Alexa, please try to help this guy get with it

Among the challenges I’ve basically given up is keeping current with technology. Now I’m just trying to not fall so far behind it that young people snicker at me.

One way to determine whether you’re “with it” today is by the number of screens in your home. Currently, we have 14 — televisions, computers, pads and phones — which makes us feel that wemay be with it. On the other hand, we don’t fully understand how to operate most of them, so maybe we’re without it.

Our newest screen is an Amazon Echo Show 8, which performs a lot of the functions Siri has been doing for years, except instead of saying “Hey, Siri,” you start by saying “Alexa.” She will not respond to Alexis, Alice or Excedrin.

I’m not sure why my wife bought the device, but a recent USA Today article about Alexa listed “20 ways she can make your life easier.” You can, for instance, “call the entire family for dinner without ever leaving the kitchen.” I can’t see how that would make my life easier, since the entire family in our house consists of the two of us. Even when we had a lot of kids at home, most of the time they already were in the kitchen demanding to know when we were going to feed them.

Another way, the article said, was that you could ask it to give quotes from movies, “if you’re curious to hear what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator sounds like in Alexa’s voice.” I can’t think of anything about which I’ve ever been less curious.

“It’ll be fun,” my wife insisted. “For one thing, you can ask it to play a favorite song. Alexa, play ‘It’s aWonderfulWorld.’” The song by Louis Armstrong began to play, with the lyrics on the screen. When it was finished, she urged me to try it.

“Alexa,” I said, “play Luciano Pavarotti’s aria, ‘Ah! mes ami.’”

“He’s on Me,” by NhexUS & Welkome, a song I’d never heard of by some people who sounded nothing like Luciano Pavarotti, began to play.

Maybe, I decided, I needed to be more specific.

“Alexa, play Luciano Pavarotti’s ‘Ah! mes ami’ from the opera “La fille du regiment.’”

“Sorry,” Alexa replied, “I didn’t get that.”

Perhaps, I told myself, Alexa doesn’t speak French.

“Alexa,’ I tried again in my best English, play Luciano Pavarotti’s arias list.”

To which Alexa’s response on the screen was (and I’m not making this up), “Bananas, tuna, waffles.” Instead of getting Pavarotti’s aria list, apparently I got his grocery shopping list.

I can’t tell if any of this means I’m “with it” or “without it.” Maybe it just means I should forget all about it.