Okay, so any of us who have to squint at our computer screens are aware of the problem.
Our children know more tech than we do.
It is no secret amongst my family that if I was suddenly left in the house alone, I might never watch television again. I don’t know how to work the remotes, and every time I figure it out we get new remotes!
Now, the fact is, I watch ten hours of TV max a week– the end. They spend a lot more time working the controls than I do so they’re really much more proficient with it, and I don’t mind that. I mean, practice makes perfect.
It’s the utter disdain they have for me when I need their help. I frequently have to point out how much time they spend watching TV that I don’t–and sometimes I get snotty with them. “Oh, I’m sorry I was out shopping for your favorite breakfast bar, while you watched TV all day, but maybe you could find this movie on Netflix for me?”
And I think that this has all flown over their heads–mom’s an idiot, she’ll always be an idiot and anything useful she has ever known is now depressingly obsolete.
Anyway…
Then last night, I’m up in the middle of the night (as I am now) and a thing goes off.
I have no idea what thing it is.
It’s an electronic thing.
SOMEBODY’S electronic thing is set to YouTube and it’s talking about pirates and syphilis and rotting from the inside out and my sweet little Christmas romance is about to become Dead Rotting Pirates of the Plague Farm.
Anyway– I need it fixed, and I need it fixed now, and I DON’T KNOW WHERE IT IS.
So I wake the kids. Or I try to wake the kids.
ZoomBoy’s response is typical ADHD. “Nuzzafuggabugget?”
And Squish doesn’t even wait for the rest of it. She hops out of bed, goes over to the tech and fiddles with it. “On it, Mom!”
It’s one in the morning.
She comes out, we stop hearing about Dead Rotting P irates of the Plague Farm, and she says, “Yeah– that was ZB’s tech. Suddenly his YouTube kicked on– I think it was set to update. Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”
No disdain. No condescension. Just this sort of universal acknowledgment that having an electronic device go off about Dead Rotting Pirates at one in the morning is a little fuckin’ freaky.
Anyway–this morning I tell her thank you, and she gives me a sly smile.
“Well… I was sort of up reading you know.”
And I love her so much. Because she DOES know tech, and she can KILL the tech when it rises up against me!
But her best friend is still pulp paper and vanilla-scented glue.
