Pick On Someone Your Own Age

Until today, I only knew of one thing my mom was afraid of and that came as a huge surprise to the entire family because she has the reputation of standing up to anything and everything from breakers twice her size to golfers who drive into her foursome to kids who want to take off to “find themselves.”  When one of my sister’s friends rocketed us across Lake Charlevoix in his boat at about 100 mph, the ride in the back seat erased my wrinkles, super-glued my contacts to my eyeballs and left me too terrified to be motion sick.  My mom, riding in the front seat, wore a huge smile on her face and ate up every wild, reckless, streaking minute of it. When my sister, also hanging on for dear life in the back, asked if I thought Mom was safe bouncing around up there, I replied, “Well, if she isn’t, at least she’ll die happy.”

Her only known Achilles heel was revealed at a family picnic the day after David and Megan’s wedding.  Everyone was relaxing in our shady, beautiful backyard; and, to make conversation, Paul told them about Henry and Henrietta, the pair of 6-foot-long blacksnakes who were spending the summer patrolling our patio, ground cover and tree trunks for bugs and mice. When he went into the garage for the croquet set, he came out waving what looked like a long, wriggling black snake and held it in front of Mom.  For awhile, it appeared that we might have to add some EMTs to our party.  The “snake” was actually some black rubber tubing Paul had used to rehab his knee and none of us, especially Paul, expected her to be as frightened as she was by that fake snake.

Now, a second awesome menace has flipped her out, done her in, put her under and sent her over the top - a computer virus.  Until Mom moved to the retirement community in Durham, her only keyboard experiences had been with a piano and the electronic keyboard we gave her one year for Christmas.  After my brother got her a computer, she fearlessly jumped into email and on-line bridge. Almost immediately she earned the title of "Cyber Menace” by pressing some keys and then, if she didn’t get the desired result PRONTO, pressing more and more keys to be sure the computer knew who it was dealing with.  (When she typed “Jump,” it was supposed to respond, “How high?”)  This created some monumental computer screen gridlock not unlike Chicago’s Dan Ryan expressway on the Friday before Labor Day until her computer picked up some speed and she picked up some patience (more of the former than the latter.)

Soon she learned how to write and edit her community’s newsletter on the computer and expanded her repertoire to include the creation of clever, original greeting cards and invitations.  She plays about 15 different types of solitaire now and who knows what else - I haven’t heard that she’s gotten into any on-line Texas Hold-Em games but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

Anyway, last week David warned all of us, including Mom, about messages containing a virus link which were sent from her email address.  It turns out that she hadn’t understood what the problem was so she ignored it.  Yesterday she got phone calls from my uncle and several friends who had opened the link and were transported to the world of Viagra and body part enhancement.  She was shocked to learn that this virus has invaded her address book and sent this link to everyone including the Director and staff of her retirement community, out-of-town friends she rarely hears from, everyone in her Water Babies class and lots of other innocent residents of her community. Unfortunately, most of them obediently clicked on the link because, when my mom speaks, writes or emails, everyone listens.


Mom couldn’t have been more distressed if she had come home from her French class to find that someone had broken into her house and kidnapped Prince, her human-sized, metal sculpture frog and then snatched her dressy, black and white polka dot pants and her favorite red shoes to boot.  She is afraid she may become the Typhoid Mary of her community and that her future emails, like lepers, will be classified as “Unclean.”

Last night, I suggested she call the Geek Squad to deal with this virus and, while they are at it, to give her computer a general cleanup – the modern day equivalent to Hercules tackling the Augean Stables. I felt guilty that some hapless geek would be sacrificed on the altar of Customer Service and, after this experience, will probably seek an alternative career like sword swallowing, fire eating or work in a sewage treatment plant. As it turns out, her community has a computer specialist who is on the job right now – I hope he qualifies for Hazardous Duty Pay.

Even though the problem can be fixed, Mom is “mad as hell” at whatever 18-year-old had nothing more constructive to do than to sic this virus on the email address book of an 85-year-old.  She hates to play the age card except maybe to get a better seat at a Durham Bulls baseball game, but she wonders why the person who attacked her computer didn’t go after some other 18, 19 or 20-somethings and give them a challenge bigger than tweeting, twittering and twaddling this week.  I completely agree.  I know she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself; but I want to formally and forcefully say to all you hackers, spammers and cyber-jerks out there, “IF YOU DON’T LEAVE MY MOM ALONE, I’M TELLING YOUR MOM.”