Oh What a Tangled Web We’ve Weaved

One of my favorite movie scenes comes from Albert Brooks’ comedy “Mother,” in which Rob Morrow, the brother of Brooks’ character, tries to teach his “mother,” Debbie Reynolds, how to use a picture telephone.

It soon becomes an unmitigated disaster, with mother having no idea how to sit at a camera-friendly angle. Poor Rob is left screaming into the phone, which carries only a blank picture and the hum of his mother’s voice.

Boy, do I know how it feels.

I’ve just finished a hellish week trying to teach my own mom and dad how to turn on and use their new Macintosh--how to “surf the net” and perform other, seemingly simple tasks. I soon found out that getting the two of them to even stick their toe in the net was like teaching a rattlesnake the etiquette of high tea.

Granted, I may have erred in trying to do this long-distance, which yielded little more than a real-life parody of the Morrow-Reynolds exchange.

Our first embattled volley involved working “the mouse,” a concept totally foreign to both Mom and Dad, lest it be the kind that gets snared in a trap purchased at the hardware store.

“Take the arrow that’s controlled by the mouse and place it under the word ‘File’ at the top of the screen,” I said during the first of several calls that produced a tidy profit for MCI.

I should tell you at this point that both my parents are native East Texans who still live in Dallas and maintain their drawl and their passion for the Cowboys.

“Well, I cain’t get that bloomin’ thang go up there!” my mother rasped in utter frustration.

My father’s term for the mouse and the arrow it controlled was “dinky-donk,” as in, “I cain’t get that dinky-donkgo up there!”

After a few futile attempts, I said with a sigh: “Just . . . use . . . the . . . mouse!” to which he replied, “What I’d like to use is my 12-gauge shotgun!”

*

On the third day of what felt like the last meeting between Netanyahu and Arafat, I abandoned my attempts to have them sign on to the World Wide Web via Netscape Navigator and the Earthlink account that had already cost me $44.95--their $25 sign-up fee, plus the first month’s membership.

After a stormy tirade of bloomin’ dinky-donks and other crude Texana, it was obvious that getting my parents signed on to Earthlink would be about as easy as asking the Dallas Cowboys to behave themselves.

“Let’s try America Online,” I sighed, feeling like a NASA engineer trying to steer Apollo 13 back to safety.

My father all but belched into the phone, muttering darkly, “How many dinky-donks does it have?”

After another sad bout of computer ennui, I gave up trying to get them signed on to America Online via the company’s setup procedure, which would have allowed them to incorporate their own user name and password through their very own account (i.e., their credit card).

“Oh, hell, just use mine!” I snapped.

“Watch your language!” my mother said.

After another 15 minutes, lo and behold, Mom actually signed on! She even managed to steer herself to the cyber “Newsstand” on the “Main Menu.” I then maneuvered her to the listing of her hometown paper, which after a few more points and clicks, popped up on the screen.

“See?” I said proudly. “That’s your hometown paper, right there on the Internet.”

My parents had long marveled at how I was able to read that paper and others, merely by using my computer. I had rightly concluded, I thought, that my parents had bought a computer for that very privilege--to read America’s newspapers on the Web. Why, they could even read my stories on the Web!

But my mother soon made me feel like a bloomin’ dinky-donk, and a hopeless one at that.

“I’ve got a paper sittin’ right there on my kitchen table,” she said. “And it has a cup of coffee and a fried pie sittin’ right beside it. And you know somethin’ else? I don’t need no mouse to help me read that one! I can do it all by myself.”

When you’ve got the time, check out my mama’s Web site--fed up-dot-com--but don’t be surprised if it kills your mouse. Even without a 12-gauge blast of buckshot.