The problem with blue and pink jobs

I heard a story recently about a lady whose husband had died.  After his death she continued to do her shopping as she had always done using her store credit card.  Unfortunately, she got into a bit of a mess with this as her husband had always dealt with paying off the credit card and she did not realise she needed to do anything or how to do it.

Easy to mock but for the most part these days a quick wave of my phone pays for the bulk of my purchases and where I do use a credit card either via my phone, it being registered to a particular site or actually get the plastic out, then the bill gets paid out from my bank account each month.  It is, therefore, unlikely I would have been caught out by this particular situation but I can see how it could happen especially at such a difficult time. 

We had something not too far removed on both sides a few years back.  The first was when my Dad was in hospital for a couple of weeks and we discovered a few everyday things that Mum wasn’t sure about and needed some assistance with.  Amongst these were that she had not put petrol in the car since the 1980s and needed to be shown how to use a petrol pump.  Also she did not know what she was supposed to do with a Tesco Clubcard.  I did say “everyday” didn’t I?  

A few months later my FiL died suddenly and we were absolutely floored to discover that my MiL was not at all confident about using her debit card in the supermarket, getting cash out of a cashpoint and had no idea about contactless.  Now my MiL has long been able to shop for England but on her iPad sitting on the sofa not, seemingly, in store.

Whilst, at that time, both were in their early 70s and had been retired for quite a while they had successfully held down responsible, demanding, professional careers for decades whilst they were at work.  In the case of my MiL she was also pretty tech savvy, Mum a little less so.  These tasks, however, were always carried out by their husbands and they just did not have direct experience of them. 

Now chez NQET I am fully away that if anything were to happen to S I have no hope of taking over car maintenance, just sorting the garage will require some outside assistance and the fleet, if in its current extent, will need some fairly swift rationalisation.  Preferably whilst maintaining a tow bar for long enough to make and execute decisions as regards the sailing dinghies at both the Sailing Club and the MiLs.  It also came to light very recently that I would not be able to cut the grass either.  Our mower, much like S’s motorbike (the only one we still have other than a Vespa), is too big and too heavy for me to manage.  I have no idea how S manages to get his prized stripes with it but I do know I will not be getting them with the Flymo I would  have to invest in.

Overall I suspect he would cope better than I would.  He might wander around more creased than he presently does and obviously my vegetable garden will be dismantled and lawn seeded in quick order.  The household bills might take some grappling with and he may struggle with my filing system, which he has been complaining about for years since the one occasion he decided to personally look for something.   Vespa registration document as it happens.  He looked under V for Vespa, M for moped then gave up despite it being obvious that it would be under S for Scooter.  

Having given a little thought to it I reckon the areas where I am likely to slip up are:

• MoT due dates.  Obviously a blue job.  I know there is a website but my first port of call will be paper.
• The Netflix account is his.  How do you get one?  Would I bother anyway I got confused when Emily had a back drop of Rome.
• Would the printer behave better when he’s not fiddling with it or my Mac when it is not being asked to do design projects?
• Do I have all the house smart devices on my phone as well as them being on his?  
• How do you stream YouTube on to the TV?

Clearly in the absence of live-in Tech support I will be watching a lot of ‘How to’ YouTube videos and ChatGPT may become my best friend or, at least, my number 1 go to for advice (though ChatGPT has given me some highly questionable (ie incorrect) advice on a few occasions to date). 

All in all I’m finding I have a high degree of new found respect for those who live alone and something of a niggle that I might struggle with a few tasks that others might consider simple should I ever find myself in that position.