My Cyber Mother (By Guest blogger Chet Mays)

My previous computer was over a week old so it had become obsolete. It worked okay so I decided to delete all the porn, and anything else that might seem objectionable, with the idea that I'd give it to my grandmother. She'd been asking about computers, you see. The old gal is about six hundred years old and has lived alone for a decade or so. So about a month ago I took the Compaq over to her little house to set it up for her. I actually find my grandmother's digs kind of creepy. Everything is clean enough but the stuff is just so darn old. She has this ancient highback chair that I think Lincoln was sitting in the night he was assassinated. She has this long, wooden table in her kitchen that I believe was originally built for the Last Supper. Her television is a Philco, circa 1955. Just about the only time she turns it on is to watch the Huntley-Brinkley Report, which explains why it still works.

Chet Mayes and Grandma

Anyway, the old gal didn't know a thing about computers. She was starting from scratch. She called the keyboard the "typewriter", and the monitor the "television". She was amazed that the television's picture was in color. An oversight on my part made it impossible for us to use the computer without typing in the password MrHung, a bit of inaccurate self-flattery. Following a split second of anxious thinking, I explained that Mr. Hung was probably the Japanese man who assembled the computer in the factory.

I showed her how the mouse worked, various keyboard functions, and so forth. I returned after two weeks and saw right away that the old dame was starting to get the knack of it. Too much so, perhaps. She had enough confidence that she wanted to go on that thing called "The Internet". After a few minutes of discussion, I relented. I figured that with my grandmother's advanced age, an old computer, and a connection with dial-up service, she would likely be dead of natural causes before the Net ever appeared on her computer's television.

I returned a few days later with the required software. Low and behold, we got her up and running on the Net. We visited some generic website. There across the top of the page were terms such as "Support" and "Log-Out". I told her that it would do her no good to click on "Support" if she suddenly lost her balance, and "Log-Out" had nothing to do with a bowel movement. For a few seconds she wasn't sure if I was kidding or not. But it was only a few seconds. She's not quite that bad. 

God help us, a mid-20th Century passenger just climbed on board the 21st Century.