Techno Belle 2.0

Technology can be a tricky thing for a Southern Belle.  Lord knows it's made keeping up the church directory a breeze and putting together the new Hospital Auxiliary cook book was positively worlds better, but technology can turn on a Belle when she's least expecting it.  Yes, when faced with too many gadgets and geegaws, there is the distinct possibility that a Southern Belle could lose her decorum. 

Let me be your cautionary tale.

Okay, so I married a mechanical engineer.  As far as a mechanical engineer is concerned, there can never be too many buttons, blinking lights and whirring noises.  I can promise you that any gadgety thingamajig in my house is top of the line because Scott Council's motto is "Go Big or Go Home," but I can promise you in the same breath that I probably don't know how to work it. 

Our vacuum is a cool looking purple color...and I couldn't tell you how to work it if you put a gun to my head.  I just kind of count on the dogs doing their part to gobble up anything my little cookie crumbling Baby Belles might drop and I just do my pitiful best to keep the house together in between visits from our cleaning lady.  Thank the good Lord for my cleaning lady...I'm 90% sure that she knows how to work that vacuum...

I did finally master the television and it's various and sundry attachments an quirks.  That was a trial by fire/born of necessity sort of deal.  When you have two sick and crabby children staring you down, you either get the Disney Channel on or die trying. 

Of course, if I'm being honest, I don't have the TV, et al completely figured out.  Scott got the big 'ol flat screen HD thing.  I broke his heart just a little bit when I once declared that I couldn't tell the difference between a regular channel and the HD channel.  I now admit to being able to tell a teeny tiny difference, but not enough to encourage me to memorize the four digit channel number required to actually see Diane Sawyer's crows feet.  It drives Scott crazy when he comes in and I'm watching a "plain" channel.  He thinks I'm doing it on purpose when the truth is that I don't do numbers and only keep the most critical in my head at any given time (such as a couple of phone numbers...and yes, I do include 911 in that statement).

Of course, I can't work the DVDs in Scott's car, but Baby Belle 1 can usually help me out.  One doesn't wish to put Baby Belle 2 in the car for more than three minutes if Elmo or Alvin and the Godforsaken Chipmunks aren't playing to soothe the wee beastie.  (Most people drive their infants around in cars to get them to sleep, but such a tactic only serves to make Baby Belle 2 projectile barf.)

The thermostat is digitally controlled and I think the burglar alarm is, too.  When my brother stayed with us, he accused our microwave of being HAL from "2010 A Space Odyssey" because it wouldn't stop asking him questions and/or coming up with suggestions about how to cook his food.  You have to understand that us Culbreths are not techno-savvy folk...if you can't work it by shaking it, colorfully cursing it or beating it with a rock, we're at a loss.

Poor Scott.  When we are faced with puchasing a new gadget, my input is that I would like it to have as few buttons as humanly possible.  It makes his eye twitch.

And that, boys and belles, is how a Southern Belle finds herself driving around the Charlotte Metro Area screeching at her husband's GPS that it doesn't know what the hell it is talking about.  I'm proud to say that I eventually figured things out and I apologized to her.  I see a lot of that in my future since Baby Belle 2 doesn't seem to be physically capable of passing a button without pushing it.  She is daddy's girl!