‘A Birthday Lesson’

“Honey, have you made the birthday card for Grandpa yet? Thursday is a big one for him — 70 years old! You’d better get a card into the mail soon or it’ll arrive late.”

This irritated Nate. First of all, he was extremely busy at the moment with his Game Station 2. His attention was fastened to the high-speed chase on the screen; a dozen police cars were crashing and burning and being stomped on in pursuit of a giant dragon.

Second, he failed to understand the point of “snail mailing” anything, which seemed like a total waste of time. Why should he have to rush now to send a birthday card that would arrive days later? Nate groaned loudly.

“Why doesn’t Grandpa just use email like, literally, everybody else on planet Earth!”

Nate knew that his grandfather had been a university professor before retiring, and never understood why somebody who knew so much and lived so long did not learn to use a computer. His grandfather had written some really long books — all by hand. Every one of those books was on his mom’s bookshelf — including one that Grandpa had dedicated to “My beloved grandson,” when Nate was just a baby.

Nate’s mother was not at all pleased. “Young man, are you looking to get grounded and that game confiscated? Your grandfather deserves a lot better from you!”

This got Nate’s attention. He looked up quickly — and was even starting to feel a little bad.

Now his mother seemed to be counting to 10 under deep breaths, something she frequently did when deciding on an appropriate course of action – or punishment. Nate knew he should not speak again if he wanted to hold on to his Game Station 2. He put it down on the table.

“OK, this is the deal,” said his mom finally. “You want Grandpa to use email and Facebook and Twitter, right? So you are going to teach him. That will be your birthday present to him — a weekly visit to show him how. He’s even told me he wishes he knew how to order medications online because the pharmacy always puts him on hold when he calls. And I think he will listen to you because he loves spending time with you. My present to him will be buying him his first computer.”

Nate thought his mom was pretty smart as he chewed on her idea. His grandfather had taught him many things, and Nate could now teach him something. That would make his grandfather proud of him. Nate was also relieved that, as it turned out, his game console was not going to be taken away now.

He extended his hand in agreement. She shook it, and then they both smiled at the thought of Grandpa surfing the Internet. It was hard for Nate to imagine that personal computers were not around when his grandfather was growing up. His grandfather said he didn’t even have a cell phone in the old days. Nate felt quite lucky he was born in modern times. Plus, he would have another computer to play on whenever he visited Grandpa’s house.

His mom dialed her father’s number and handed Nate the phone. The boy told him excitedly to expect their visit after school on Thursday, along with “a great big surprise.”

“I can hardly wait,” Grandpa told him.

Special thanks to Kat McDonough for her illustration. To see more of her work, visit https://www.katmcdart.com.katmcdart.com

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