A Real-Live Case of Technology Palsy

I always knew that my mother was technologically-inept, but I didn't realize how bad it was until today. She came over to clear our garage of all the unsold kitsch and bric-a-brac from the garage sale. She cleared exactly one small tub before the red-necked angel wandered over from across the street and promptly unloaded all his real estate woes. Of course, this prompted my mother to mount her crusade pony, and she then spent the next ninety minutes trying to send photos of her property to her realtor. Ninety minutes trying to upload and email photos. It's a task every toddler with an opposable thumb has mastered by the time they're potty-trained, but my mother couldn't do it. Holy God, but I don't know how she wipes herself. She's had a laptop for seven or eight years and Internet access since 1993, and yet, she couldn't perform the simplest task. She had no idea how to conduct a simple Web search. She kept typing the URLs into the Google search field instead of the browser's address bar, couldn't right-click-save, copy, or paste. She couldn't upload images to an Imageshack account because she didn't understand what "Click Browse" meant.

To make matters worse, her laptop is an antique, and her browser was a prehistoric version of IE, and so nothing was loading properly. Broken links, dead images, and inoperable user interfaces galore. There was no antivirus or ad-blocking software installed, and yet, she cheerfully informed me that she banks on it. Over an unencrypted Wifi connection at the Huddle House. Christ God Almighty, I don't even order from Amazon over an unwired connection, and there she is paying bills and administering a sizeable trust(No, not mine, thank God). When Czech scammers clean her out, I'll know why.

This same woman owns a 3G Kindle with keyboard and spent half an hour trying to convince me I wanted one for my birthday. I'll admit it was nifty to have the Kindle read aloud as I lay in bed, if for no other reason than to hear its hilarious mispronunciations of the text. "Pssst!" came out, "Pee Ess Ess Ess Ess Tee" and cabernet sauvignon was so mangled that I would have thought it Martian had I not been able to read the text. I'm not sure that the entertainment value in mocking the text reader justifies the expense, however. I asked for a new seat back instead since I've needed a new once since before New York, and she said she'd order it, but three seconds later, she went back to yammering rhapsodically about the wonders of the Kindle, so I'm not holding my breath that she'll ever place the order. Then she offered to buy me a new television. I don't need a new television.

Since she was feeling so generous, I aimed high and asked for an IPad.

"Aren't they expensive?"

"Five hundred dollars."

"Yeah. No."

It was worth a try.

Between whiteknighting for the red-necked angel, bungling a photo transfer, and shilling for the Kindle, the garage never got cleared. So, they're coming back later today to try again. Joy. But my mother swears that she'll be moving back to Florida by the weekend, so if I can just grin and bear it, I might get the best birthday present ever: the sight of my mother's van waddling toward the interstate and out of my life.

A Real-Live Case of Technology Palsy

I always knew that my mother was technologically-inept, but I didn't realize how bad it was until today. She came over to clear our garage of all the unsold kitsch and bric-a-brac from the garage sale. She cleared exactly one small tub before the red-necked angel wandered over from across the street and promptly unloaded all his real estate woes. Of course, this prompted my mother to mount her crusade pony, and she then spent the next ninety minutes trying to send photos of her property to her realtor. Ninety minutes trying to upload and email photos. It's a task every toddler with an opposable thumb has mastered by the time they're potty-trained, but my mother couldn't do it. Holy God, but I don't know how she wipes herself. She's had a laptop for seven or eight years and Internet access since 1993, and yet, she couldn't perform the simplest task. She had no idea how to conduct a simple Web search. She kept typing the URLs into the Google search field instead of the browser's address bar, couldn't right-click-save, copy, or paste. She couldn't upload images to an Imageshack account because she didn't understand what "Click Browse" meant.

To make matters worse, her laptop is an antique, and her browser was a prehistoric version of IE, and so nothing was loading properly. Broken links, dead images, and inoperable user interfaces galore. There was no antivirus or ad-blocking software installed, and yet, she cheerfully informed me that she banks on it. Over an unencrypted Wifi connection at the Huddle House. Christ God Almighty, I don't even order from Amazon over an unwired connection, and there she is paying bills and administering a sizeable trust(No, not mine, thank God). When Czech scammers clean her out, I'll know why.

This same woman owns a 3G Kindle with keyboard and spent half an hour trying to convince me I wanted one for my birthday. I'll admit it was nifty to have the Kindle read aloud as I lay in bed, if for no other reason than to hear its hilarious mispronunciations of the text. "Pssst!" came out, "Pee Ess Ess Ess Ess Tee" and cabernet sauvignon was so mangled that I would have thought it Martian had I not been able to read the text. I'm not sure that the entertainment value in mocking the text reader justifies the expense, however. I asked for a new seat back instead since I've needed a new once since before New York, and she said she'd order it, but three seconds later, she went back to yammering rhapsodically about the wonders of the Kindle, so I'm not holding my breath that she'll ever place the order. Then she offered to buy me a new television. I don't need a new television.

Since she was feeling so generous, I aimed high and asked for an IPad.

"Aren't they expensive?"

"Five hundred dollars."

"Yeah. No."

It was worth a try.

Between whiteknighting for the red-necked angel, bungling a photo transfer, and shilling for the Kindle, the garage never got cleared. So, they're coming back later today to try again. Joy. But my mother swears that she'll be moving back to Florida by the weekend, so if I can just grin and bear it, I might get the best birthday present ever: the sight of my mother's van waddling toward the interstate and out of my life.