At Mom’s house again on a Tuesday night. Italics mean Chinese, of course.

Mom: ERRR-NEE! You have to teach me how to use this camera. It’s DIGITAL.

She says the word DIGITAL like it’s a brand name, like SONY or PANASONIC and if Mrs. Chang can get a nice DIGITAL camera, why couldn’t she?

Ernie: Of course mother, I would more than happy to teach you how to upload photographs from your digital camera to internet, and/or make hard copies. Do you have a desktop and/or laptop computer with USB compatible port?
Mom: Why, of course I do. Will I need to upload this driver software and install a separate copy of the DIV-X software, as carefully instructed by the well-written manual instructions?
Ernie: By uploading your photos, you could share electronic copies of photos with family and friends through social-based photo sharing web sites such as Flickr, as well as securely purchasing prints to your beautiful, well-kept home.
Mom: Indubitably!

Ha ha, uhmm… not so much. Here’s the actual conversation.

Ernie: WHAT!?
Mom: Are you going to teach me how to use the camera or not? I spent a lot of money – $100 at Walgreens.
Ernie: Have you ever used the computer [in dad's room]?
Mom: … I’m going on a cruise next month. I want to take pictures.
Ernie: … [sigh] Give the camera to me when you’re done, I’ll take care of it.
Mom: Exercise more.

For the record, I love how “Exercise More” has now replaced “Okay” or “Thank you” whenever mom talks to me.