Change it to the butterflies

From the archives. Original blog entry publish date: November 21, 2007

For the past couple of months or so, my mom has been nagging me to buy her a computer - when my parents split, my dad moved out of the house and got a new laptop and DSL service, leaving my mother with an old computer running Windows 2000, a hand-me-down keyboard and one of those fucked-up boxy CRT monitors that you only see when television news crews do stories on public libraries and elementary schools. (Well, actually, my dad got a new laptop and new DSL service and bought a new condo and a new SUV. But that’s not the focus of this blog post.)

Mom: I want a new computer. With a big monitor. BIG MONITOR.
Ernie: What are you going to use the computer for, mom?
Mom: I want to check my e-mail.

I know full well that buying a new computer and Internet service for my mother is a lose-lose situation: if my mother doesn’t use the computer at all, I essentially have bought her a very expensive paperweight.

But if my mother learns to use the Internet too well, my mother suddenly has access to…