On Tuesday I presented my mom with her Christmas present, a brand new i phone 6s.  My mom is on my plan due to the fact that I had to get an extra line when I made the epic mistake of going from an i phone to a samsung galaxy.  Ultimately, I ended up throwing my Galaxy into a concrete set of stairs after months of frustration, it felt good, really good, until I realized I was going to be stuck going back to my i phone 4 which was the equivalent of going back to dial up interent service after having had broad band.  Eventually, I talked my mom into getting on my plan so I could take her fee upgrade and give her my phone.

This is the actual conversation I had with my mom regarding wifi.  How do I get on the internet with this phone, it says I have to have a password?” said my mom who seemed somewhat frustrated.

“You shouldn’t need a password unless you are trying to get on our Wifi”  I responded. “You just have to click on the safari icon on your phone and you should be able to use your cellular service to get on the internet.”

“What do you mean, am i not already on Wifi?  I’m always on Wifi aren’t I”  said my mom sinking deeper into the rabbit hole that is technology.

“No, you aren’t always on wifi, you have to turn the wifi on in your settings on your phone.” I knew there was no way my mom even knew that there was a settings setting on her phone nor did she have any idea how to turn on wifi.  We had had a conversation about her using too much data previously and she assured me that she was always listening to her right wing podcasts on wifi, that was about as believable as the republicans being sympathetic to the plight of the poor and underprivileged.  However, digging into why she thought she was always on wifi would be more exasperating that listening to her try and defend trickle down economics.

“When I’m at my house i’m always on wifi,”  as if that statement somehow legitimized her supposed awareness of wifi and how it actually works.

“Why are you always on wifi, what’s the password to your wifi?”  I had finally decided to dig my heels in and get to the bottom of things.

“Password?”  My mom said as if Wifi was given out freely like water at a drinking fountain.  At that point I realized, even if I went over my monthly data quota, the overage charges were not going to be nearly as frustrating as the trying  to explain the intricacies of wifi to my mom.  (Shirley also tried to explain wifi to my mom that same night and made the same amount of progress that I did)

While my mom has no clue what wifi actually is and couldn’t post an ad on Craig’s List if her life depended on it, she isn’t the only one who struggles with technology on almost a daily basis.  One problem with technology is that it has been too good giving us unreasonable expectations as to how it should perform all the time.  A prime example of this is illustrated through the struggle our family (me) has had in adjusting to the loss of broadband.  We moved from an urban area to an area where the source of our internet is the verizon hotspot, so we have a limited amount of data that we can use each month.  So, no on demand movies, no netflix downloads, and nothing streamed.  Let me tell you it sucks.

One Saturday morning my kids were watching cartoons while I tried to get on the internet access the Detroit News website and read about whatever Detroit sports team I happened to be following at that moment, I think it was the Tigers.  I kept getting the message “Safari can not load the webpage because you are not connected to the internet.”  Typically I would have just said “Shirley! There’s something wrong with the internet can you fix it for me?”   However, she was still sleeping.  My kids who were roughly 2 and 4 at the time were only a couple years from having a more comprehensive grasp of technology than me, but they were of no use to me that morning, at least to fix the internet.

The hotspot is a 3 inch by 3 inch device that provides internet when you plug it in to an electrical outlet or have it appropriately charged.  My frustration began to mount as I continued to receive the same message over and over.  Eventually, my temper got the best of me, I never resort to physical violence with actual human beings, but inanimate objects are fair game, it might have something to do with the fact that inanimate objects can’t fight back.  I took the hot spot and threw it against the floor as if I had just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.  I thought it would shatter into  a bunch of pieces, but it was surprisingly well constructed and bounced off the floor and into our mounted television.  It was like a super ball coming off the floor of our tv room.

Nervously, I grabbed the hotspot and was afraid I was going to have to play dumb with Shirley and act like I had no idea why the hotspot wouldn’t turn on.  However, it still powered up so I presumed that I had dodged a bullet.  Shortly after the hot spot “incident” there was a red line going all the way across the bottom of our television.  For some reason I didn’t put two and two together and thought the hot spot hitting the tv had nothing to do with the newly developed line across the screen.

Eventually Shirley woke up and I had her call Sony to speak with their customer support.  After about ten minutes on the phone with a customer service representative they asked her to actually look at the tv.  When she got up to look at the tv she realized that the screen had been shattered at the bottom and it looked similar to when a bullet goes through a window and shatters the window.  At that point I realized that the malfunction of the tv was my fault.  She then proceeded to blame our kids saying “they probably threw something at the tv and broke it.”  I had a quick decision to make, should I throw my kids under the bus?   The worst that was going to happen to them was that they would get yelled at (which they were use to) and then their life would go on like normal, lots of toys and ice cream were still in their future.   Me on the other hand, I had a whole lot to lose, this would cement my reputation as a hot head who unnecessarily destroys things (golf clubs, remote controls, tennis rackets, computer mouses, cell phones) on a whim typically resulting in a deep deal of regret.(Looking back I don’t regret destroying my samsung galaxy, that all turned out splendidly)

“I have a confession to make, I couldn’t get on the internet, I got mad and threw the hotspot at the floor and it proceeded to bounce up and hit the tv.  I’m pretty sure that’s why the TV is broke.”  As much as it made sense to blame it on the kids, I just couldn’t do it, they were innocent bystanders to another one of my hate crimes against an inanimate object.  What added insult to injury was the fact that  my in laws were over that weekend and they were witness to the entire debacle.  (the odds were probably pretty high that my inlaws would be present, my mother in law actually refers to the spare bedroom in the basement as “her” room)

There is a silver lining, or should I say silver linings, to the “hot spot” incident.  First of all I was able to acquire a new tv out  of the deal (unfortunately, the one that broke was about two months old) and I haven’t broke anything substantial since the hot spot destroyed my tv.  I can’t say inanimate objects shouldn’t be on their best behavior around me, but I am definitely more cognizant of the fact that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.