Subwoofer

The twenty years I was a weaver I lost track of the world of computers.  I bought a new computer in the late 1980’s, about the time Bill Gates was taking over operating systems and my world of DOS was being edged out by icons.  Not today’s icons; those icons were identical and only identified by the title printed under them.  It was maddening, frustrating, stupid, I didn’t have time in my life for icons.  I made my son-in-law put my brand new computer in DOS mode.  I had my accounting program, I had Lotus©, I had weaving draw down software, I was happy.  I skipped Windows 96 and 98.  Then Y2K was upon us.

To fall for it or not.  The accounting program people assured me their software would not be affected.  Good.  On the other hand, the computer was more than ten years old and showing its age.  The dial up internet access was not always reliable, due, according to the very young techs I spoke with, to the age of my operating system.  A new computer it would be.  But what.  How to figure it out.

 I turned to the younger generation.  This time to my other daughter’s fiancée.  Bill, I need a new computer.  Get on the Dell website and pick it out for me.  I watched over his shoulder as he put everything I would need in a shopping cart, whatever that was.  OK.  OK.  OK. 

The new computer arrived in a lot of big boxes.  Another young friend came and unpacked it.  Then she plugged a cable from the old one to the new one and slid all our brains right down the line.  Magic.  Bill and Beth were around from time to time and I’d get one or the other to tweak things about Windows 2000, but on the whole is wasn’t too bad.

One day Beth looked up.  “What’s up on that shelf, Ma?”  “Don’t know,” I replied.  “It came with the computer.  Bill put it up there.”

“Why does my mother have a subwoofer?”

I have upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP to Windows 7.  I still have my subwoofer.  The young techs who work on my computer now are amused. Every mother-in-law should have a subwoofer.  Every mother, too, I imagine.  If I used my speakers I’d probably know what it does.  Beth and Bill gave me the cat to sit on it.