Mom's And Computers

My mom called this morning. “Got your e-mail,” she said.

“Just now?” I said, surprised. “I sent it early last week.”

“Really?” she said. “That’s funny. I didn’t hear my computer ring.”

“Your computer doesn’t ring when you get an e-mail, mom,” I said.

“It doesn’t? Then how do you know you got it?”

“It just arrives,” I said. “You check for it when you go online.”

I heard my mom harrumph into the phone. “Well, what good is that?” she said. “That’s like the mailman just throwing the mail all over the front lawn and me hoping it’s still there the next time I go outside.”

I took a deep breath and explained the concept of e-mail to my mother – again. Then I asked her if she got the column I sent with the e-mail. She likes to keep up with the family goings on and this column is one of the ways she does that.

“You mailed us one of your columns?” she said.

“No,” I said. “I attached it to the e-mail message I sent you.”

There was a pause. Then she said, “How do you attach anything to an e-mail message?”

“I didn’t staple it to the message,” I said. I took another deep breath and continued. “I wrote the column on my computer,” I said, slowly. “Then I saved it as a word processing document. Then I opened my e-mail program and clicked on the button that says, “Click Here To Attach A File To This Message.” Then I clicked on the column, which is, after all, a file. Clicking on the file causes it to be, for lack of a better word mom, attached to the e-mail message. Then I addressed the message to you and clicked the “Send” button.”

“Oh,” my mother said. “I see.” But I could tell she didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about. This was followed by another empty pause. Then she said, “Well, anyway, I got your column. Now what am I supposed to do with it? How do I unscrew it from the message?”

I sighed, audibly, not caring if she could hear me. “You don’t have to unscrew anything,” I said. “An e-mail attachment isn’t like a light bulb.”

“So then how do I get the column you sent out of the message?” She sounded annoyed with me, like she used to sound when I was a kid and had been up to no good (like the time I convinced my sister to see if it was true that sticking a knife in a toaster gave you a shock).

I tried to explain to her how to find a file that is attached to an e-mail message and then save it to her hard drive. “Look under the paperclip at the top of the message,” I said, and then, realizing what I was saying, just as the words were coming out of me, my hand shot up to my mouth like a barn door closing. But it was too late. The word horses were already out and galloping all over the place. This was followed by a longer than usual pause – more like a black hole – on the other end of the phone.. Then my mother finally said, exasperatedly, “The paper-clip? You sent me a paper-clip?”

“Not a real one, mom.”

“You know, I think your column would have got here a lot faster if you just mailed it,” she said. “Regular mail. In an envelope. With a stamp.”

I gave up. I told her she was right and said goodbye. After I hung up the phone I printed off a copy of the column I had originally e-mailed her and folded it in half and tucked it into an envelope. Then I licked a stamp and pressed it onto the front of the envelope and addressed the envelope. Then I got dressed and drove down to the post office.