Keys and computers
Thar be keys in mah door!
Hmm. Don’t got the keys. They’re not on the counter, not on the table, and not on the desk. That’s kind of odd since I only ever put them in one of those three spots.
Just because it was early and I could barely see, I checked all those spots again. Nope, no keys! I just stood there for a minute thinking about where I might have left them when a thought suddenly struck. I slowly turned, looking at the front door to my apartment. The deadbolt has a knob on the inside, not a keyhole, so no keys there… but there’s a keyhole on the outside.
I went to the door, opened it, and guess what I found? Anyone?
/facepalm
Saturday morning I got a call from my mom. Well, technically my mom left a voicemail - there was no way I was gonna get up to answer the phone at 10am on a Saturday. Apparently my grandmother’s computer was having some kind of problem accessing the internet, and she asked if I could go over there to fix it.
Now, this touches on an issue that’s rather prominent in my life - displaying any kind of computer skill will automatically make you a computer technician, for free, for your extended family. It’s just like that uncle you have that knows how to fix cars; everyone goes to him with all their problems. Normally I get a bit resentful when I get volunteered like that. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem helping people - it’s just that being told to help someone without being given the choice is somewhat different, and usually rubs me the wrong way. It doesn’t help that it came from my parents, either. My mom is pretty computer proficient, but my dad will call me every time the email has a problem.
I’m dangerously close to going off on a tangent, so let’s get this back to my grandmother. I figure yeah, what the hell, I can go look at her computer, and Sunday afternoon I drove across town (well okay, not across town, but it’s a good 20-30 minute drive) to see what I could do. She fired up the laptop, showed me what she usually did to connect, sure enough it didn’t work. Luckily the problem was easily fixed, only requiring a trip back to the apartment to download a software update she needed. (She uses dialup - I wasn’t gonna hang around for three hours.)
After I got the computer fixed, she gave me some cake - oh, so very yummy cake. Triple layer carrot cake/cheesecake/carrot cake, and all slathered with cream cheese frosting. It was just absolutely delightful. And of course we talked while we ate the cake. She told me about her eye surgery (they’re correcting her vision to be damn near 20/20 o.o), her upcoming birthday, and just all the little family stuff that I never really hear from my parents.* All in all, I think it was a really great visit, and she was thrilled to see me, and pleased to have her email back. I had to stifle a laugh when she was telling me how - before I fixed it - she never used it anyway, and she’d rather use the phone, and she was about ready to just cancel the service… but then she gave a little cheer and hugged me when I got it going.
*Footnote, just because I didn’t want to interrupt the previous paragraph. My parents never tell me anything. My cousins that I thought only had four kids? Pregnant with their sixth. My other cousin who lives in New York? Comes back to Jacksonville this week. My uncle retires in a month. Looks like I need more computers to break just so I can keep tabs on everything that is going on.
Tags: apartment, family