Woes of a Geek

I've recently decided to upgrade my phone---I've had it for going on three years and it's started acting quirky (though as one of my friends insists, it's because it knows I'm planning to replace it. :D) But I'm also on a budget (who isn't?) and there are other things I want to spent my money on so...

I did some online research but I still had some questions (and it's impossible to play with a phone online anyway,) so in I went to my local store. I should probably preface this by saying a few of my friends go to this store and have never had this particular issue, but it was apparently my day for it. I told the sales clerk what phone I wanted to look at, and making a long and torturous story short, the salesman apparently thought I was only interested in what colors the phone came in.

Right. 

I wonder what gave him that idea? Because I was female? Probably. It's not the first time I've dealt with this attitude; I once walked off a car lot because a salesman refused to pop the hood on a model I was looking at (I couldn't find the release latch) because, as he said, "Why?  You'll never look at it."

Right. 

The thing is, I like technology. I was a PC user for years, and now I use a Mac full-time. I've used computers, of one sort or another, since I was ten. I was also lucky that my dad, the main gadget geek in our house, never discouraged me from learning. So my interest in computers, in phones, in cars, tends to be a little bit more than "Oooh, what color does it come in?"

Sigh. I walked out of that store, of course. And if I need help with my phone, I'll go to another store. But in this day and age--2012--it's astonishing that the view that woman= not good with technology is still so pervasive.

Ready? Not me. :-)

Today, my daughter finished her last day of preschool. Aside from summer camp at her preschool (if we decide to send her) and some time in February where she might return there (bless preschool teachers who don't mind if their former students return) when her school is out for break, this is it. My daughter is no longer a preschooler.

I got to thinking this afternoon how unready I was for so many of life's biggest changes. I was ready to graduate from college, but not ready to be self-supporting. I was ready to settle down, but I knew nothing of being a wife. I wasn't ready to no longer be pregnant when my daughter tumbled into my life ten weeks early. And although my daughter is ready for kindergarten and is going to a good school this fall, I don't think I'm quite ready for her to no longer be one of the six students at her itty bitty preschool.

But I became self-supporting. I got married---next April is our tenth anniversary---so I suppose I figured that out. I guess I'll get used to having a kindergartner too.

Change is coming---faster than any wheel, and I know I won't get to dictate how or when or why it happens. All I...all we...can do is hang on and try to enjoy the ride.