mom

In 1997 I bought my mother her first computer.

I lived a few states away at the time. The internet was starting to become huge. I had tons of extra cash at the time. I thought it'd be a good idea. She'd learn something new. I'd be able to communicate with her. She'd use it to type a well formatted letter. Or, maybe she'd even feel inspired to start her own home business with it.

The road to ruin is paved with the best of intentions.

It's 2004, she still has the computer, though it's gone through an upgrade or two since the dark ages of 1997. She never did start her own business. She didn't learn a whole lot about computers in the last 7 years either. Sure, she knows some. But every time I visit my mom, I have to clear out 345 spyware programs and 15 viruses. If I didn't know any better, I'd think she only learned two things from that fucking computer:

1. How to send her coworkers, my sister, Belinda and me an endless river of forwarded email.
2. That certain web sites like zone.com and gamehouse.com let you play free games until you're sleep deprived.

Since she discovered email, she must forward on about 4 emails to me every single day. The content is ridiculous. They say things like: Have a nice day, and I'm glad we are friends!!! or LAND OF THE FREE ---------- BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE or THIS IS A HAND OF FRIENDSHIP YOU MUST PASS IT TO AT LEAST 4 FRIENDS!! (What that fuck is a hand of friendship? AND, WHY ARE YOU FUCKING SCREAMING?)

You would think that with all the time she spends reading this emails she'd actually respond to one that Belinda and I send to her occaisionally. But no, whenever I or Belinda send her a friendly "Hi what's up?!" email, we get no response. I can only imagine what happened to those emails. Perhaps she just blindly forwards them on to some unsuspecting soul who is like "What the Fuck"?

The only solace I get is talking to friends and acquaintances about this, and 9 times out of 10 they have a close relative who's the same way. "Oh yeah, my Aunt Bessie, she sends me 8 chain emails a day." So I know it's not just my mom.

What may be just my mom, however, is her zone.com addiction. In case you actually have a life and don't know what zone.com is, it's Microsoft's free game portal. You go there, click on a game it pops up in a little window. Go ahead try it. The games are "free" because they include an advertisement between levels or in the game window itself, or both. Also, the free versions are simplified versions of the "Deluxe" version of the game that they're trying to squeeze $20 out of you to buy.

Every time I talk to her she tells me about her latest addiction. It started with Bejeweled, then TextTwist, LetterLinker, Hexic, and then god knows what else... The latest is Zuma. My mom will ask me out of the blue, "What level are you up to in Zuma?"
"Um, mom, what's a Zuma?"
"On MSN!", she says to me incredulously. As if I were trying to cover up the truth about my own addiction.
"Oh, it's a game, no I haven't played it, mom."
"Oh, you have to! I'm up to level 3,020,641. Can you find me a crack to the deluxe version?" (Hmmm, I guess that makes three things she's learned).

She tells me that there are times when she's playing one of these games and she looks out the window and realizes the sun is about to come up. At which point she runs upstairs and tries to catch 30 minutes of sleep before she heads out to work. Can you imagine? Sitting in front of a computer screen all night, bleary eyed, and realizing that you haven't slept and you now have to go to work?

Oh god, what have I done?