A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY FROM CHICAGO.(Editorials)

Byline: INEZ RUSSELL

Anyone who wants to make fun of presidential candidate John McCain over his technology challenges will have to go through me.

Here's a man who wants to be leader of the free world -- the modern free world, no less. Yet, he doesn't know how to use the Internet or access e-mail. He's completely out of touch with the world as it is today.

That matters because a modern leader must understand the world's instantaneous communications, the reality that numerous video and audio tapes can catch a person in a lie, not to mention the interactive back-and-forth between citizens and officials like never before.

Me, I feel for John McCain. Like him, the modern world often passes me by. I use a computer for work, of course, but really do little more than type. I love reading blogs, news reports online and keep in touch with friends through e-mail and -- daringly, for me -- a Facebook account.

But I'm not comfortable with all this flitting around, this technology on the go. Just how uncomfortable it makes me, I found out last weekend.

Picture a busy airport. Me, my (too-heavy) laptop in hand, waiting for a plane to bring me home from a Chicago convention to my life in New Mexico. I decided it was time to learn how to use the wireless connection in the airport. Don't laugh. I know it's not that hard, but I'd never hooked up by myself. It was time to move forward.

I sat down, plugged in my computer and started clicking buttons. The concourse model showed up. I clicked, I concentrated. I had to pay -- in Chicago, free wireless is hard to find. Eventually, after much clicking and much concentration, I succeeded in entering the Boingo world of wireless for only $6.95 for 24 hours.

The world unfolded. I read my newspapers, checked my e-mail, did some work, happy that I was technologically savvy. Success was mine.

Eventually, I looked up. I realized my computer clock said noon. I wondered why my plane hadn't been called. My phone said 1 p.m. I really wondered why my plane hadn't been called, since we were leaving at 11:50 a.m.

Panicked, I packed up the now-truly heavy laptop and ran to the Southwest counter. Why hadn't they called the plane to Albuquerque? I was less than 10 feet from the gate. Surely I would have heard the boarding call.

The Southwest representative couldn't have been nicer. No, it wasn't noon. It really was 1 p.m. My plane had been gone an hour. They had paged me, even, and in my focus on going online, I missed the boarding call, the second call and my individual page.

To add insult to injury, my phone dinged. A friend who made the plane I missed was texting, asking where I was. More technology. More modernity.

None of which mattered at that moment. I had broken through my technological failings, only to zone out and miss my ride home.

Luckily, there was a seat on a later flight. I got my boarding pass, moved to the next terminal, and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more.

Technology, it seems, is no match for Mother Nature. A storm in the East delayed my 5:15 p.m. flight. Twelve hours after arriving -- early -- to the airport, I was still sitting and waiting. Finally, around 9:30 p.m., a tired band of passengers and I boarded our plane to come home. By the time I drove into Santa Fe, it was Monday.

For the duration, at least, I had the Internet to keep me company. But technology was no match for the book I read all the way home.

As for John McCain, getting older is no excuse to be set in your ways. The world has changed and we -- including our leaders -- must change with it. Still, I won't be making fun of his technological shortcomings. I'll just concentrate on overcoming my own.

Inez Russell can be reached at inezrussell@msn.com.