Randi Kreiss

Google magic dazzles the uber-elders

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Every 3-year-old knows you can jump online and Google anything from where to buy a tasty new pacifier to how to cram for a top-tier preschool’s entrance exam. If you need to know it, you can search it out on Google. Every 3-year-old knows this. But not every 93-year-old is equally tech-savvy. And that’s where my story begins.

I was visiting my elders — those would be Mom and Dad, 93 and 97, respectively. And respectfully. When I walk into their home, whether it’s been a week or a month since the last visit, Mom thrusts handfuls of mail at me that need sorting. Mostly it’s folks trying to scam them — give them loans or sell them insurances and devices they don’t need. It’s all too much.

Often there is another problem of the day. Something is always lost. Could be anything from hearing aids to passports to reading glasses to eating glasses (those needed for dining) to my dad’s favorite baseball cap with his captain’s bars affixed. It never ends; it’s just an endless dance of lost and found and lost again. And found. I am in awe of the grit it takes to do that dance all day. There is a place for everything, but things move and no one remembers where and nothing is in its place.

On my most recent visit, Mom had a new challenge for me. She said that their safe, a 40-pound lock box with all their “irreplaceable” documents and “valuable” jewelry inside, could not be opened. She had lost the key. Last seen, it was in one of the pockets in one of the jackets in one of the closets. We launched an all-out, two-hour search through every item of clothing and every drawer and every secret place that could possibly hold a key.

What to do? My husband stepped up and offered to take the safe to Home Depot, in the hope that they might be able to make a duplicate key or just bust the sucker open. He came back very sad. Home Depot said they could do nothing, but they gave him a five-page form to fill out, get notarized and send to the safe company in order to get a replacement key.

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