Stay Tuned for an Important Message….

My friend. Lisa sent me a Facebook message this morning before 8:00 A.M. I happened to be up and reading the newspaper (yes, I still have an actual newspaper delivered). It was a bit odd, both for the time and the message as it was one of those ridiculous cat videos. Neither Lisa nor I have a cat, nor do we share any cat videos, as a rule.

But okay.

I responded with something like: “Hahah. Oh that’s cute.”

To which she responded: “Fuck. that was a mistake and I sent it to someone so wrong. HELP!”

I said, helpfully: “Haha. You and technology. You do have a brain injury, you know.”

She messaged back: ” I meant to send something else, this video is STUPID. Help me delete it.”

I gave her instructions on Messenger how to delete the message that went like this:

“In the messenger box at the top is a circle that looks like a sunburst and it says “options”

and then if you click on it it says delete conversation.”

To which Lisa replied:

“What’s the Messenger Box?”

Now, I’m thinking: “Oh, boy, we are in trouble” Since we are typing in the Messenger Box.

So I reply:

“When your are on your iPad in Facebook and you send a message to someone it comes up in a box. The message box to send a message is next to the word HOME after the silhouettes of the people…its like a bubble of conversation.”

To which Lisa replies by calling me on my cell phone so we can have an actual conversation…much like an actual newspaper.

“Help me get rid of this stupid video!”

“Okay,” I say, “get off your android phone and go to your iPad, it will be easier there, because I have an iPhone and the screen isn’t the same.”

After a minute or two as two middle-aged incompetent Facebook users try to communicate about things that look like bubbles and sunbursts and silhouettes of people and gear-thingies and where to click on them and see what it says, I finally get off my computer and revert to my iPad so we can be looking at the same screen.

We somehow manage to both get into the Messenger app and find a screen that had options on my computer but doesn’t come up with options when you click it on the iPad. Ugh. How can this be? Why oh why do they keep changing the options?!?!  And then I see and owl icon and it says “help”. So I type in:

How do I delete a message?

Up comes an FAQ:

 How do I delete a message?

Put your cursor on the message and hold it down and the message will be deleted.

All of that took 45 minutes and a lot of swearing. I never did get to finish “Dear Abby” in my

actual newspaper.

“You Just Have to Laugh…..”

©Cathy Sikorski 2015

 Here’s the “stupid” video for your viewing pleasure:

Posted by DJ Pollyfonika on Thursday, July 10, 2014

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13 thoughts on “Stay Tuned for an Important Message….”

  1. I had the same problem when I tried to help my mom. We lived in different worlds, so I found it difficult to help my PC mom, since I’m a Mac user. Finally she discovered that her genius nephew would be far more helpful than her inept daughter. I’m so happy with my Mac 😉

  2. That’s why I post all the stuff my friends email me on my wall. I’m going to have to “paint” over the old messages soon ’cause I’m running out of space.

  3. 15 years ago, I helped someone in the office with her computer. The other day, she sent me an email asking for help with her “computer box”. She’ll never know that I printed the email and hung it on the wall because I now work in a different country. This is why it pays to be helpful even if she’ll never get response to her email.

  4. It’s like Microsoft Word menus. I used to teach the stuff and Now I’m totally in the dark. Completely changed. Funny stuff here, I think they have people whose job it is to confuse people.

  5. Bill…see even you could find nothing to pun about here…middle-aged broads, the confounding internet and pelicans…so bizarre. Thanks for reading!

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