The joys of being the tech guy

[xela]

I love my sister Marliene dearly. She's very smart and tremendously creative, but ... technical, she's not. She started using computers a few months ago, very tentatively. First at the public library, then, a couple of months ago, she got a Windows machine to do homework for a correspondence class she's taking. She had been using it in the old-fashioned "Personal Computer" way, off the net, just to prepare and print her work. But this term she needs to be able to submit her work online. I am, and have been for the last hour and a half, on the phone with her, walking her through setting up DSL from 3000 miles away. She has just now reached the point of taking the first round of Windows updates.

I know and accept — indeed, even cherish — the fact that love sometimes means doing things for the other than which, under different circumstances, you would rather chew your arm off. That does not make it any more fun.

I am become my family's front-line tech support guy. Wonder if my arm would taste better with tobasco.