The big screen is on and Ferris Bueller is dancing to I Dream of Jeannie.
It’s a Saturday and I’m coming off a 17-hour Thursday. At about midnight, I was feeling accomplished about the day and headed up the 147 steps  to bed.
I watched some reels on Facebook and sent a few to the wife and daughter that I thought were funny. Like the one of the hand-drawn characters doing a beat drop with a caption that read something like, “this is my ADHD when someone is trying to give me verbal instructions”.
Now, that’s not a pop at anyone suffering with mental health, I wouldn’t do that. But it did encapsulate my frustration with tech and someone trying to explain changes that I didn't authorize.
It's happened over and over nine years in to Pen City Current, and when something doesn’t work I call my wife. She’s the mad scientist. She can eventually fix anything.
(Oh wait, Cameron’s throwing a fit because he doesn’t want to go to Ferris’ house. He’s stamping around behind the car in the background in his Red Wings jersey, and it’s cracking me up. Hold on… LOL….SQUIRREL!)
…
Anyway, Lee will tell you one of her least favorite practices with me, and you have to remember this is saying something since she lives 14 hours away, are when she has to teach me how to use a new app, or navigate a sharp turn in the back end of our production system.
I get that programmers are constantly finding what they think are greater efficiencies for the end user, but jeepers, if it ain’t broke, right?
What could normally start as something as benign as changing a password would turn into the War of the Roses usually over the phone. That’s a salvation at this point, because we used to be sitting next to each other in an office and I would usually end up pouting in my room because she made me feel stupid. Because I am stupid.
My mind works differently. I don’t get things other people seem to handle in a few moments, but I can write a basketball story in 15 minutes with photos and everything. Now if I could just get Kaden Swan and Owen Swan straight. If you’ll allow a bit of a digression here, I got a message Saturday morning that it was Kaden Swan that hit a 3-point bank shot at the 3rd quarter buzzer Friday night in Central Lee and not his brother Owen. Hope no dishes were thrown in that home, but I’ve gotten brothers names wrong before. Swigarts, Thurmans (but hand to God, I still can’t tell Jason and Vasin apart – I wonder if they ever picked up on that.)
It's the simple things that throw me. Like putting in door handles. They turn opposite directions but work with a single turn. It takes me hours to change them out because I can’t wrap my mind around the mechanics. It's like "Just do this" and it works. Don't overthink it. Well, that's not me and I get that from my mom. She got out of teaching ultimately because we've gone away from understanding the math behind the calculator and just rely on the calculator. That's a microcosm of her frustration, but you get my point.
Doing minor electrical wiring work baffles me, as well. I never trust that the power is off, even when I flipped the breakers. I have to plug a light or a radio into the outlet and then make sure they don’t work before I even think about pulling off a cover plate. And, even then, I’m sweating.
Things should just work properly throughout eternity. I know that’s a big ask, but for those of us who struggle with change, it makes perfect sense.
Another thing that will light the wick is software upgrades on a laptop, desktop, or phone. I just get used to working things a certain way and then they pull the rug out. I can’t stand that. I’m using my Outlook mail account the other day and suddenly when I hit reply to an email, which I do A LOT, it goes to split screen and the control bar at the top disappears. I did not authorize that. I don’t know if that’s Microsoft or Chuck-luck, but it’s infuriating. My emails now don’t stay in my inbox. They go to some freakin “Important Messages” folder that I don’t recall authorizing.
My hands go really fast on a keyboard and sometimes I activate hidden passages by a weird combination of taps. It's like something deep inside me is screwing around with me. And I don’t have the damn cheat codes to get out of it.
In Adobe InDesign the other day, I got going too fast and somehow dumped the text tool from the tool bar. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get it back and finally had to call Lee.
“What did you do?” she said.
“I don’t freakin’ know, my fingers did it. “The text tool is gone and I’ve been trying for three days to fix it.” (You have to create drama and a sense of urgency. I’m sure she’s fine with that.).
“Just right click on the upper corner of the icon in its place.”
“Oh….yeah that did it. Thanks.”
Then she gives me a two-minute tutorial on what happened and how I can fix it and similar problems in the future.
All I hear is beat-drops.
So with the coffee down and Cameron making that stupid ‘thwooop” noise by flicking his cheek with his finger, I’m off to spend to day away from technology and anything that can tick me off  (Aaaayyy batta, batta, batta, batta - swiiiiing batta!)– But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current. He can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.