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You have a 'simple question'? Well, the answer is NO

Old man, take a look at my wife

Something for the Weekend, Sir? Old Man by Neil Young

I am accosted in a shop by an aged gentleman with a posh accent, impeccable manners and a dripping nose.

“Excuse me, I have a simple question.”

Confession: I am in a suburban Apple Store so you may be inclined to think I deserve whatever I get simply for being there. In my defence, let me assure you I had entered the premises for a valid reason. I needed to buy yet another adapter for yet another Apple product whose hardware port design yet again has remained consistent and compatible across the industry for a period roughly equivalent to half the time it takes for a gnat to fart.

“Excuse me, I have a simple question.”

Tense. My fingernails press into my palms, drawing blood. I grind my teeth. I curl my toes. I clench my buttocks. (Better safe than sorry.)

You see, I have been wary of being accosted in public places by older men since, in my mid-20s and innocently visiting a church, I was approached near the 14th century font by a fat, sweaty man who claimed he wanted to “talk” to me. Behind pebble glasses, his podgy face was a picture of moist desperation. The front of his shirt was stained and insufficiently tucked into the front of his trousers, revealing a pendulous portion of hairy belly. His hands were rubbing his pockets. His flies were undone.

It’s not a good look.

Taking a step to position myself on the opposite side of the font – there’s nothing like a solid chunk of chiselled medieval rock to keep strange men at a safe distance – I replied along the lines of not wanting to hear what he had to say and that I was married. My eyes darted around the church but I couldn’t locate my wife in case I needed to present some proof.

“Puh-leeease!” he strained, rubbing those pockets with increasing freneticism and shuffling around the font to get closer. I shuffled around the font to get further away.

We continued to shuffle in a circle around the font for a few awkward moments until I noticed a man in long, black clerical gear further down the aisle. I pointed across the room and, in a voice louder than necessary, assured Mr Puh-lease that the vicar would love to talk to him. Finally spotting my wife, I grabbed her by her elbow and muttered “letsgoletsgoletsgo” as we quick-marched towards the exit and freedom.

Hopefully the vicar – or it may have been a goth, I didn’t stop to check – was more able than I was to provide an adequate range topics to discuss for this gentleman who was so sorely in need of conversation.

“Excuse me, I have a simple question.”

Oh, why do these people always come up to me? Here I am in a cacophonous Apple Store packed with punters dicking around with the greasy demo units. I do not sport any Apple branding. I do not carry a handheld till machine. I’m not even wearing a blue t-shirt. And yet here’s Methuselah-Man stumbling his way right up to me and issuing demands.

I have mentioned before in this column the raw animal attraction I exude to lost train passengers wanting information. Sometimes they form an orderly queue to consult me on departure timetables and platform numbers.

My conclusion is that I possibly look the least threatening person in the vicinity and therefore least likely to pull a flick-knife when asked if the current service stops at Petts Wood. All I can say is that any nearby Network Rail staff must be copiously armed with anti-passenger weaponry. Ah well, what can you do? I suppose I could give the old geezer some assistance.

No, hang on, I made a promise ages ago to stop submitting myself to the regular indignity of acting as an unpaid and thoroughly unqualified supplier of technical support to the immediate locality. Unfortunately, events took their inevitable course and the kindly neighbour baffled by his nephew’s gift of an iPad has since died while awaiting my visit to help him press the ON button, leaving said tablet untouched in its dusty, tear-stained shrinkwrap. Now I have guilt.

For this reason, I acceded to help another neighbour get her printer working. Besides, it was one of those “it used to work but doesn’t any more” type of problems, which usually means they – or more often, a younger family member – have done something ridiculous. When did it stop working? Oh really, just after your son came to visit? I see, well, I’ll come and take a look this evening.

Her grown-up son had, for reasons only known to himself, duplicated the printer driver 17 times, ensured that none of the copies worked and chose to make one of them the default. Re-assign the default, delete the copies, printer goes whirr-whirr and I’m out of the house with peals of gratitude ringing in my ears, all within 90 seconds. Where’s the effort in that? Although I’ve never met this old guy standing in front of me in the Apple Store, let’s give him a break.

“Excuse me, I have a simple question.”

Oh yes, the questions always are. I hear this phrase frequently at work and it never fails to irritate me that people assume that simple questions must by definition conjure simple answers. “What is the sum of 2 + 2?” is a simple question. So is “What is the capital city of Suriname?”, or indeed “How do atoms stick together?”, “Where does the ocean go?” and “What is the meaning of life?”

I had one just the other day at the end of a introductory Adobe training course. As the delegates filed out after two days of discovering the basics of typing text into columns, one stopped at the door and, claiming to have a quick question, blurted out: “How do I publish a book?”

Allow me to introduce you to my friends at How To Do It, who will show you how to play the flute, split an atom, construct a box-girder bridge, irrigate the Sahara desert and rid the world of all known diseases.

Monty Python – How To Do It sketch

Besides, this little old man looks approximately 103. What could he possibly ask? Sure, grandpa, what do you want to know?

“I don’t know anything about computers,” he begins, predictably enough.

I don’t know why they even bother saying this any more. They may as well have it forged into a medal and wear it on their lapels. I must try the technique some time. I should walk into a record shop and say “I don’t know anything about music”, waltz into a furniture shop and claim that I am not familiar with the concept of “sitting down” or demand to speak to the sales manager at a car showroom and tell him that I don’t know how to drive.

He points at an iPad. “Is this a computer?” Close enough, yes. Was that the question? Hey, I could work on the Genius Bar, me.

“No. Could you call up Street View and show me the Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre in Avilés, Spain?”

Intrigued, I comply. Five minutes later, I have shown him how to operate the pop-up keyboard and switch between browser tabs and leave him to it. A quarter of an hour later, as I leave the shop, he is still hobbling the virtual pavements of the Spanish north coast.

Thanks to me, if his grandson buys him a tablet for Christmas, he won’t be an utter pain in the arse about it to his younger, cleverer, more handsome and, ahem, virile neighbours. Nor will he necessarily have to wait so long for these busy neighbours to turn up and show him how it works that he will die in the meantime.

With karma restored and my single good deed of the year duly delivered – also, another entire year gone by without once being tempted to visit Google+ – I wish you the best for the remainder of Saturnalia and will hopefully meet you here again on the first weekend in 2015. ®

Alistair Dabbs
Alistair Dabbs a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. He would like to know if anyone has need for a box full of port adapters that were purchased to compensate for Apple’s fast-lane policy of enforced obsolescence but have now themselves also become obsolete. He has discovered that adapters hooked up to adapters that have been plugged into adapters do not seem to work. He has also promised to file his copy on time in 2015 and Vulture Central's backroom gremlins are making a permanent record of that fact here forevermore.

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