Becoming your parent’s tech support is karma.

Remember when you were a kid and you’d do something that made your mom or dad really mad?

“You just wait! I hope your kids treat you the same way one day,” they’d say.

And our kids did treat us the same way, sometimes five-fold.

But the real payback for sassing, disobeying and blowing off chore assignments has turned out to be:

Technology.

Since I was born during the Baby Boom, I’ve been here for virtually all of the new technology that kids today believe has existed for the same amount of time as carbon-based life forms and Nancy Pelosi.

You see, kids now swim in technology without ever taking swimming lessons. It’s that easy for them. However, most of my generation’s parents don’t need to sign up for the class because they have…

Us.

I can tell you when it all started. The VCR flashing “12:00, 12:00, 12:00, 12:00”. Which was an easy fix.

But now, the phone call we get from a parent goes like this:

Parent: “I can’t get my email to work.”

Kid: “What does it say on the screen?”

Parent: “Error: keyboard not detected. Press any key to continue.”

Kid: (silence)

Parent: “Can you hurry and fix this? The Luby’s special ends in an hour.”

But, I think every generation has dealt with this, just in a different way.

My dad tells the story of his grandfather, who bought a Ford Model A. My great-grandfather had no idea how to drive and he only tried once. He drove the car onto a woodpile. From then on, he had his sons or grandsons drive him wherever he wanted to go. He had done his part. It was now someone else’s turn.

It’s now our turn. And as much as it can be mind numbing to try and fix a computer problem for someone who’s in another state, that someone is still here with me. I’m so grateful for that fact that I hope God allows me to be that tech support person for a very long time to come.

I may even work on my accent so that I sound the part.

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