My greatest admirer, Spam Risk, called me today. He calls several times a day to let me know he’s thinking of me. Alexa is a close second. She not only wakes me on command, Alexa notifies me of weather advisories, even though I didn’t ask to be notified. She notifies me when a package is due for delivery, when it’s been delivered, and even before the doorbell rings.

The voice ID on my three home phone handsets is very proficient in spelling but terrible in pronunciation. Most of the time I don’t know what she’s talking about unless I read the tiny screen.

My cellphone anticipates my every need and want. It reminds me when it’s time to take my pills. But it doesn’t know when I cheat. I only do that because it won’t quit reminding me nor let me skip it. I have almost 200 apps. So many that most of the time I can’t find the one I need on the blame thing. It keeps juggling them around when I delete one. I have a rule. If I haven’t used an app in a year, I delete it.

My cellphone also thinks I’m a child because it expects me to type on those tiny little digital keys that pop up. I connect a Bluetooth keyboard when I’m journaling otherwise it would take hours. If I turn the phone off, it forgets the keyboard, and I have manually to set it up all over again. My car automatically resets my Bluetooth when I start the car; it even sends a bing.

I get reminded of my doctors’ appointments on my home phone, cellphone, and via text messages. I have to fill out an online form in response to confirm, only to have it checked again when I show up. I guess they think I’m lying.

I can’t talk with my doctors or their nurses. I have to use the “patient portal,” a sorta dumb web site. Everyone has a different design so you have to guess where the answers should go. You also have to hit the keyboard twice. Once to wake up the damn thing, and then a second time to enter the information. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when it’s awake or when it’s asleep. It gives you 15 minutes to fill out a 20-page form. If you make a mistake or don’t complete it in time, you have to start all over again. Apparently, it can’t remember what you’ve entered until you hit “submit.” The very act of submission tells you who is in charge. If banks did business this way, they would soon be out of business.

My digital magazines and newspapers invite you to share an article, and then when you do the person can’t read it because he’s not a subscriber. Looks like that might be a way to gain subscribers if they see articles of interest. I pay a reasonable annual fee, but when it comes time to renew, they want to quadruple the rate. So, I quit and join all over again.

If you have a complaint with an online vendor, good luck trying to find a phone number. It’s buried somewhere about 10 screens past the home page. You get a prompt to use “chat,” but it is a bot that doesn’t know anything other than how to read a script. If you actually find a phone number and leave a message, it may take a week for them to call you back. I just got a letter from a vendor telling me they were working on it. I guess that counts as a response, except they forgot to put a “case number” on it. Sounds more like a court.

I’m glad that the Internet has made my life so much simpler!

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