When I go to the grocery store with my 90-year-old mother, I always make her put her cart ahead of me in line so I don't watch strangers get exasperated with her as she counts out her money. (I get exasperated with her but try to be nice about it. Succeed half the time.)

Anyway, when she senses the frustration around her, she says: "Just wait until you're 90!"

I had a "just wait until you're 56!" moment yesterday at a computer store. A 20something salesperson, technologically good, was impatient with my analog brain style. He wandered off, as I struggled with a few things on the computer, to help his fellow workers. I finally confronted him and said I needed his full attention and if he couldn't give it to me, he needed to find someone else who could.

He got with the program right away and the rest of the time went well. Gina Boysun, one of our wonderful Web people here, said computer stores need to hire "senior whisperers" -- digital brain staffers who are patient and kind to analog brains like me.

Good point Gina. By the way, she's got the whisperer touch.

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