My husband, bless his heart, takes my writing seriously. Whether he thinks someday I might actually make decent money at it, or whether it’s because it keeps me occupied and out of trouble doesn’t matter. When my old computer died, he bought me a new one with more bells and whistles than I know how to use. Actually, it has so much memory and pizzaz that I ended up having the best computer in the house. That has advantages and disadvantages.
My computer knows more things than I do. I’m a simple person. I use Word for my writing, and I like to surf the net and do research. I’ve joined a few chatrooms and even look at facebook now and then. I don’t venture too far into the unknown. But my grandsons zip from one thing on computers to another, unafraid. And they love gaming. They have an X Box and a Playstation 3 in our basement, and there’s an old computer down there, too, but it doesn’t have the speed they need for League of Legends or Runescape. When their friends come over, boys divide up–some on systems in the basement and others taking turns on the computer in my office. My computer.
I don’t mind sharing. The boys know what they can and cannot do. When they started middle school and had new friends over, I had one, small incident–and everyone swears it was an accident that they ended up at a racy site and my machine ended up with a virus–but it’s never happened again. The fun now is watching the computer dance where kids sashay and side step from X Box to League of Legends to Runescape and back again.
During the day, the computer is mine. I write on it until three, most week days. After three, it’s fair game. If I want to check my e-mail or look at my horoscope, I wait my turn. They keep their part of the bargain, so I keep mine. If I say they can use it, I try not to pull rank. But I still get a turn, like everyone else–as long as I make it fast. After all, there’s a line. Boys are waiting. Someday, when my pockets are fuller, I’ll buy them a whiz bang computer for the basement. Or better yet, laptops that can tap dance and do homework at the same time. Until then, we share. And we’ve learned to tango and cha cha from one machine to another pretty well.
Judi Lynn 