Generally speaking, I tend to leave everything technological and electronic up to my husband. And generally speaking, that tends to be in the best interests of everyone involved.
Although I do sometimes find it a little upsetting when people won’t even give me a chance. For example, when The Gamers are here on the weekend they sometimes ask me to go online and look up hints for them so they won’t have to miss a split second of combat with the demon-zombie-vampire-chainsaw-wielding-donkey-riding-skeleton-people, or whoever it is they’re fighting this week. But apparently I’m not able to complete this task quickly enough for them.
“Here, give me that,” they’ll say impatiently, irritated that their quest for the golden dragon fangs must temporarily be put on hold.
So I hand over my laptop thinking, “Oh sure, Mr. Not-Yet-Graduated-From-High-School, still living at home with your parents, with no way yet to earn a living for yourself. You may be able to find the necessary information on the Crystals Of Power and the Magical Sword Of Decapitation more quickly than I can, but really: How far is that skill actually going to take you in the real world?”
But I don’t say anything, because I don’t really care about the gaming, and it’s just easier to let them look things up for themselves.
However this week I did find something technological I cared about, so much so that I decided to try and figure it out for myself, rather than waiting until my husband got home from his business trip. I wanted to figure out how to add those little “subscribe to my blog feed” buttons to my blog setup, and of course this meant entering The Frightening World Of Computer Code.
Now, I’ve never actually hurt anything on any computer (that I know of), but somehow I have made up this horrible story about myself. In my own mind I see my touching anything having to do with the actual coding of the actual programs as the equivalent of Godzilla thoughtlessly decimating an entire Japanese village. The poor, unwary villager lines of code would just be innocently going about their business, and then here I would come, squishing the “0’s” and “1’s” with my gargantuan Godzilla paws, and smashing into the carefully constructed HTML commands with the uncontrollable flailing of my giant Godzilla tail.
I think this might be because I’m so used to dealing with people rather than with machines. I “get” people. I know how to interact with them. I pick up lots of information about them intuitively, and I can figure out whatever I need to do in any given situation.
But when I’m faced with a computer, I get nothing. It just sits there, all shiny and enticing, mocking me. “Oh foolish mortal, who thinks she can penetrate my innermost secrets… ha, ha Ha, Ha, HA, HA!”
So I am VERY happy to report that somehow, this liberal arts, language major, people person managed to figure out how to include the code for 4 subscription buttons to the sidebar of her blog, and nothing was wrecked! (So please feel free to subscribe to my feed in order to bolster my fledgling technological self-confidence!)
And lo, the villagers rejoiced.
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