Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Crispy

My parents and electronic equipment do not get along. It’s a generational thing, my parents are not stupid just not technologically savvy. Nor do they care to be, they claim that is one of many reasons they produced children.

For the longest time after receiving a state of the art answering machine for Christmas one year, the outgoing message was “the button is flashing but nothing is happening, maybe we should just wait for Wicked to drop by and we can….beep.” On the plus side, the telemarketers didn’t leave messages for a while.

My dad has a computer and until last year he had a dial up connection. We and he figured why waste the money if he wasn’t going to play with the computer. He gradually increased his surfing abilities and last year we got him a years DSL connection and the largest and most affordable monitor. Dad has set the font of his computer to the largest type possible and the standard monitor could not handle the display. Whatever makes him happy, always our motto.

Yesterday I got a call from my B-I-L. He asked me if I had heard from my dad and his tone was weird. My thoughts immediately jumped towards illness or injury and I replied that I hadn’t. BIL took a deep breath, my heart stopped, and he said I think Dad has killed the computer. OH MY GOD. Stop the presses. While I was trying to get my heart rate back to normal speed, BIL gave me the strange details.

To make a long story short, the power source has fried the CPU. BIL has taken it upon himself to do the research to get dad a new computer for Christmas. Sounds good to me, I had purchased the last one. Hopefully the crispy critter did not also kill the monitor.

Note to self, remind BIL to deliver any news about my parents in a less dramatic way. Another note to self, chill out!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The pregnant pause would have freaked me right out as well. Glad it's only the computer.

wallofdenial said...

get a Dell and be done with it,,,,STAY AWAY from HP.

Wicked H said...

Fanny: I know, right!

Dave: It's out of my hands, hopefully BIL will read the comments.

Anonymous said...

I love that out of all the four kids in my famdamily, I'm the one who gets to be geriatric tech support for my caveman Father. With apologies to Cavemen everywhere.

When I get email from my Pop it's like getting a telegram from the old West: ALL CAPS, typos, random sentence just shoved together into one note.

Yes, it always makes me laugh.

Anonymous said...

I'm just jealous you have other people that help shop/pay for your parent's Christmas presents.

with 2 spare siblings per side - you'd think Hubby and I would be so lucky.

Wicked H said...

t2ed: Sounds very familiar.

Rude: I don't get it either, maybe they feel empowered right before the socket catches fire.

Miss Britt: Maybe your scenario is better, less arguments......

HotForSimon said...

I love the answering machine scenerio...I can just imagine hearing it too...how funny!!

Hopefully dad will not fry the new one!!

Lynn said...

I suggest that you get your Dad a battery backup + surge control pack. FutureShop has them for like $60.00

Anonymous said...

I have a headache already thingking about it all.....oh well BIL will have something to keep him busy for awhile, the only thing is he tells me EVERYTHING in the same manner as he broke the news to you about dad's computer. I'll be in the OR and my beeper keeps going off where I can't ignore it....finally a nurse will answer it and oh, surprise, it's BIL, letting me know I have a dentists appointment (or some such thing) AHHHHHHH

Anonymous said...

How does a computer that is turned off just burn up by its ownself in the middle of the night??? Go figure! Must have been all that hot surfin' Dad did. Life begins at 80. New Puter # ???(lost count - whatever) is back up and runnin ready for some more steamy surfin. Hope this one lasts a while, maybe til he turns 90.
BIL

Weary Hag said...

Pardon the long reply but this really reminded me of a joke I heard long ago.

This guy is on vacation in the Islands, calls his brother who is watching his house while he's away.
Vacation Guy: "Hi bro, how's everything at home?"
Brother: "Sorry to say, but your cat died."
Vacation Guy: "Oh my GOD. You could have broken the news to me in a nicer way - like "you see, your cat climbed out on the roof, got his foot stuck and had a terrible fall - sadly, he didn't make it."
Brother: "Jeeze, sorry about that. It didn't occur to me."
Vacation Guy: "Well, that's okay, he was very old and lived a good long life ... by the way, how's mom?"
Brother: "Well you see, mom went out on the roof ..."

hahaha

Saw your note-back. So nice to be missed!