Now that I’m in my seventies I keep a lookout for anything going “wrong.” For me, this means signs of aging. A new pain in one knee. Noticing I’d forgotten where I’d put something that turned out to be right in front of me, the whole time. I spent five minutes once looking for my keys before I realized I was holding them in my hand!

Okay, I understand this. In 1962, Bette Davis said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” She was right then and she is right now. And while I don’t experience myself as particularly cowardly (I can’t use the word cowardly without thinking about the “Cowardly Lion” in “Wizard of Oz.”), I am a fully capable of freaking out when I find myself in a “head–spinning” moment.

Until just recently, my understanding of technology was pretty straight forward. (Sidebar: The big moos say tech as if saying the entire word technology is far too labor intensive.) I understand its role in daily life has skyrocketed. Computers are everywhere: boats, cars, planes, hospitals, schools, homes, phones, and so on.

While this reality is a tad overwhelming, I never thought they were capable of plotting and carrying out real mischief, on their own! I’ll show you.
A week ago I am standing in the parking lot where I live letting my car warm up. I started the car, then got out to let it run so me and my dog Rascal could enjoy the morning sun. My phone started to ring. I took it out of my coat pocket, saw it was a close friend calling, and answered the phone on speaker.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked.

He began to talk to me but I don’t remember what he said because of one, head–spinning reality, I was talking into the phone and when he answered, his voice was coming from ten feet away, and it was hard to hear what he was saying because his voice was coming from a few yards from where me and Rascal were standing!

I knew something was wrong.

“This is it,” I thought, “I’m hearing voices.” I went back to the car to turn it off. As I approached, something strange began to happen; my friend’s voice was getting louder. As soon as I opened the car door, I uncovered the plot. The plot between my phone and my car’s computers.

My car had answered the phone!