Living with the internet

I’ve been away for quite some time: It’s been four months since you last heard from me. Well, I’ve been very busy at night and some hours in the day searching Google and viewing YouTube stuff. I’ve learned how to cut short hair, how to apply makeup on the elderly, how to discourage roaches from moving in with you, and so much more information to help attain a better quality of life. The current technology is unbelievable and still a work in progress, but right now I’m quite amazed at how garlic heads can be peeled instantly just by giving them a good shake in a plastic container.

Mostly I’ve enjoyed reading stories on the royals of England and on how Queen Elizabeth is supposedly not the true heir to the English throne but one Michael Edward Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun, deceased since June 2012. Should his heirs change their mind and come out of obscurity, the Queen might have to chop off a few heads to keep her crown.

I’ve learned how to make easy, delicious Filipino recipes. But I have no intention of trying them out because going for a bite downstairs is the most convenient thing for me although I enjoyed watching those cooking shows. So many items I never heard of are there to be seen with just one click, like anti-aging drinks, losing-weight drinks, slimming drinks… you name it.

Best of all are the true crime stories of husbands bashing their wives, and wives and lovers doing the husbands in. I read about an almost perfect crime: Two fishermen who couldn’t catch anything in shallow waters went farther out to sea and trawled in a well-preserved body of a gentleman wearing a Rolex watch. I learned that a Rolex watch stops in 48 hours, thereby establishing when the gentleman was dropped into the icy waters, and that every Rolex watch has a serial
number, so it can be known where the watch was sold and to whom.

Yes, I got really busy, but because of all the reading and viewing to entertain myself I now want to write an eBook on how to enjoy living alone as a senior citizen without a man in her life. She has to build a strong friendship with the men employed in her building—the technical supervisor, the plumber, and the janitors who she can call upon to fix a leaky faucet or to run downstairs to buy her some groceries as well as get on a ladder to give her ceiling fan a thorough clean-up job.

Today, an elderly person has the possibility of becoming a millionaire through all kinds of information on the Net. You could even learn how to sell eBooks and other products online without leaving your chair. Gone forever is the image of an old lady at 50, sitting by her window and watching the world go by, or rocking away in a chair and thinking of things that could have been, or counting the hours till God calls.

One could dream of being a writer with many topics to write about—for example, how to tell if the handsome American in the photo based in Syria on a peacekeeping mission is not really a Nigerian scammer whose bad English peppered with yeah, yeah, yo! gives him away. Scammers like these usually prey on the elderly lady—presumably to their tiny minds, a lonely widow who seeks the attention of a caring man.

This is now a very exciting world we live in, and even the very old can enjoy being old. Don’t I always say that this is the best time of my life, living a trouble-free and easy life, with almost everything available at the click of a mouse?

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Shirley Wilson de las Alas, almost 80, says: “I live a very busy life within the confines of my small apartment. I often wonder where the time goes as I wake up in the morning to draw the blinds open and in a few hours I have to draw them closed again for it is night, and I just don’t know where the day went because I was glued to my phone on YouTube or Facebook. I feel lucky that I grew old with the internet.”