Computer lessons, ignorance and irony

My mother has never really learned to use a computer. She is hopelessly cute about it, though, so even if you get frustrated, you can't stay mad at her.  I've offered for years to teach her how to surf the web, use her email, or MSWord, and all the other little things she needs to know how to do, but she never felt she had the time to do it.  She has decided that now is the time to learn, though, so she won't have to wait for someone else every time she needs something done for the store. Besides that, she says everyone gets all snippy with her every time she asks them something. So, she came over yesterday for her first computer lesson.  We started with email.

I showed her how to use email before, set up an email account for her several years ago.  I didn't know until just recently that she never learned how to do more with it than check her email and reply to emails.

That's it. I was amazed!  My mother is a smart woman, I never thought she wouldn't figure the rest out on her own once I showed her the basics.  I think she's afraid to click stuff, 'cause she's afraid to mess things up.  So, I put her in the chair and pulled up another one beside her and just told her how to do each thing, and let her click away so she'd see that she wasn't going to hurt anything if she clicked the wrong button. We learned how to compose an email using all the text tools and to forward emails, making folders, using notepad and calendars that are available within the email, creating filters so that certain emails will go certain places and all the cool little options you can use.  Once she figured out where everything was, she was an emailing fool!   I had about a million little emails that said "Hi" and had the big cheesy smiley faces in them, and different stationery, with big fonts and little fonts and in between fonts.  She did so good!  I'm so proud :-D

So, after the lesson, she was telling me about some data that they needed off the computer at the store. Mom says there's a video on the machine that they need to take off before the machine is reformatted, but my sister couldn't do it and she doesn't know why.  And even if she did know why, my sister would not "waste her time telling my mother."  LOL!

SO, I called Blondie. 

Me:  Hey, mom says you're having a problem getting the video off the computer and that even if you knew what the problem was you wouldn't waste your time tellling her.

(mom and I were just giggling hysterically while Blondie went off the deep end)

Blondie:  Do you know why you can be so patient with her??  YOU are not the one that gets called at school to ask how to do this and how to do that on the computer all the time.  You are not the one that works and works on the books for the store and then comes home one day to find out that they are just GONE.  She thinks that if you put something on one computer that you can access it from ANY computer!!! 

I told Blondie that mom was doing really good with her email, but I'm not sure that she believed me.

So, we talked about hard drives and servers and what the difference is, so she understands that information is not necessarily accessible from every machine in the world *grins*  

Pookie thought that it was particularly funny when she was leaving and I called her "Nana Grasshopper" and told her she still had much to learn *giggles*


Later last night, I was watching one of my recorded episodes of Wife Swap.  Most of these I've seen, so I end up erasing them and not watching them again .. but this one was new.  By the time it was over, I needed a good mental flossing to get the bits of stupidity out from my gray matter that had gotten stuck there.  With the exception of my ex-husband, I am not sure I have ever seen that much ignorance and stupidity concentrated in one person.  Ever. In. My. Life.

This family is the most superficial bunch of idiots ever.  The man actually said, "I've only seen my wife without her makeup once.  I'm glad she wears it all the time."  

He also went on to say that she sold him on this whole package, the blonde hair, the being thin, the makeup, and that he expects that she should maintain the package exactly as she sold it.  It is to the point that this woman goes to bed with her makeup on, gets up before he does to reapply, dresses to the 9's every single morning, down to her stiletto heeled "hooker boots" as they called them, and wears that outfit while she gets on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor and do all the rest of her housework.  Can. You. Imagine?!

They are very appearance conscious.  They make sure that they and their children are always dressed in name labels, always have hair fixed and makeup on.  They push their children, boy age 7, and baby, age 1, to win everything.  Football, wrestling, pageants.  They yell at the kids if they don't win everything.  The baby is in pageants .. she lost one and the dad and son were crying.  Yes, CRYING.  Because Baby did not win!   She's 1.  Hello?

It was absolutely ridiculous. 

Now, the reason that I'm writing this is because, even though I know I'll forget the rest of this show within another day or two, there was one thing that the dad said that I absolutely will never forget. 

Swap Mom said something to the effect that they are all superficial and worry more about labels and how they look than what they are teaching their children.  That the mother is just a trophy to him .. an accessory.  She asked him if that was what he wanted for his daughter .. for her to be some man's accessory.

He said, and I quote, "Well, I think that she will grow up to be someone's accessory." 

It's not just WHAT he said, it was how he said it.  Like it was totally okay with him, and even expected.

I think the Swap Mom's look of horror was a mirror of my own.  Who would ever WANT that for their children??? I wanted to smack him.  With a 2 x 4. 

If anyone treated my daughter like that, you'd be more likely to see me on Jerry Springer than Wife Swap ;)

Ironically, I don't even remember that family's name.