The Olde Techies

Has ur father/ mother/ uncle/ aunt/ grandfather/ grandmother/ great uncle/ great aunt just discovered the world of computers and internet? Uhoh! you are in for a tough time.
Take it from a person who has experienced all (gives me quite a guru like aura to say things like this :-) )
Its amusing as hell and big time frustrating.

I remember attempting to teach couple of the "olde" gang the secrets of computers and literally coming to fisticuffs.
I had to explain why I was pressing every button." How do u know when you press this button, the system will boot?", " What exactly happens during the booting?", "How do I configure some xyz in the Windows?"...
Of course they would not take my word for it and so sighing, I tried to explain the intricacies in the labyrinth of computers and the Windows administration, only to get my head bitten off. "What are u talking about?, I do not understand anything, You just dont know how to teach"

Aargh! Finally we agreed to disagree and they went happily to an institute to learn what I was teaching them for free.
The next few weeks the house was filled with computer jargons :-) ... they could not speak a few words without including something related to computers.. gotta say it was kinda cute and amusing

You would think that it would all end there right???? Hah! thats what u think...Armed with their new found knowledge they keep trying to teach u how to send an email, how to use MS Word and every new thing that they have learned.... anything u say in ur defense will fall on deaf ears.
while that is exasperating enough what really got my goat was the patronising look they give when they think u have done something wrong by their standards.

While my mom was most amused by my plight... I wanted to bang my head on the monitor.


I got my dad a new cell phone that has all these fancy thingamagicks such as camera, email options, bluetooth and what nots. Half the time when we are walking on the roads and I am talking to him, I find I am talking to myself and dad has stopped way behind, having found something new to explore in his phone. He gets a huge kick out of taking a foto of something in his new camera phone and emailing it to his friends from it, then copying it to the desktop using bluetooth and taking a print out of it in his new printer. Needless to say our new printer/scanner/xerox machine has him beaming everytime he uses it.

But as the computers, cell phones and internet have brought a whole new exciting life to our elders that I find I really cannot begrudge their happiness in it.