Tables Turned

          When it comes to computers, my immediate family is not impressed with my abilities. There’s a lot of eye-rolling which usually escalates to exasperated sighs when I ask a technical question. My son got so frustrated when I repeatedly asked what my “desktop” was, he loaded a picture of Indiana Jones’ real walnut desktop onto my computer. It has souvenir black and white pictures of Indy and his dad framing the edges of the desk, and an authentic-looking coffee stain too. So, they would’ve been stunned if they’d heard me giving a detailed lesson in how to use Facebook.

My desktop.

When I was visiting my parents two months ago, I showed them some family pictures on my Facebook profile. After I returned home, one of my cousins in Tennessee started a family group on Facebook. One day another “cousin” posted a picture of herself at my Great Grandfather’s grave.

I’d never met this cousin. Her name was Melanie. The only Melanie I knew was one of my cousins who sadly died more than thirty years ago. This was not one of “my” Melanie’s nieces or grand nieces. I was puzzled.

               My father is the family genealogist, so I called and asked him who this Melanie was. He and my mom said that the only Melanie they knew of was the same one I knew. They speculated that maybe she was from another unrelated family with the same last name, Keolanui. They asked lots of questions about what she looked like, and her age.  Did she say who her parents were? Maybe this was identity theft. I didn’t say it, but I thought if I was going to choose a family to “steal,” I’d sure choose one with a more common, easier to spell last name.

               All these questions are what led me to give my parents, who are in their late seventies, a Facebook lesson. “My name is Laura. How may I help you?” I was ready to teach the parents who taught me everything from tying my shoe laces to how to drive when I was growing up.

I waited for them to log on to their computer. Remembering their desktop, I described the Mozilla Firefox icon, a little blue and orange globe looking thing. Yes, the orange part is a curled up fox. I told my dad to click on it. I walked him through Googling “Facebook.” He tried to go to Google Earth, but I got him back on the right path. He nervously told me he’d never Googled anything. My mother bailed out, telling me she had to go check on something.

               When the Facebook sign-in page came up, he asked if he should sign up. Definitely not. I told him how to sign me in on his computer, down to the details like it’s about two inches down from the top of your screen a little to the right of center. He liked my password.

Laura and her Dad when they're not on Facebook.

               I convinced him to bypass updating my security, and just click on Profile. “It’s on that blue line at the top, between ‘HOME’ and ‘ACCOUNT.’” He clicked HOME instead and was very excited to see everything pop up on my wall, “Oh, there’s a picture of you!”

               After much explaining from Puyallup, and much clicking in Hawaii, he finally got to see the mysterious Melanie. He called my mother back to the computer. Apparently, what she had to “check on” was the TV show she’d been watching when I called. I could hear him telling her she didn’t need a pencil or paper, the pictures were right there on the computer!

               They talked back and forth, cataloged different family members and their children, and after much debating, decided that my grandfather’s brother has a great granddaughter named Melanie. Mystery solved! She is a cousin, just don’t ask me how many times removed we are from each other.

               It was time to get Dad logged out. He had already accidentally logged out once while my mother was searching for the pencil. After I explained the “back” button--small round green button in the top left corner--he had gotten braver about clicking on things. As I talked him through his second log out, he had a good time clicking in the wrong places, and seeing pictures of our extended family. He playfully asked “who are all these good looking people?” I am proud that he successfully navigated Facebook, and relieved that I’m not still logged in over there in Hawaii.

               As if that session wasn’t reward enough, today, my technical skills were called on again. My daughter called from college. She is still a teenager (meaning she is computer savvy). She was trying to book a trip to Milwaukee for herself and two other music students to attend a music teachers’ conference. Granted, the initial, main reason she called the Mom technical support line was my credit card clout, but I did talk her through Expedia.com.

Who has redeemed herself? Who is building up her computer reputation now? I’m basking in the glow of my monitor while I can. I’m pretty sure this will be short-lived.

Laura Keolanui Stark is updating her status on Facebook. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.