RTFM: A QlockworQ Harangue

 

I must confess that although these folks are scarier and more dangerous than I'd care to admit, I do genuinely feel something, almost bordering on compassion, for them. Let me put it to you this way, as it cannot be expressed easily, but calls, I believe, for a modicum of circumscription, or indirection, if you will.

All of us, of a certain age, can remember when VCR technology burst forth upon the scene and we poor souls were thoroughly taken with the idea of enjoying Hollywood features in the comfort of our own dear little hovels. I was one such who became enamored of the gizmos and plunked down, after too little deliberation, a bit of scratch to become a lifetime member of one of my community's flourishing video rental outlets. A greater future, to be truthful, I couldn't espy.

One downside to that whole affair was the egregious infernal blinking of the 12:00 digital reminder of how bloody ignorant I, and a fair majority of my friends and relatives were; and that we all had, therefore, to suffer a haunting indignity for many years to come—as we became the brunt of jokes about this small disability which so often, and so cruelly, was pronounced by stand-up comedians and latenight talk-show hosts.

So there, in a nutshell, I lay before you the seeds of our current conundrum. Those elitists—and we know who we are—who have known what time it was and what to do with and about it for decades, now have to contend with the many of those poor folks who never have—and, probably, never will--

<Q>uite—get it.