Home alone | 25 May 2007

Depressing thought of the day. A recent survey claims we turn into technical incompetents by the time we’re 42, becoming increasingly reliant on our children for understanding and guidance in operating gizmos and gadgets. Sadly this is true in our household. Whenever the kids go away, the parental mice can no longer play with anything. Through habit we have become totally co-dependant on them. They are our enablers. Even simple cut-and-pasting is a hit-and-miss affair often resulting in frantic phone calls dragging one or other of the kids back to help. The wrong television programmes get recorded, the oven timer beeps when it shouldn’t, every photograph taken is riddled with red-eye and I’ve yet to succeed in “loading up” much other than the dishwasher without copious assistance. All three of my children are veritable geniuses at operating anything that requires a plug, and all weirdly seem to have acquired their supreme knowledge without ever bothering to study an instruction manual.