<p>Now that cell phones are ubiquitous, it is SO easy for kids to call parents for “phone help” How about we list things we have had to try to explain over the phone (often which we had offered to teach earlier in person but were declined… I am sure I am not alone in this experience (and we may have discussed this here before but I can’t find the thread…maybe someone can explain that to me over the phone…) Here are 2 things we’ve had to “teach” over the phone:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How to jump start with cables.</p></li>
<li><p>How to pump gas (! I was rescued on this one…to my daughter’s chagrin…by a helpful police officer at the adjacent pump…I had only tried 6 or 7 times to “show” her, but NO…Ha!)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Really! How much easier it is to do these things in person. (And in the “old” days we had to figure them out by asking (gasp!) a stranger.—or by trial and error…</p>
<p>Got the call 5 days after we left D at college freshman year: “Which buttons do I push on the washing machine?”
While I’m sure she would have eventually figured it out, it is so automatic with kids to “dial” their way out of situations…</p>
<p>Last summer I had to explain to my mom how to remove a virus from their computer. I was over 300 miles away and could not look at her computer screen. I had to all but give myself the same virus so I could walk her through deleting it…</p>
<p>Ok: that’s fair. My kids always have to talk me through getting Skype to work right and it IS hard when you can’t see the screen (and the parents are digital immigrants and slow learners at that…</p>
<p>I think the funniest is when I called dh to ask him how to watch TV. (And I’d called him the day before to ask him how to watch a DVD.)</p>
<p>Sounds crazy, but the last thing we’d done before he went off on a business trip was watch something streaming. Our TV/DVD/VCR/Blackbox is an impossible tangle of wires and the way they need to be plugged in and/or turned on is completely counter intuitive. For example the VCR needs to be turned on even when you aren’t watching a video.</p>
<p>D called to see how to open the gas cap on her dad’s car. It is funny to open, you have to use the door opener there is not a lever in the car. </p>
<p>But the funnest thing was when my H had to tell her how to fix the toilet. Somehow it broke and wouldn’t flush. D was in a panic! lol!</p>
<p>Hops_Scout, there’s a tool at <a href=“https://join.me/[/url]”>https://join.me/</a> where you can arrange to see someone’s screen or allow them to see yours. I work in tech support and I agree, sometimes you just need to see what they’re talking about because their description isn’t adequate.</p>
<p>Let’s see, I’ve explained over the telephone how to use the shower to both my teenage kids after we moved (how to make the water go from bathtub to shower) and when my son couldn’t figure that out and decided he’d just take a bath, I had to try to give him directions on how to turn the bathtub stopper so the water didn’t all go down the drain.</p>
<p>Most embarrassing over-the-phone (not exactly directions, though) was when my brother was getting married and I had to call with my measurements for the bridesmaid dress. I was in college at the time. My brother didn’t answer, his roommate did. I said something lame like “Can you give my brother these numbers?” and tried to say them in a way that didn’t sound like 36-26-36.</p>
<p>A group at work went fishing, and gave me a meal’s worth of trout – undressed. I had to call my dad and have him talk me through “how to fillet a trout”.</p>
<p>I’m a student, but I’ve had to call my parents for some pretty funny things…I’ll see what I can remember off the top of my head…</p>
<p>1) I remember asking my dad how to cook a sweet potato.</p>
<p>2) On the cooking note, while I was doing cooking for myself during the summer session I just finished, I had to call home and ask my mom if the ground turkey I was buying would stay all “string-y” even if I tried to form it into patties…I did this in the middle of the grocery store. Quietly, I hope That was pretty amusing…but I just wanted to be sure! </p>
<p>2) I once had to call home and asked my little sister to google me bus directions because I was lost in Pittsburgh…my family lives in CA, so it was pretty funny to think that someone thousands of miles away was in a better position to figure out how to get me back to campus than I was! Wonders of technology…</p>
<p>3) I remember calling home to ask how to store winter coats…not too unusual, but it resulted in my mom very adamantly telling me I needed to sand down the cedar blocks I had before storing my wool coat, which involved me borrowing sand paper from a drama shop on campus.</p>
<p>Wait, you children ask you these questions BY PHONE CALL???
My son asks me these sorts of things by TEXT.
Like how to fill out his graduate school financial aid application.
Arranging with us to get his graduate school summer tuition payment paid on by Monday because the student loans haven’t come in yet and it is Friday night and why don’t we do banking on line like any normal people?
How to change wiper blades on a car.
Oh, and where do you buy them anyway and do we have any at home if he stops by.
Etc.</p>
<p>Nearly 10 years ago, before iphones, Google Maps, etc. my DD called DH at 1AM. She was away at university and needed directions to drive from Pasadena to Newport Beach. Somehow they had gotten to the game, but needed help getting back. Lucky for her, he has a good memory for directions, we were in a different country at the time!</p>
<p>I tried to tell my son how to cook rice so it would be almost done when we got home. I neglected to tell him to put a lid on the pot, so the liquid boiled away before it was done…</p>
<p>“Assume nothing.” :D</p>
<p>Of course, my sons have had to tell me how to do things on the computer via long-distance.</p>
<p>Mine do it by text too. Then, if I’m not quick or accurate enough, they get mad and go into a texting war. Hmmfff. To think we survived ages 18-22 with a very quick Sunday afternoon phone call. I think cell phones strengthen the umbilical cord, although I’ll admit it goes both ways. When I can’t start a tiller/tractor/etc., need muscle, or mechanical know-how, I do the same thing.</p>
<p>I once had to talk my 12 year old DS through cooking an entire roast dinner for company. We were having my family fly in for DD’s sweet sixteen and things got delayed and I had to run to the airport to get them and wanted dinner done when we got home… we had too much to do to go out and I knew they would be tired. He had never even turned on the oven before. It was an interesting call to say the least!</p>
<p>Once my wife pushed some mystery button(s) on the remote for our old TV, from which most of the lettering had worn off. It wasn’t usually a problem because we only used on, off, volume up/down, and channel up/down. This day she called me at work after accidentally pushing one of the other buttons, or some combination thereof, which made some cryptic letters and numbers appear on the screen, and pressing each of the buttons on the remote one at a time didn’t bring the picture back. I tried walking her through a systematic way of testing the various remote functions over the phone, but I didn’t know any better than she did what the problem was, so it stayed that way. We ended up going out and buying a universal remote the next day, just so we could read the buttons and bring the picture back.</p>
I am sure I am not alone in this experience (and we may have discussed this here before but I can’t find the thread…maybe someone can explain that to me over the phone…) Here are 2 things we’ve had to “teach” over the phone:</p>
That was pretty amusing…but I just wanted to be sure! </p>