Today’s Technology Offers a Different Kind of TV Network

With the children in bed, the dog in the garage and her husband out on business, my sister sits down to her computer. It’s her first time signing on to this particular network, and she’s psyched. A friend gave her a gift of an hour’s free “talk.”

Now this computer system is a bit different than Prodigy--where she and our mother, bonded by modem, leave each other witty little messages in electronic mailboxes--in that it’s really live. It’s sort of like “Geraldo” on line.

What I’m saying here is that you never know who you might find baring their soul.

So my sister’s heart flutters just a bit when, within seconds of signing on, she hears the peppy little computer tune alerting her to an “instant personal message” being sent her way.

“Do you like TVs?” it asks. “Erica” wants to know.

Well. Does my sister like TVs ? What a funny, delightful coincidence!

Not only does my sister like TVs, she sells TVs, big-screens mostly, to go with all the VCRs she’s got in stock, not to mention the videos, and she could go on from there. Guess you never know where networking can lead you, in this case, maybe straight to a kindred spirit and business opportunity quicker than you can say DOS.

And for free. My sister’s hour has hardly begun.

“Of course, I like TVs,” she taps back to Erica right away. “Who doesn’t?”

Right. Erica apparently takes my sister’s response in the spirit with which it is intended, even though my sister is thinking, “I mean, come on , Erica. This is America. Where would we be without TVs?”

Well, on second thought, maybe we’d better not explore that question just yet . . .

“Are you female?” Erica wants to know now.

“Uh, OK,” my sister is thinking here. “So maybe this Erica is a little slow.”

Because it’s not like my sister’s sign-on, which also happens to be her name, is something like Pat or Terry or Casey or Taylor, something that could lead to some degree of gender confusion.

Not that my sister would ever think of anything remotely like that , of course.

But let’s just say that my sister’s computer proclivities are showing me a whole new side of this woman I thought I knew so well. Truth is, when she bought a minivan I thought I had her down pat.

And I was wrong.

“Can’t you tell from my name?” she tells Erica now. “Of course, I’m female.”

All right. So maybe my sister sounds a little testy here. But you know how computer messages can distort what you have to say. You lose something in tone . It’s hard to convey a real sense of yourself through a computer screen.

But Erica tries.

“Names can be deceiving,” says the latest message, preceded as always, by that peppy little computer tune. “I am male. But I like to go by Erica.”

Well, uh . . . . As my sister explains it, she likes to think of herself as a nice person. I mean, here she is establishing a relationship with this person, this Erica, who happens to live in Scranton, Pa. What is she going to do, just hang up? No, she can’t do that.

Although, admittedly, my sister is thinking rather unkind thoughts, like this Erica is some kind of nut . And she feels sort of deceived. What happened to the TVs? As she is mulling all this over, Erica messages again.

“What do you like best about TVs?” Erica says.

Which, quite frankly, surprises my sister. This is a question that not even she, being in the business and all, has ever even considered. Then she considers something else.

“We are talking about televisions, aren’t we?” she asks Erica now.

“No, we are talking about transvestites,” Erica says. “I am 30 years old. I am not gay or bi, but I like to cross-dress. It brings out the feminine in me. And I like that.”

And just as those words are appearing on my sister’s computer screen, in walks my sister’s husband with his usual, “Hi, how ya . . . . Oh my God !”

So, of course, my sister explains and all, and what with their rock - solid marriage, there is clearly no cause for alarm. Fact is, they both laugh.

And then after my sister messages back a few more times to Erica--who wants to get married but appears to be having trouble finding a woman who really understands him--why, my sister just signs right off. Naturally.

I mean, until the next night.

Which is when she finds Mark, a family man in Upstate New York with a computer programmer wife and two young sons. You see, my sister is figuring there’s no sense in wasting the rest of that free hour of talk.

So my sister and Mark, who was signed on to an entirely different realm of this computer world, are having a very pleasant little chat--about their families, their work, sort of like a leaning-over-the-back-fence kind of thing, only in ‘90s computer speak.

My sister tells Mark about Erica, and about how silly she felt, and Mark responds about how, yeah, it takes all kinds, and then, out of the blue, he says:

“What are you wearing?”

Well. So there you have it. Who could make this up? Only a computer can take you where a minivan dare not tread.