SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
My roommate practices plastic canvas as both a hobby and as a way to grab a few extra dollars here and there from selling the finished products. Mainly they're things like tissue-box covers, doorknob hangers and the like, the kind of gee-gaws that make a house a home.
She originally started it as a sort of therapy for her hands; having worked in commercial kitchens for many years the hands were starting to seize up and she hit on the idea of the hobby as a pleasant way to regain some flexibility in her fingers.
So far, so good. But then I come along and rent a bedroom in her place and expose her for the first time to the wonders of the Internet.
I rue the day I ever did that.
First there are the basics to be learned - what is email, what is an email ADDRESS (hint: not the same as your street address!), the concept of "signing in" and "signing out" ... so those covered the first few months.
Then, one day, I guess I wasn't fully paying attention to what I was saying. As she was telling me about the pattern books she wanted but couldn't find locally I said "Well, you could probably find them on the 'Net".
Jerk.
As part of her Internet lessons I gave her the task of searching Google for "plastic canvas pattern books", then going to the site and finding books she liked. OK, she pulled that off with a minimum of coaching from me.
But then she wanted to actually ORDER the books. She couldn't be happy just looking at the pretty colors on the screen - oh, no! She had to actually HOLD them in her hands!
When she made this decision I was busy abusing the cat, so what she was saying didn't really sink-in until a half-hour later when I heard an anguished moan.
"What?"
"I can't GET this!"
"Get what?"
"THIS!!!"
I look at the screen of my laptop. On that 104 square inches of glassy real estate there was a jumble of STUFF. She had evidently tried ordering what she wanted without asking for my help, and the resulting 463 pop-ups on the screen only confirmed my suspicions. I swore I could hear my computer whining ...
"Phil ... PHILLLLLLLLL ... MAKE HER STOP!!!"
She had clicked on every possible link on the order page, in no real order, and the result was pure anarchy. It took me 20 minutes to undo the damage and when I was finished I offered to order the books for her. She gladly agreed and I zipped through the process, not really paying attention to anything but the ordering process itself.
She was happy as a clam for a couple of days, waiting by the mailbox like Snoopy for her pattern books. As Wednesday turned into Thursday and thence into Friday her face began to get longer and longer. By the end of two weeks (10 business days and 4 lesser, useless Saturdays and Sundays) she was crying "WHERE ARE MY BOOKS? WHY DON'T THEY SEND MY BOOKS?!?"
I told her to check her email for any messages from the company, and if she hadn't received any to send a query letter of her own. After I gently corrected her as she was trying to send email from Facebook she finally managed to send off an email.
Now she wanted to sit in front of the computer and wait for a reply. I had to inform her that I had work to do as well and needed access, and would call her when I was done.
Now, on the average day I'm in front of the computer for something like 12-14 hours. Roomie kept peeking around the corner to see if I was done or was taking a break so that she could check her mail. She didn't get the concept of the "tabs" on my Firefox browser - that I could have more than one site open simultaneously. I was using one tab to keep track of her mailbox and would be notified instantly if she received any mail, but SHE wanted to be the one doing a Snoopy.
I took a break, abused the dog for a while (thank Buddha for pets. huh?) and heard her actually crying. Checking out the situation I learned that they had indeed sent her a reply, something along the lines of:
Roomie had expected that the pattern books would be the same as the ones she had bought so many years ago at the craft store - actual paper pages. She started babbling that she would have to print out all the pages and staple them together in order to be able to use them, then in a fit of frustration and rage she did a 180 and told me to CANCEL the order.
I'm sitting in the relative quiet of my room as I type this. Roomie is at the kitchen table doing her plastic canvas work, from a pattern book printed in 1978. The pages are yellowed and dog-eared, but they are THERE - she can feel them, turn them, fondle them if she so desires. My computer is humming a happy electronic song and the animals are resting, glad for the break in the abuse.
Some things are just not meant to be.
She originally started it as a sort of therapy for her hands; having worked in commercial kitchens for many years the hands were starting to seize up and she hit on the idea of the hobby as a pleasant way to regain some flexibility in her fingers.
So far, so good. But then I come along and rent a bedroom in her place and expose her for the first time to the wonders of the Internet.
I rue the day I ever did that.
First there are the basics to be learned - what is email, what is an email ADDRESS (hint: not the same as your street address!), the concept of "signing in" and "signing out" ... so those covered the first few months.
Then, one day, I guess I wasn't fully paying attention to what I was saying. As she was telling me about the pattern books she wanted but couldn't find locally I said "Well, you could probably find them on the 'Net".
Jerk.
As part of her Internet lessons I gave her the task of searching Google for "plastic canvas pattern books", then going to the site and finding books she liked. OK, she pulled that off with a minimum of coaching from me.
But then she wanted to actually ORDER the books. She couldn't be happy just looking at the pretty colors on the screen - oh, no! She had to actually HOLD them in her hands!
When she made this decision I was busy abusing the cat, so what she was saying didn't really sink-in until a half-hour later when I heard an anguished moan.
"What?"
"I can't GET this!"
"Get what?"
"THIS!!!"
I look at the screen of my laptop. On that 104 square inches of glassy real estate there was a jumble of STUFF. She had evidently tried ordering what she wanted without asking for my help, and the resulting 463 pop-ups on the screen only confirmed my suspicions. I swore I could hear my computer whining ...
"Phil ... PHILLLLLLLLL ... MAKE HER STOP!!!"
She had clicked on every possible link on the order page, in no real order, and the result was pure anarchy. It took me 20 minutes to undo the damage and when I was finished I offered to order the books for her. She gladly agreed and I zipped through the process, not really paying attention to anything but the ordering process itself.
She was happy as a clam for a couple of days, waiting by the mailbox like Snoopy for her pattern books. As Wednesday turned into Thursday and thence into Friday her face began to get longer and longer. By the end of two weeks (10 business days and 4 lesser, useless Saturdays and Sundays) she was crying "WHERE ARE MY BOOKS? WHY DON'T THEY SEND MY BOOKS?!?"
I told her to check her email for any messages from the company, and if she hadn't received any to send a query letter of her own. After I gently corrected her as she was trying to send email from Facebook she finally managed to send off an email.
Now she wanted to sit in front of the computer and wait for a reply. I had to inform her that I had work to do as well and needed access, and would call her when I was done.
Now, on the average day I'm in front of the computer for something like 12-14 hours. Roomie kept peeking around the corner to see if I was done or was taking a break so that she could check her mail. She didn't get the concept of the "tabs" on my Firefox browser - that I could have more than one site open simultaneously. I was using one tab to keep track of her mailbox and would be notified instantly if she received any mail, but SHE wanted to be the one doing a Snoopy.
I took a break, abused the dog for a while (thank Buddha for pets. huh?) and heard her actually crying. Checking out the situation I learned that they had indeed sent her a reply, something along the lines of:
Roomie had expected that the pattern books would be the same as the ones she had bought so many years ago at the craft store - actual paper pages. She started babbling that she would have to print out all the pages and staple them together in order to be able to use them, then in a fit of frustration and rage she did a 180 and told me to CANCEL the order.
I'm sitting in the relative quiet of my room as I type this. Roomie is at the kitchen table doing her plastic canvas work, from a pattern book printed in 1978. The pages are yellowed and dog-eared, but they are THERE - she can feel them, turn them, fondle them if she so desires. My computer is humming a happy electronic song and the animals are resting, glad for the break in the abuse.
Some things are just not meant to be.
