Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

It pays to read the instructions.


Why do so many of us feel it is unnecessary to read instructions and assume they are written for everyone else but never for us?

We especially do it with electronic gadgets.

When we purchased our new television recently, the instruction book lay unopened in its plastic wrapping for about three days while we fiddled about with the remote and various plugs and wires. We pressed all the buttons, often making matters worse each time or undoing something we had unwittingly done correctly. The screens passed through black to speckled greys to pixel size coloured blobs and when we had a channel functioning correctly, the sound went off and we were left looking at a talking head.

It caused many heated arguments and words to the affect of ‘well you do it then if you think you know so much about it’, sometimes accompanied by the remote being flung at the head of whichever ‘Know-all’ was sitting at the other end of the couch.

Eventually one of us deigned,…. I forget which one,…. to reach for the book of instructions. Now these are objects of mystery in themselves. They appear to be written in every language spoken by man but as the saying goes, ‘appearances can be deceiving’. We can only read the oriental version of English. We can read it, but can only make wild guesses at what some instructions mean. So we hop from one reasonably well written sentence to another.

After more hours of impatient tempers and frustrations, we call the television repair man and irritatingly, he fixes it in ten minutes while making light hearted conversation about this and that. Followed by writing out a bill while small smirk loiters around his mouth.

We pay the bill without complaint just to improve the atmosphere in the home.

Even new cars can bring out this ridiculous behaviour. Instead of getting the pristine and glossy manual out of the glove box we fiddle and fuddle about with knobs and buttons, peddles and gears putting windscreen wipers on when we mean to put heaters or radios on and try to drive out of the garage by pressing a foot on a pedal and doing something dreadful in the way Hughie, Teddy’s friend did. He pressed hard on what he thought was the brake pedal and shot straight through the end of his garage. The result of this mishap was chaos and a large repair bill for his new car, his garage and a neighbour’s fence. Perhaps, if he hadn’t been so impatient to get out on the open road and had spent a little while reading the manual and doing an airline pilot type check he may have saved so much trauma, but then it is easy to be wise afterward.

The same mind-set applies to our computers.
Teddy has been more than a week trying to load a new version of a programme. He has worked at it for hours and so far he has announced at the close of at least three consecutive days that ‘I’ve done it! I’ve got it to load!’ Only to find the next morning the programme is no longer on his computer.

A quick phone call to our young I.T man and it would probably be fixed in a jiffy. But no, I think that word ‘young’ is the tripping point. Combine it with the need to demonstrate he can do it without any help and he has the lack of success he is trying so hard to avoid.

The same thing happened last week.
The weekly email giving instructions for the Burke and Wills walking group appeared on his screen.

We rose before dawn to make sure his packed lunch and coffee was made and after his customary three returns to the house for the things he had forgotten such as his phone, camera, or glasses, he was gone with a cheery wave saying, ‘I’ll be back about 2 p.m. It’s only a short walk’.
Come 2p.m. no Teddy in sight.

Late in the afternoon when the daylight was giving way to a gloomy evening, he walked in the door looking tired and a little footsore. I suspected some sort of hitch had occurred but bided my time for the explanation to be forthcoming.

Eventually after a coffee and a long sit in his chair while he stared into space he told me.

He arrived at the usual parking place from where the group leave. There was no-one there so he suspected he had missed them. He drove to three other possible parking places. Still no sign of anyone so he went back to the original and thought he would start walking from the end of the walk and meet up with the others somewhere around halfway as they were coming from the opposite direction. He met no-one. He enjoyed his lunch while he sat at the top of the hill and began the walk back to the car park.
When he arrived back at the car park just after noon there was one person there who remarked ‘You’re early Teddy.’
‘Oh, well, if I’m early now, I was bloody early this morning because I’ve done the walk already.’ he replied.
Slowly the rest of the group arrived and Teddy told them he had already been but would do the walk again. This time with company.
His reputation for reading the details properly of where, when and what time, written in the club emails has well and truly gone down the gurglar.
He had simply read the name of the walk and assumed he knew the rest.
A bit like buying another new electronic device, we assume the details are the same as every other gadget we have.
I’m now going back to my automatic electric stove which turned off last week and I can’t work out which buttons turn it back on. Bother the instruction book, the advice seems completely useless. I’ll get it worked out one day. In the meantime I’ll use the gas top to cook on or the barbeque. I’m not going to be beaten by a stove!

The child lock on the dishwasher almost won the battle but fortunately my son turned up and removed it.

Cheers for now
from your ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia --Bookshops.


Dear Del,

I do love bookshops.

From the moment I step over the threshold I find myself in another world as I riffle through small books with quirky titles, large tomes that may be handy after I’ve read them for holding the back door open, drool over gardening books and ignore cookery books because I know I just can’t fit another on my kitchen shelves. I stop by the psycho babble self-help books and usually after perusing the titles usually find I’m past the age where I think any of them can make an improvement….. The kids have given me a stack containing the words ‘healthy ageing’ which I have at times found very interesting and have kept ready for returning them when our well meaning children come up against their fiftieth birthdays with a thump. I glance at the astronomy section knowing Teddy would stop dead in front of it, giving the impression he had been super glued to the floor.
Usually I dally in front of the biographies hoping to find someone of interest and then I move on to the humour section and open up something which will have me gurgling and giggling with delight.

Looking around I feel amazed that so many new writers and authors have found the thousands of words and new ideas or research to put between the covers of them all. I also feel quite surprised there are still brave editors and publishers willing to pay to print them. I’m aware the self-help range is lucrative and the sports personalties that have done well in their chosen sport and can find good ghost writers are a paying area, but it is gratifying to find publishers still willing to try and sell good novels and unusual subjects to the public. It gives a lie to the popular thinking that reading is as pastime is being superseded by electronic books.

My favourite book shops are those that sell used and second-hand titles. Here I can look for authors’ no longer in print sometimes finding little sentimental notes written inside the covers which give an indication of the person who first owned the book. Sometimes I feel quite sad to see a favourite title I’ve read sitting among the preloved books looking pristine and fresh as if the pages have never been opened and enjoyed. These places are treasure troves for me and not just because of the books. It is always fascinating to discover the personalty of the person behind the counter.
Obviously they all share a passion for the written word but that is where the similarities appear to end.

In a village not far from here we have a dithery type of woman. She clucks around behind her customers chirruping away happily about this and that giving the impression she could have been Miss Marple’s nitwit sister.

In another, there is a large woman who never moves from her chair and your progress around the dusty shelves where spiders and silver fish live out their lives peacefully, is accompanied by the click, click, click of her knitting needles. She knits some fascinating shapeless looking things in horrendous colours. I’ve never seen her wear any of them so I presume a hapless relative has to say “Oh how lovely’ when they receive the results.
Then there is another shop I like to go where the owner appears to have just stepped out of the teacher’s staff room of St Trinians School. She really knows her books and her stock and I would never dare to contradict her opinion in case I was made to write out ‘I must not be rude to my elders’ a thousand times. She always has a few of my favourite authors so I steel myself for each visit and make sure my shoes are polished and my skirts are straight.
One of the most fascinating of owners I have met was a previous owner who lived in our village. During the 1970’s he had an ‘alternative lifestyle’ store when the words really meant what they said…….. One would think the way these words are bandied about nowadays that the last generation came up with them and it is a new concept.
His, was one of the first in this area however and all the people who had fled to the country in the attempt to enjoy a self sufficient life or join a commune would pass through his doors seeking books on meditation, vegetarian cooking, how to care for various stock and how to make mud brick houses etc. In other words everything of the period when we were all making love not war.

The city folk and the holiday makers who still lived conventional lives would arrive for their summer holidays or winter skiing holidays and be rather taken aback when the proprietor of the alternative bookshop gave full vent to his alternative lifestyle by dressing in beautifully co-ordinated ladies clothing each Saturday morning and walk the length of the shopping centre greeting one and all while flinging his caftan and braided hair provocatively.

It was quite a sad time when he sold the business and retired to live his dream. Although, it did give the lady who liked to ride into town on her pet milking cow during that same decade the opportunity to gain the full attention of the visitors. The reason being that while riding a cow is somewhat unusual not many people did it wearing from the waist down a Mexican riding outfit. Fewer still did it while being from the waist up with the exception of a sombrero hat, completely naked. It was positively astounding when a person witnessed her well developed body for the first time.

I believe her cow riding days are over and the lady now resides quietly in a retirement nursing home. I wonder if she shares her memories with others and they look at her in disbelief and scepticism.

I’ve heard of another second-hand place this week which I haven’t visited. I must make sure I go to see what treasures are there. Life is still full of discovery isn’t it?

Cheers from Cynthia.