I’m on an unintended diet. I can’t order a thing until I figure out QR codes, cash apps and all the other modern conveniences that get in the way of getting things done.

Yes, I’m a dinosaur from another era. I think I know why those first dinosaurs went extinct — some critter came up with a technologically advanced way to order prey, and the old guys, not able to figure it out, starved to death.

I’m in danger of becoming an old fossil myself.

I remember my first run-in with this code beast. It was a few years ago, and I’d been sent to a hip and happening bistro in a college town. I pulled out a chair and waited for a menu.

“Oh, you don’t need me to bring you one,” said the server (what a word for a guy who won’t serve me a menu). “Just scan the QR code on the table.”

I spotted the square block that looked like a crossword puzzle caught in a twister. I squinted at it. I moved to another side of the table. I shook the table.

“Nothing’s happening,” I said.

“You scan it with your phone.”

“Say what?”

“Aim your camera over the code, click and the menu will appear.”

I did. It didn’t.

The server rumbled over to the table, snatched my phone and said, “Like this.” He aimed. He wiggled the phone. He swished it back and forth.

“Huh,” he said. “It doesn’t work.”

“It’s an old phone, a dinosaur,” I said. “I’m even older. We both predate QR codes. Don’t you have a real menu?”

He handed me my phone. “Just Google us on your browser. The menu’s on the website.”

“Seriously? No menus? How about a scrap of paper with hints of entrees? A chalkboard with today’s specials? A napkin with a soup stain?” I sighed. “OK, OK, what’s a Google?”

A couple years later, a young punk kid leading a class I needed to take said, “For the lesson, just click on the QR code in the handout.”

“I need a textbook,” I said. “I can’t do QR codes.”

“Of course, you can,” he retorted. “All phones read QR codes.”

I slid mine toward him. “Knock yourself out.”

A couple minutes and a dozen mumbled words later, he accepted defeat.

“So, about the textbook,” I said.

“Just call up this website. You can download it from there.”

I groaned. “So, books are going extinct like menus — and dinosaurs?”

Since those times, I’ve acquired a new phone — one with all that new-fangled gunk, like barcode readers.

When I ended up at a hip and happening cafe the other day, I recognized the QR thingy on the corner of the table at once. I scanned it with my phone, and ka-boom, a menu appeared on my screen.

“I’m no longer a T-rex,” I thought. “I’ve got this.”

I clicked on my choice. And backed out because the button is really sensitive. I’d accidentally ordered two meals. I started over. After only two more tries, or was it three, I had my order set.

I hit the “checkout” button. My only option was one particular cash app option that I don’t have. That I’ve never wanted. But if I was going to eat, I was first going to have to figure out how to create an account, a process that should take no more than three hours, plus remembering my first pet’s name and my mother’s high school.

I had $50 in cash in my pocket, but real live money was no good there.

I left the cafe, hungry, frustrated and in danger of taking on a new career as a fossil.

I miss the days when big, clunky phones stayed attached to the wall and did nothing but let you talk to another person — if someone else wasn’t already using the party line.

I miss the days when a person handed out menus, wrote down your orders and not only accepted your cash, but brought back change.

Because I’m a dinosaur. On an unintended diet.

Send Cole QR codes at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.