I like to think of myself as someone who's relatively tech savvy. I mean, let's think about it. Well, I'll tell you what. We'll talk about it in just a minute, but I'll tell you what, after today, I need a nap from technology.
How are you? Welcome to the Daily Grateful. I'm Michael Gross. And I'm here today to talk about the annoying things about technology that used to be simple, and now it is just driving me crazy.
Case in point. Today, myself, and the lovely former Mrs. Gross, favorite ex-wife, number two, Diane, and I decided we belong to BJ's, which is a warehouse store, but they just don't have a lot of stuff. And they stopped carrying Diet Coke into 16-ounce bottles, and, you know, you can't get a hot dog there.
You know, so we had joined, we had joined the other big one and paid $65 for it, Costco. And I got to, I did not like going to Costco, and you're saying, but why did you not like going to Costco? What are my reasons for hating Costco? I don't hate Costco.
I just didn't like it because I had to drive over and I counted them, 11 speed bumps to get to Costco. Okay. And I don't like speed bumps. I think speed bumps should be made illegal.
And then parking at Costco was next to impossible, and a lot of people love Costco, obviously, because once we got in there and took off through the store, it was so crowded, you couldn't even move. And, you know, we had a Sam's Club membership before and let it expire because we figured, yeah, we'll just get everything at BJ's closer to the house, you know, we live less a mile away from each other. And we'll do that. Well, then, you know, we determined BJ's wasn't cutting it for us.
And we didn't want to go to Costco. So we said, we should go back to Sam's house, you know, difficult should this be. It should not be difficult. It should not be difficult at all.
So today we drove up to Sam's part, walked in, grabbed a cart, went to the member services and said, hi, we want to come back and we see that you got a membership sale right now for 30 bucks. And they said, yeah, we do. I said, okay. And then they said, they woke me up and they said, oh, yeah, you left your membership less than six months ago.
I said, I know, as well, you can't get in for 30 bucks. You got to pay 50 bucks. And I said, what? You got to pay 50 bucks unless you want the deluxe membership, which is 120 bucks.
I said, I want the deluxe. I just come in here to just get certain things and, you know, I just, so I paid 50 bucks. Well, then it used to be real simple. They, the last time we did this, they just handed us each cards.
That's all they did. They handed us cards. We had cards. That simple.
No, no, no, no, no, no. You got to get out your smartphone and you got to jump through all these hoops with your smartphone because your ID is now going to be on your smartphone. But in order for my ID to be on my smartphone, I had to remember my Apple ID, you know, password. Hell, I've had an iPhone for years.
I don't know. And before I had the iPhone, I had iPads. I established that thing over 25 years ago, my Apple ID, I, I, I, I, on an email that I was using 25 years ago that I don't even use anymore. So I said, oh, okay.
So I sat there and I, you know, looked it up and I went to, and it was a Yahoo address. I go to that Yahoo address and the password doesn't work. I said, oh, damn. So I didn't remember what the password was.
So they, you know, you can establish a new password. Okay. Well, you need your phone to do that. Well, we'll text you a thing for you to, you know, so anyway, it got between hoops and hoops and hoops and hoops and hoops.
And after about 45 minutes, I finally get done with it. And there on my iPhone is the, you know, app or Sam's Club. And the guy there helped me. I got the whole thing done.
We went, we bought what we had to buy at Sam's Club today. And then I go up and I scan the ID off my iPhone. Nope. They gave me my old ID back.
So I said, oh God, you know, so you got to go back to member service. No, I also had the receipt for the, you know, for the membership. So I pulled out the receipt. Somebody at the cash register come and help me and you can scan that and that'll get you through today.
But you're going to have to get this on your phone later. So I did that. And, you know, Sam, just be so simple. You went, you got an ID card, you went shopping, you paid, but you go.
And now they got this thing that they want you to do. They want you to put this app on your phone and you do all your shopping through your phone and you have your, you know, your debit card hooked up to that. And if you throw something in the cart, you simply scan it with your phone because I didn't do this. And then all you have to do, you don't have to go through the checkout.
You just walk out this really bizarre exit that scans everything in your cart compared to what's on your phone and they decide if you get to leave or not. I'm not going to do that. Okay. I don't buy them anything that stands.
I buy, you know, cat food there. I buy soda there and paper towels, you know, that sort of thing. And by the way, I've got a ton of paper towels. I love the members of Mark toilet paper.
I have to tell you and you know, just, but I don't, I don't do this. So now I'm now faced with getting this all done onto my smartphone. Finally, I just, my brain shut down and I said, I'm not dealing with this today. So Diane and I left there and we went to a restaurant called chedders for dinner and it was delightful.
And it got me thinking there are so many things that used to be simple that are now high-tech. Let's take a look at cars used to be, you took your car keys and you put them in the thing and you turn the ignition and it started. Ah, there you go. Not now.
Now you got a push button thing and you have to have a key fob with you and it has to be close by in order for the push button thing to work. That's one thing. And, and if you lose the push button thing, which people lose stuff, okay, in Diane's car, she's got that system and she could not find her key fob one day at the house, could not find it. She saved her life and it took her and her son and her son's roommates and everybody, they finally found it.
All right. Let's talk about televisions used to be you plug it in and you change the channel with the dial or you could have a remote control, but you only had, you know, the remote control only had that, you know, the main channels that came in off air. When I was a kid, we got four channels and that was it. And by the way, I was the remote control.
My father would say, I ran it to channel three and I got my butt up and turn it to channel three. Well, now with smart TVs and I've got a smart T. I got a couple of smart TVs here in the house. You have all these apps with Wi-Fi accounts and you've got to set this up.
Now my friend Ralph and Jan, they have a smart TV too, but it's a dumb TV because they refuse to get Wi-Fi. They have internet, but they refuse to get Wi-Fi. I don't know why. So they, oh, what they have to jump through.
They have to rent a cable box from the cable company and it just goes on and on thermostats. Lucky me, I have an old thermostat in my house, but my buddy Doc's got this really nifty electronic one. He told me, you got to get it. You got to get it.
You can on your smartphone. If you're in Oklahoma, you can turn your thermostat wherever you want it. And you know, that's, that's getting interesting door locks used to be a key to turn it and it's done. The lock locks require a pen code or fingerprint reader.
And with fingerprint readers, I'll tell you, my iPhone has a fingerprint reader, the iPhone that I have that I have to use to turn on my iPhone. And if I have like greasy fingers, like if I've eaten a donut or something and I need to turn on my, I got to make sure I got to clean my finger off really, really well, used to be with my cell phone, you just turns it on, not anymore, grocery shopping, you used to make a list, go to the store, pick up your stuff and do it now. It's all done through apps. Now I was doing this.
I stopped. I was doing this with Walmart and I realized how expensive it was. I paid 120 bucks for a year for a Walmart subscription and I would go online and pick out my groceries. And the next thing you know, it's showing up at the house and you don't, but you have to pay extra if you want it in less than two hours or three hours and and you have to add a tip.
You don't have to add a tip, but if you don't add a tip, you become very low priority to the driver and I understand that the driver is making their living delivering this. So we're high tech now and it's starting to annoy you. You know what out of me. I swear to God, this whole experience with Sam club today, Diane's looking at me.
He's like, she puts her fingers on my neck. He goes, don't have a thrombo man. I said, yeah, I'm about ready to have a thrombo getting a Sam's membership redone on my phone. And then they put the wrong, I need a nap and I'm going to take one after I get this published.
Hey, y'all have a, by the way, I did a real good podcast the other day, but I screwed it up and I realized it's going to take me like forever to edit it and I don't know if I have the band left. So you get what you get here because I do this like I do radio live in person, wish all the buttons. We'll see you tomorrow.