Meet the (Clueless) Parents

I’m technologically impaired.

When I was a kid, my excitement in getting a new console was always tempered by the fact that I knew I’d have to spend hours begging my brother to set it up. All those cables used to give me chills. They made as much sense to me as a Gillette Mach 3 did to Osama Bin Laden.

I mean, you just need to take one look at the design of this blog to know that I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing. Look at the colors! Orange, yellow! It’s like a bad LSD trip. And who’s that man!! What the hell is he holding?

The funny thing is I actually took the time to thoroughly design this blog. I didn’t just stumble on to this design. It took hours. And that’s the best I can do.

(It's a good acid test to find out how well people really know me though. Those that I recently met tell me to fix the design. Others, who have known me for years, say: "Wow. You did that by yourself?"...).

Like many other things wrong with my life, I blame my parents. Because while I may be absolutely God awful technology wise, compared to them I look like one of those Nasa scientists.

In the interest of safeguarding any future inheritance I may be due, let me first assure you that they are 2 extremely bright individuals. They hold their own in every conversation on every subject and, as you surely have noticed, did extremely well in bringing up their children.

But when it comes to technology, they make George W. Bush look like a Harvard graduate (oh, wait…).

You will not believe how disastrously bad they are at anything technological. I’m reminded daily of their sheer ineptness.

Today, for example, I sent a PDF file to my mother. She told me it didn’t open on her laptop as she didn’t have a program called “Adolf”. She of course meant, Adobe. But try explaining that to her without rolling on the floor with laughter.

That still pales in comparison to the time she first saw a computer and realized, after years of thinking the contrary, that the mouse was, in fact, NOT a real mouse. I was in hysterics for weeks afterwards. I still use that story to lighten the mood on first dates.

I change her Facebook profile photo monthly but she still doesn’t know how to do it herself. I’ve taught her how to copy/paste a dozen times, but she still looks at it as a slightly more arduous task than climbing Everest.

And the killer is, apparently, her friends are a lot worse than her and are thoroughly impressed at her level of technological knowledge.

My dad (who, knowing him, is surely laughing at my mother as he’s reading this) is hardly better.

He called Facebook; “Bookface” for 2 years. Every time a celebrity he follows tweets, he thinks they’re sending him a direct message. “Obama told me thanks for my support”. No dad. He didn’t.

My biggest nightmare is when he gets a new gadget. I-pod, blackberry, laptop… The moment he enters the house with one, I take 3 weeks off work. I need to set everything up for him. He depends on me to teach him how to use them. And then blames me a month later when he deletes his entire song library by mistake.

So, everyone, please give me some slack. I’ll fix the design of this blog soon. I won’t do it myself of course, lest it gets any brighter. But until then, please excuse me for my technological backwardness and understand where the fault lies.

It’s the genes.

Comments

[beni]

Ok... this is the funniest article, I can’t stop laughing!!!! Your parents seem like tech geniuses to me (come on, your Dad has a 'song library'). My Mom (not long ago) told me she read an article in the newspaper and that I should read it online. While giving me the page address, she said “www ... be careful when you write it down, there are 3 w, not 4.”
No comment :)

[Dimmy B]

Hahah!! Yeah he has a song library. Well, he has a son that made him a song library... And don't get me started on little girl Capdevielle who wanted to attach photos to her email last week and didnt know how ;)

[Account Deleted]

hahahahahaahaaa!!!!!
thats the typical parents.... i blame myself for introducing the hotmail not so while ago to my mom... now my inbox gets spammed with forwards (ohh gosh!!!!)
and hilarious questions are asked always abt smthg here something there... (no comment)
btw funny thing...reminded me of you teaching a person a few months ago abt googling on blackberry as well.. :P lolll :))

[Dimmy B]

Mine are banned from forwarding me anything! I was getting 12 a day!
And yeah, I remember helping you. Can't believe there's people worse than me in these matters, but evidently there are ;)

[Dimmy B]

By the way... My aunt this morning was laughing at this article and my parents. Then she asked me "how do I bookmark your blog"... It's a family epidemic...