It was right after I mailed the check for the utility company to our own home address that I realized I needed to simplify my bookkeeping.
Not too long after that, I read that I could better handle my paperwork with a simple installation of a program called Adobe Reader on the computer. It promised I could file my taxes and whip up a streamline of documents. Why, if I was living life right, I could increase my productivity and fry up my chicken, all in one fell swoop.
It sounded pretty gosh darn good to me.
I quickly learned that an adobe isn’t a primitive Native American dwelling, as one might be inclined to think. Rather it is a software program used to view files in PDF format. Who knew?
I’ll admit I hadn’t a clue as to what the heck a PDF format was, yet I proceeded with all of the knowledge and wisdom of a confident ignoramus.
I followed the 38 “easy” steps on the Web site as instructed. I filled in the appropriate blanks and outlined my computer’s capabilities to the letter.
Although my technical knowledge is limited, I felt as though I’d done a bang-up job — right up until the point when the Internet took me to a site that told me I was forbidden to be there.
Forbidden, can you believe that? As a wife, mother and church-going individual, I haven’t been forbidden to go anywhere in years.
I added forbidden to the list of offensive things that the computer has told me recently. Things such as “you are unauthorized to view this page,” “you have the memory of an amnesiac” and “you have a bad URL.”
Back at’cha buddy.
Since the 12-year-old was predisposed with basketball and the eldest had issues with his social life, I was forced to take a stab at being the family programmer.
I poured myself a stiff cup of coffee, lubricated my eyes, and pored over manuals. I called acquaintances with computers, relatives with calculators and although my good friend, Trixie, has a high-tech toaster, turned out no one could help me.
I did as gals in my predicament are prone to do, I pulled out the big guns. I called in my computer guru.
I made him breakfast, surrounded him with a pile of memory boards and poured him a cup of coffee. “So, Father,” I said with as much charm as I could muster, “how are your eggs?”
“To be honest with you, Honey,” he replied, as he swallowed hard, “you’ve never been much of a cook.”
“That’s just great, Dad. Speaking of eggs, what do you know about Adobe Reader?”
When I checked on him later, he informed me not only was I forbidden to open certain files, but my computer was unauthorized and had performed illegal functions as well.
While he was on the phone with a fellow guru named Bubba, and explaining that computers will never be idiot proof, because idiots continue to be so resourceful, I went back to mating socks. The last thing I wanted to hear was the two of them discussing hypertext links and PDF documents.
“Lori, Bubba is on his way over to take a look at your computer,” Dad called out later from the office. “Do you have any extra USB ports?”
“No, but I could offer him some of the leftover eggs from breakfast.”
“I’ve done some checking, and it would seem that you have performed several fatal errors.”
“Does that computer have to be so dramatic?”
“We have to get serious if we’re going to fix it.”
“I’m being as serious as a mother board, but that computer has been nothing but mean to me for a week. Fatal errors, unauthorized usage, and it’s forever telling me that I have a bad command or a file name. Why can’t it ever say, “Hey Lori! Excellent file name. Good job!”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic.”
“Well, would it hurt it to try to be nice now and then? The other day, it started honking and beeping at me. Then it finally displayed a little box that said I had left it no choice but to shut itself down because, and get this, I had performed a fatal error. Now that’s dramatic.”
“Honey, ‘bad command name’ and ‘fatal errors’ are general responses. Bad and invalid responses shouldn’t be taken so personally.”
Now he tells me.
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” Her e-mail address is [email protected].
Lori Clinch
Are We There Yet?