I remember as a kid marveling at just how my parents (may they rest in peace) were able to deal with new things. They had survived and somehow even thrived, from the Roaring ’20s through the Depression as children, through a bunch of wars, suburbanization, automated household appliances, manned space flight, night baseball, a moon landing, rock ‘n’ roll and more.

Today, friends, I find myself marveling at how un-able I have become to deal with new things. Granted, things seem to be changing a whole lot faster now than they did during my folks’ lifetime. And that’s due to all the advances in technology that have quickly made our mobile phones our everything — our cameras, calendars, social connections, entertainment, work tools and more. We’ve lived to see cars that can control our speed, our distances from the cars around us, and nudge us back into our lanes when we drift. We’ve seen rovers land on Mars, Pluto demoted from being a planet and pictures of the inside of black hole millions of light years away.

I get all that — aside, as most of you know, from getting a handle on the phone.

So why, then, does the mere act of trying to watch television cause so much pain?

Think about that. When us getting old folks first started watching TV, it was likely on a 13-inch, black-and-white television built into a console that also had a turntable and speakers built in. And that’s if you had money. In my house growing up, the set was on a rolling cart, with a shelf below to hold the TV Guide. And, there were these channels — 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 (not counting VHF, or UHF, I can’t remember which is which, and which you could only get late at night with tin foil on the rabbit ears.) You knew that “Hogan’s Heroes” aired on Channel 2 at 8:30 on Friday nights. And that “The Rockford Files” followed it at 9 p.m.

Nothing too complicated about that.

Now, when we gather with friends, often the first question is, “What are you watching?” There is indeed a tremendous amount of high-quality programming being made. Finding it, though, is the rub,

“You should watch ‘Yellowstone,’ ” one urges. “It’s about this Montana rancher who has to fight to defend his land. It’s got Kevin Costner. You’d love it!”

“Sounds good,” I reply. “What’s it on?”

“Netflix, I think. No, wait, maybe it’s hulu.” (I actually found it on AppleTV, but S1E1 was 92 minutes long and cost $3.99 to watch, so … no.)

“What channel is hulu?” I ask.

“You know.. it’s an app. It’s on your phone.”

“So I have to watch it on my phone?”

“Well, you could, but you could also cast it to your TV, or maybe your TV has the app built in.”

“Cast it to my TV.. What kind of bait should I use?” Groans.

My kids, though, are expert TV viewers. So good, in fact, that we now have the AppleTV, as well as Netflix, Disney+ (with ESPN+ and hulu), Paramount+, MSG Go and HBO Max — at last count. So, I’m paying for cable TV, the deluxe movie package, the full sports package, and at least six streaming services — half of which I can’t find. I’ll ask the kids, “What are you watching?” and they’ll say something like “The Office.” And I’ll say, “Oh, is that in reruns?” And they’ll say, “It’s on demand. We can watch it whenever we want.” “Yeah, but what channel is it on?” “We told you,” they say. “It’s on demand.”

I wanted to demand that they tell me what channel it’s on but thought better of it. It started to feel like a not-funny Abbott and Costello routine. To me, “on demand” takes away the anticipation that builds up waiting a week for the next episode. (On the upside, you don’t have to wait a week for the next episode.)

I’ve given it a shot. I recently took a free month’s trial of AppleTV to watch “Ted Lasso” (highly recommend), and watched two full seasons in four days — allowing me to cancel the trial without incurring any cost. Pretty slick, eh?

Anyway, I’m sticking to the old folks’ standbys — Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. But even that makes me crazy. To win the big “Wheel” prize, you have to choose between a person, a thing or a phrase. Spoiler alert: the answers are actually none of those things.

On vacation recently, while lounging at the beach, a hotel server came by with this question: “Cold towel with mint?”

Cold towel with mint. “Does it come in other flavors?” I asked. More groans, proving once again that only Dads are amused by Dad jokes.

But we thought about it for moment and realized, that could be the big cash-money phrase on “Wheel.” (One of the truly maddening things about ‘Wheel’ is when the answer is so obvious but the person still gets it wrong.”I’d like to solve… Cold.. towel.. with… lint.” ARRRGH! Didn’t you see the L was already used, you *!@# moron!??? Get off my set!)

The next day at breakfast, we saw a black bird nibbling on a piece of fish someone had left on their plate from the breakfast buffet. “Look!” one of my daughters said. “Crow eating lox. That could also be a phrase.”

“It could,” I agreed. “But I think it’s actually a lipstick color.”

Brain dump complete.