Parents just don't understand. Will
Smith said it, and it might have been one of the few things that
fuck-face ever said correctly. I am not talking about hormones; the
fact that you are almost certainly cooler than your friends, listen
to way better music and use way better words. It's chill that they
don't though , because your parents are way different than you.
Truth!
There isn't a problem with our
mother's computers that we shouldn't be able to solve. For the last,
what feels like several, years I have been solving my mothers
computer, and phone, problems. It's troubleshooting, with more
trouble than shooting.
But the fact that my mother needn't,
or can't, waste her time on a computer as she doesn't understand them
doesn't mean she is hopeless or pathetic. Time has not passed her by,
I mean with technology it definitely has, but with anything
meaningful- not even close.
Technology is something meaningful,
like really. It has enhanced our lives in ways anyone who is able to
access this blog already knows about. And at some point this
enhancement, this making shit easier might mean we literally cannot
live without it. More than just, it sucks super dick the internet
went down again.
My point then. My mother, your mother,
everyones mother is a Liam Neeson, with a very specific set of
skills. Mainly aimed at staying alive, living fruitfully and frugally
as possible and getting the most of everything. Our specific set of
skills? Reading and recognising spam and scam email, accessing a
plethora of bullshit cat pictures and videos people falling down and
getting into comment wars on the real use of medical steroids.
Then why my anger whenever my mother
calls asking how to access her email? Because it is simple to me, it
is something I (and pretty much all of you) have done thousands of
times. And it is frustrating beyond belief to attempt an audio-only
explanation of something so familiar to someone so unfamiliar.
Then again, why no anger when I phone
her in a real predicament like getting nicotine gum out of pubic hair
or boiling a slab of corned beef? The easy answer would be that my
mother loves me more than I love her and, as such, is more patient
with me.
But it is more than that. If she
forgets her email password or the steps to recovering it, too bad,
she goes without email for a few weeks. You know what can't wait a
couple of weeks? Nicotine gum in pubic hair or a raw slab of corned
beef. And anyone who sends an email is contactable by some other
means. A rotary phone or, at least a telegram will suffice to relay
information, banks still have branches, pizzas can still be ordered
and news can still be read in paper form.
And yes, to the cynics out there, we
can figure out our laundry, recipes and the best uses of bleach
through the same technology our parents curse. But it is, and always
will be, the way some asshole does it; it will never be like mama
used to do.
So my thesis goes; if your mother
phones you with some strange internet quandry, don't be angry or
frustrated, be proud. Proud that you are feeding back into a well of
wisdom that you will draw from more often, like the next time you
need to get blood out of underpants. That is a boss thing to know,
and your mother already does.
NP.
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