Denial

The internet had only come to Carlington, MT a year ago. Karl Carlington, great-great-grandson of the town founder figured it was because of all of the fancy celebrities who had been moving into the area. Karl wasn’t all that interested in texts or tweets or pop-up ads. He agreed to have it installed in his house so his grand-kids would visit him from California.

Once high-speed internet was up and running it seemed to Karl that the traffic in town had more than doubled as more and more delivery drivers left packages on doorsteps of crap people just didn’t need.

It was his granddaughter Candi who had sent him the link, encouraging him to purchase the device. Karl wasn’t interested in anything the "gad dern" internet had to offer, but he promised her he would look. There was no harm in looking. The item was the size of a credit card, and claimed to be an actual EKG Monitor. Karl didn’t believe what the website was trying to sell. He knew about EKG monitors. His father had dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight. Because heart disease ran in his family, his doctor insisted on giving Karl a cardiogram every year and the machine in the doctor’s office was a substantial piece of equipment, not a flimsy piece of plastic.

The phone on the kitchen wall rang. Karl didn’t have a mobile phone. He looked at his father’s old Timex that he’d worn on his wrist for the past thirty years. It was too late for anyone to be calling. He picked up the receiver, “Hello?”

“Hey, Grandpa,” Candi’s voice rang out. She was definitely a California girl. Did you get my email with the link?

“Yes, darlin’, I did.”

"Have you ordered it yet?”

“Naw, it doesn’t seem like actual medical equipment.”

“Oh, it’s the real deal, Grandpa. Owen recommends all his patient get one, that is if they don’t have an Apple Watch. He says it’s a real life saver.”

Owen was Candi’s stepfather. He was plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. Karl didn’t think a so called doctor who did breast enhancements and tummy tucks knew the first thing about real medicine.

"Will you at least ask your doctor about it? If he says it’s reliable, will you get one? For me, please.”

Candi was Karl’s Achilles’ Heel. He just could not say no to her. “All right, I’ll check.”

“Thanks Grandpa, I gotta go. I sure wish you would get a smartphone.”

“The phone I have is smart enough.”

“Oh, Grandpa,” giggled Candi and hung up.

The next morning Karl went to the kitchen and called his doctor’s office. Maryanne, the receptionist said she’d have the doctor give him a call back.

“He’s making house calls,” she said. “If you had a mobile phone he could call you right back, but since you don’t, he’ll have to call you when he gets back to the office.”

“That’s fine, it’s nothing important. Just keeping up a promise to my granddaughter.”

Karl’s wall phone range three hours later. Before he could even say hello he heard Dr. Thomas’ voice.” Damnit, Karl, I’m twenty years older than you are, and I have a cellphone. Why are you so stubborn?”

“Guess I don’t see any advantage to all that technology stuff. I guess I’m just set in my ways. I called you because my granddaughter Candi wants me to get one of those itty-bitty heart test things. What do you think about ‘em?”

“Actually, Karl. That is a great idea. With your family history of heart disease, you should have a mobile EKG monitor so you can check on your ticker more than once a year. Tell you what, you order it and when it arrives, Maryanne will go over to your house and show you how it works.”

“Okay, I still have to figure out how get the dag dern thing ordered.”

“I’ll have Maryanne order it for you and bring it with her. I’ll add it to your next bill.”

Reluctantly, Karl agreed. He figured he’d have a couple of weeks before he would have to deal with it.

Two days later, Maryanne called him to say she would be over after work with his EKG monitor to set up.

“Already? How you’d get it so quick?”

“That’s just how the internet works. You’ll see, it will be easy.”

Karl was not convinced. Nothing was ever that easy.

Maryanne arrived at his house around 7:00 p.m. She pulled a small box out of her purse. “Here it is,” she announced holding up the box. “Where is your computer?”

“In the den. Follow me.”

Karl led her to a room that looked frozen in time. Except for the fairly recent laptop (a gift from Candi) the room looked like something from a 1950’s sitcom. The muted brown colors only added to that impression.

Maryann walked over to the tray table that served as a desk and powered up the computer. “What is your password?” she asked.

“One, two, three, four,” he said.

“We’re going to have to come up with a more secure code than that,” she protested. “Pull up a chair next to me, and I’ll show you how to do this.”

Karl watched as she pulled up the website and typed in the model and the serial number. “Put this box in a safe place in case we need this registration information,” she said. "Now we will set up your account.” She typed as Karl gave her the information requested by the online form and hit submit.

“Now we need a user name and password.”

“Can the user name be my name?” he asked.

“Sure, but your password has to be at least four letters, two numbers, and a special character like an exclamation point or dollar sign.”

“How am I supposed to remember all of that?” he snarled

“We’ll write it down. We should also reset your computer’s access password so no one can hack into your laptop.”

They finally decided the site password would be candy18! and his new laptop code would be his father’s birthday: 1029.

She placed the device on the edge of the tray table and spread out her fingers. “Like this," she said.

Karl lifted his hands and spread out his fingers.

“Now, place your thumbs on the pads, right here. This will be your baseline EKG.”

Karl followed her instructions and the monitor displayed the jagged lines of the EKG readings. He could not believe his eyes.

“You should monitor your heart at least once per week or whenever you don’t feel quite right. The results will automatically come to Dr. Thomas’ office.

Fifteen minutes later, Karl showed her out and went to the kitchen to call Candi.

Karl awoke with a start. His heart was racing. He did not know if he’d had a bad dream or if it was his heart. He got up and stumbled to the den. The EKG monitor was on the tray table where Maryanne had left it. He put his thumbs on the device and it made a rapid beeping sound. This had not happened the first time they checked his heart. He knew he had to get the EKG to Dr. Thomas immediately. His computer came to life and asked for his password. 1-2-3-4 he typed.

Denied. Reset your password

1-2-3-4 he typed again.

Denied. Reset your password

“1-2-3-4!” he yelled just before he collapsed.

The telephone on his kitchen wall rang, and rang, and rang. It stopped and rang again.

Soon after the insistent phone finally went silent, the paramedic, sirens blaring, pulled up to Karl’s house. They rushed through the unlocked door, calling out his name. The two found him in a heap on the den’s floor.

One paramedic placed two fingers on Karl’s neck. “He’s gone.”

“Too bad, if he had a cellphone, he could have called 9-1-1.”

The kitchen phone rang again.

“Heck, I don’t know why he came in here. If he just went to the kitchen, he could have called from that antique on the wall.