{"id":111053,"date":"2026-09-06T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/?p=111053"},"modified":"2026-09-20T20:12:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T00:12:40","slug":"the-old-coot-doesnt-follow-instructions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/09\/06\/the-old-coot-doesnt-follow-instructions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Coot doesn\u2019t follow instructions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Merlin Lessler<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For The Pennysaver<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you buy an item that requires assembly, you are going on an adventure. If you are lucky, the instructions will contain words. More often than not, it\u2019s just a series of pictures. I have not assembled anything in this new world of instruction without \u201cun-assembling\u201d it a few times to get it right. And, what happened to screws and nails? I put some bookcases together last year that used fasteners I\u2019d never seen before, taking me longer than I expected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some things today don\u2019t come with any instructions at all. Most appliances seem to be like that, our Samsung range for example. It came with a QR code pasted to the oven door. We couldn\u2019t figure out how to set the clock.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our daughter Alicia, with a chuckle, told us to just scan the QR code. We did. It took us to a website and instructed us to download an App. That\u2019s how you set the clock, not on the range, but on the app. When we go from regular time to daylight savings time, it takes me forever to reset the clock because I can\u2019t remember the name of the App or what it looks like. Multiple scrolls through the sea of Apps on my phone finally gets me there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s called SmartThings, in case you were wondering. I thought Samsung was what I was looking for. It should be called, \u201cInstructions for Dummies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s just the opposite when it comes to automobiles. They come with a thick wad of instructions, often broken down into several booklets. You can\u2019t use your instincts to work the smart screen or sometimes, to start the car, turn on the wipers and lights or shift from park to drive. You\u2019re forced to dig out the manual, something you rarely did until twenty years or so ago. Back then, you could hop into any car and off you went. The controls were easy to find and use. Now, you need a lesson before you dare take off. What\u2019s my point? Nothing! I\u2019m just an old coot complaining about our modern world that continues to become less and less user-friendly.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Merlin Lessler For The Pennysaver When you buy an item that requires assembly, you are going on an adventure. If you are lucky, the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Old Coot doesn\u2019t follow instructions - Owego Pennysaver Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/09\/06\/the-old-coot-doesnt-follow-instructions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Old Coot doesn\u2019t follow instructions - Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Merlin Lessler For The Pennysaver When you buy an item that requires assembly, you are going on an adventure. 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