Just Push The Big Red Button

I just tried explaining HDTV to my Grandma.

For the 11th time.

I think there comes a point in everyone's life that once we reach a certain age, a certain elevation in years on this earth, that we will all begin to shut down our brains. We will begin to reject change in any shape or form. We will ignore advances in technology, society, business, industry, anything. We will become geriatric byproducts of the generation that we were raised in.

Swamp Thing: "No, you see Grandma, watch when I push this big red button on your remote, look how the picture quality changes."

Swamp Thing's Grandmother: hesitating "Uh...yes, I think I can see it."

For the record, this woman is not blind. In fact, she's probably going to be around another couple decades more the way her health bill is looking.

Swamp Thing: "Now watch when I change back. See how the picture goes kind of fuzzy again? See how it's a different quality. Not as good?"

Swamp Thing's Grandmother: "Oh yes! I see it. How did you do that?"

Swamp Thing: "See this big red button? Just push it once, and it will go to HD Television."

Swamp Thing: "I see. But what's the difference?"

Do I want to spend the next 45 minutes trying to explain to this woman the difference between analog and digital television. Almost like trying to teach the first day of Communication 1010 to class of deaf third-graders.

Swamp Thing's Grandmother: "But what if I don't want to watch this one? What if I just want to watch my old channels? This HVTD thing you're talking about, I don't like it."

For a brief moment I looked at the invisible cricket sitting on my shoulder and asked if he had the right answer to my moral debate.

Swamp Thing: "You can't. The TV companies are actually getting rid of those channels forever, and deleting them from your account. As of March 1st, they will only be showing the HD stations."

Is it wrong to lie to a 75-year old woman in hopes that she might think outside the box and grow a little bit? And is it sad that she's changing only because in her mind there is no other alternative? I've given her a technological ultimatum, and if she doesn't adapt, she will never be able to watch Entertainment Tonight every evening at 6:30 on KSL ever again!

Conversations like this are hilarious I know, as we laugh at the confusion of all the white-haired retirees we are all surrounded by. But then again, it scares my pants off to think that one day I'll have a Grandson lying through his teeth in an attempt to help me learn and grow and quit being a geriatric stickler.