I have always considered myself to be a complete techno-dope. Most forms of electronic technology just plain baffle me.

I never figured out how to program my VCR and other than knowing how to play a movie, my DVD player is a mystery to me.

I panic when there is a power outage and the twice-a-year time change, because all the clocks on the vast assortment of electronic gadgetry around the house have to be reset. I gave up on the digital clock in my car and spend half of the year knowing that I am either an hour ahead or an hour behind.

My computer mocks me on a daily basis with things it does and sometimes doesn’t do. I do know how to turn it on and access my email, the Internet and word processing program. I don’t know how to utilize any of those programs to their full capabilities. If my computer freezes with an error message, I freeze with fear.

With all the new devices that have flooded the electronic market I have upgraded my status from techno-dope to electronic idiot. The only comfort I take in this is that my husband is an electronic imbecile.

Henry has always turned to me to explain how electronic things work, as if I actually knew. He has so little understanding that he accepts whatever convoluted explanation I give him.

Years ago when the office where I worked got a fax machine, Henry asked me how it worked. I patiently explained it this way: Well, if I put a letter through the fax machine to send to another fax machine, all the letters are reduced to microscopic size and go tumbling through the telephone line to reassemble themselves on the receiving fax machine.

He thought that explanation was pretty far-fetched but having no knowledge to dispute it he had to accept it. When email came around Henry asked me how that worked and I gave him the same tumbling letter explanation but added that it was much faster than a fax machine.

The other day Henry was reading a magazine and saw an advertisement saying that you could subscribe to an “app” for the magazine.

“What’s an app?” he asked.

“Well, it’s an abbreviation for appliance or application,” I said.

He rolled his eyes and said he knew that, but wanted to know what it meant in relation to the magazine ad.

“‘Well,” I explained, ”you can get an app installed on your cellphone and then you can read the magazine on your phone.”

“Why don’t we do that with our cellphone?” he asked.

“Well, our cellphone is a bare-bones cellphone which isn’t apt to do anything but allow us to make calls. It definitely isn’t apt to allow apps,” I said.

“Is this the same tumbling letter theory?” Henry said. “And does that mean that when my Social Security check gets automatically deposited into our account that the dollars are reduced to microscopic size and go tumbling through the telephone lines too?”

“Now you get it,” I responded.

That conversation died a natural death, and Henry and I both agreed that neither of us has a clue about any of this electronic stuff and we are no worse off for it.

The way we see it, all of these new electronic advancements are probably good and even if we don’t understand any of it we still benefit to some degree. However, I would still like to have a better understanding than I do and well … I’m willing to bet that there is a app for that, too.