My dad called me today with a computer problem.  I know by his voice and sense of struggle that he has already tried asking my mum and possibly one of my sisters.  This is a man who has managed to keep the electricity on in every town we have lived in (as either a linesman or running a small powerstation), but is barely able to send an email.

When he’s frustrated with the internet he begins by explaining EXACTLY what he’s doing, followed by the word “right?”.
“So, I’ve opened up my Outlook, right?”
“Yep”
“I’ve got an email here from someone and I’ve double clicked on that, right?”
“Yep”
And so it goes.  By the end of the explanation he’s so frustrated with the computer that he starts trying to prove it wrong.  The internets very existence is ridiculous!  As if suddenly it will concede and say, “You’re right, Bruce, I was a shit idea and I never work”.  But it just sits there.  Mocking him. Dang enternetz!
“Nope, nothing. It can’t even do this!  It won’t even let me copy all of these email addresses into one email!”
It’s such a bastard! Blocking him at every turn!

Meanwhile I’m on Google typing in ‘how to make a group contact list in Outlook’, since I haven’t used Outlook since 2001.  The blind leading the blind?  The Google leading the blind leading the blind.  I think about getting his username and password so I can just get in there and do it myself, but to use another cliché; you can teach a man to fish and he will eat for a day, you teach my dad to use the email and he will forget within the hour.

The internet is the enemy at this point and I’m starting to agree, “hmm, yeah you’re right, Dad.  It seems a lot harder than it should be.  Not very user friendly…”
We throw a few ideas around, Google didn’t give me ‘dad translatable’ answers, and then suddenly he yells, “I DID IT!” Then, “Fuck, what did I do? How did I do that?”
From the other side of the country I wish I did know how he did it.  I’ll never know.  Maybe nobody will ever really know.