<p>Late pm call from son, immediate reaction is what’s wrong to generate a near midnight call? </p>
<p>Son- Can you put money in my food account?</p>
<p>Me- I don’t know how, Dad went to bed, he can do it early in the morning. Didn’t he just ask if you needed more $ (his school lets you pay cash, use student general account or from a housing food account that saves money on prices, can spend as little or as much as you want on dormfood/snack bars…)?</p>
<p>Son- No, you must be remembering a few weeks ago. I guess I won’t try to teach you how to put money in. </p>
<p>H woke up, showed me how to do it (I know I could have done it without his help, but wasn’t willing to go online, find credit card etc.- see what happened, I’m wasting time on CC as long as I had to boot up my computer), I did the deed. And, yes, I did hear my H ask son if he needed $ just a few days, not weeks, ago.</p>
<p>Sent son e-mail, looked up closing time on snack bar delivery service- still open, so called son - no answer. He may have had to pay the higher price to get food while studying for his exam…</p>
<p>Last night S who is still in HS was helping me make his lunch. I asked him to open the bag of Clementines. A few minutes later it was still on the counter in its original state. “I couldn’t open it.” </p>
<p>Hello??? Scissors in the drawer just below you? You won’t have any fruit in your lunch b/c you couldn’t open the BAG?</p>
<p>None of my kids, ages 23, 20 and 14 are competent with the can opener. We’ve had a manual can opener for about 8 years and if it doesn’t have a pop top lid, they call me for yet another training session. However, older son who camp/backpacks can open cans with his swiss army knife. Go figure.</p>
<p>Young male uneven competence. Either one of my sons could plan and execute a 5-day backpacking trip for six people, but neither of them can get socks into an open-top hamper three feet from where they are standing. Neither have been defeated by plastic packaging, I believe, but the can opener might still be a challenge.</p>
<p>have to be careful here about identifying information. It would be so much more fun if I could give you the details!</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that S instant messaged me during work with a frantic wardrobe question/problem 3 minutes before he had to leave for a job interview.</p>
<p>Then second-guessed my very reasonable answer about color combinations.</p>
<p>He is going overseas to study, but evidently cannot dress himself. :D</p>
<p>It’s not just a wardrobe problem, it’s a time management problem. </p>
<p>They have to leave at x o’clock, so they start getting ready at five minutes to x o’clock. Never mind not knowing what to wear, where it is, or if it’s clean. Or if they know where a copy of their resume is.</p>
<p>Oh, and this doesn’t include travel time to the appointment. They firmly believe in teleportation. Zero travel time.</p>
<p>Since about a year ago, all conversations with away at college son start like this. He calls me, "Well…chuckle, as usual I’m calling because I need help. Then ensues a request for money (the most common) or a request to intervene with grandparents for money (next most common) or a request to web search something because he has to know NOW and is not near a computer.<br>
I think of myself as an on call conceirge service with a wallet…
Of course he has memorized my credit card number but knows better than to use it without asking first. :)</p>
<p>What’s wrong with long hair? I love long hair. I have long hair. I think it looks better on me as long as I keep it clean, shiny and grease-free, which I do. People with long hair usually look younger.</p>
<p>As far as lazy goes: how about this? I have second thoughts about ordering delivery because I have to go downstairs to pick it up. And when I DO go pick it up, I go in my PJs and flip flops, or whatever I’m wearing at the time.</p>
<p>Mom: “Hey”
Me: “hey”
Mom: “I can’t open the gas cap. Help me.”
Me: <strong>(silence)…to get over the shock</strong>“Um, turn it whichever way the arrow is pointing.”
Mom: “It won’t turn…”
Me: “I’d love to help you but I’m 2600 miles away.”
Mom: “Oh, never mind, someone helped me. Bye”</p>
<p>Apparently, my mom graduated summa cum laude from college, has two master’s degrees, wrote 2 theses, and worked for a bank for 12 years, but can’t open her gas tank.</p>
<p>My long-distance cries for help (across six time zones) generally involve transferring data from one place to another–phone or camera to computer, computer to CD, etc. as well as how to use certain programs.</p>
<p>I am NOT inept, just too busy to really learn and I’m one who needs lots of repetition to get that kind of thing.</p>
<p>It occurs to me that there is some weird kind of equivalence between the hysterically funny story about the college student who didn’t know how to mail a letter and those of us who have to “learn” how to use our technology as opposed to intuiting it.</p>
<p>I’ve helped a few people pump gas. One was a lady in her seventies. She told me her husband had just died the week before and she had never pumped her own gas. That was sad. Last week there was a well dressed man at the gas station just staring at the pump. It was fun showing him how to work it.</p>
<p>For the gas cap:
Righty tighty. Lefty loosey.</p>
<p>Okay I confess, I have to call Mathson up every time my lap top decides not to speak to the computer. After the third time I saved the instructions in a file. I hope I’ll be able to find it!</p>
<p>I use righty-tighty all the time. Taught my kids to use it, too. Technical knowledge does not = basic mechanical knowledge. And my dad assumed I’d marry someone who was handy, too… ;( Guess who’s the handy one in THIS marriage!</p>
It’s funny because I feel like some of these are things I would do. ^_^</p>