There is a convenience involved in those automated systems where you punch this or that sequence of keys to complete your walk through doing business with a governmental agency or business when they are closed. There also is a hell on earth if you are doing it on a “smart” phone with a keypad that disappears between questions and you can’t figure out how to bring it up again!

I ordered two prescriptions today using my new “smart” phone. I’m afraid I lost a lot of patience in the process. I’m afraid I said some very colorful words. I’m afraid I came close to tossing the “smart” phone against the wall, then I barely came to my senses,  realized it is very expensive to lose one’s temper that way….

Eventually (I think) I got an option to leave my voice message. So I read the information off the pill bottles and hope I left sufficient other information with them to get my prescriptions.

Poor Dougy! He thought I was yelling at him. Poor kitty.

I guess the brilliant bunnies who create these “smart” phones are too young to have to deal with needing a locked-on keypad to deal with ordering pills or contacting the Department of Human Resources to wade through their automated systems to get to the service option you need…after you select English over Spanish, to hear what those options are! In time, they will know what it’s like to lose the digital keypad and not be able to bring it back up in time to satisfy the automated voice that there is a person on the other end needing something!

Though it is fun being able to use my new phone to get the use of the phone option in my car’s infotainment center, I really need that stupid phone, the one with the real keypad to deal with the vicissitudes of age – prescriptions, bureaucracies, insurance companies. As far as those places are concerned, automated systems are cost effective, convenient, and reduce their labor costs. They also cause seniors hell on earth unless they have a stupid phone with a real keyboard