I Hit Cancel...

That is the punch line to a very funny tech support story I can't seem to find but it's very apt for today... See, sometimes even the smartest people have a tough time with technology.

Today while driving around with my parents there was a mysterious beep coming from the back seat.

I asked what it was and my step father (who's a very tech savvy kinda guy) told me that it was his cell phone informing him that he had a voicemail, but unfortunately he had no idea how to retrieve it while roaming. Seeing as we both use the same cellular service I told him how to manually retrieve voicemail.

Me: "Dial your own phone number and when you hear your outgoing message hit the pound key and then enter your password."

Beepitty beep beep

Him: "Hmm. All I got was our regular voicemail message at the house."
Me: "You called the house? In Michigan? Why?"
Him: "Well you said to dial my phone number and..."
Me: "Your cell phone number, dial your own cell phone number."
Him: (laughs) "Oh right, well that makes perfect sense."
Me: "And when you hear your message, hit the pound key"

Beepitty beep beep

Me: (I can hear his message loud and clear) "Now! Hit the pound key now!"
Him: (hits pound key and listens) "Oh, okay I get it."
Me: "Now enter your password"
Him: (laughs heartily) "I have no idea what it is! Oh wait, maybe I do. How do you get letters from numbers on this thing?"
Me: "Well 1 is A,B and C, no wait that's not right. It's 2 that's A, B and C then it goes... Uh... Wait, no it's... I can't do this and drive at the same time!"

We still have not figured out the password! This could take days my friends.

update: what follows is the tech support joke I was referring to above.
courtesy of the missus

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TECH SUPPORT JOKE #287
I had this conversation recently with a lady who swore she had been using computers since forever.

* Tech Support: "All right. Now click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
* Tech Support: "Yes, click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
* Tech Support: "That's right. Click 'OK'."
* Customer: "So I click 'OK', right?"
* Tech Support: "Right. Click 'OK'."

Pause.

* Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
* Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
* Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Oh."
* Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
* Customer: "Why?"
* Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
* Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
* Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
* Customer: "Ok."

I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.

* Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
* Customer: "Yes."
* Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."

Pause.

* Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."