After a few years Martha finally convinced Dan to trade in the Buick, and since Dan had recently read Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, he was more resolved than ever to buy another American vehicle, which meant Dan came home one day with a brand-new Chrysler Fifth Avenue—a trade that did absolutely nothing to alleviate Martha’s vehicular exasperation. In fact, the fully loaded Fifth Avenue brought with it a whole new assortment of problems, including but not limited to a door handle that would often fall off the driver’s side door. Martha never got out of that car without wondering if she’d be able to get back into it, and I certainly can’t blame her. Having a door handle that actually stays attached to the door seems like a small request where matters of car maintenance are concerned.
That Fifth Avenue, for all its fancy buttons and levers, left Martha more convinced than ever that an array of bells and whistles might look real pretty on a display, but the reality of it all was that they were too high maintenance for her. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one thing Martha could do to turn the advancing technological tide when it came to cars and TVs and phones and, well, everything. So by the time the Internet took off in the mid to late ’90s, Martha was out of her depth completely. That fact was totally evident when, after David ordered a gift for her online and had it shipped to her house, she called us with an exciting announcement.
“Sophie? I just wanted to let you know that I just got my package! I just got it! It’s from Amazon-dot-C-zero-M! It’s from Amazon-dot-C-zero-M!”
God love her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that there aren’t any zeros in .com. Mainly because she wouldn’t have known what in the world .com is. Or that Amazon doesn’t really have anything to do with the jungle.
And I guess that’s sort of my point.
After the Amazon-dot-C-zero-M phone call, David recognized there was going to be a steep learning curve not too far down the road, so he devised a Martha Technology Strategy (MTS) that served us pretty well for a few years. The MTS was to try to avoid introducing Martha to any new technology, while helping her navigate whatever technology she couldn’t escape. So when (true story) she called us to complain that her TV was turning on in the middle of the night at full volume, David walked her through the steps to disable the timer. When (true story) lightning hit that same TV a few years later, David helped her pick out a new one that would be easy for her to operate. When (true story) she bought her very first foreign car, a Honda Accord, in 2002, David showed her how to load six CDs into her stereo.
Which means (true story) that she has been listening to a steady rotation of Kenny G, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley for well over a decade.
Managing the MTS has been trickier over the last six or seven years, though—no doubt about it. Once I started a blog, for example, Martha mentioned that she’d love to have a way to read it, and there were several times when David and I debated giving her one of our computers or buying her a device that would enable her to set up an e-mail account and read whatever blogs she wanted via e-mail subscriptions. Inevitably, though, the discussion would come to a screeching halt when David would pose a critical question: So, if we do this—who’s going to be Martha’s tech support person?
And that question? It would shut everything down.
SHUT.
IT.
DOWN.
After all, we’d learned the hard way that even the best-intentioned MTS requires tech support, and considering David has spent hours—HOURS—on the phone over the last fifteen years trying to explain how to reset the time on the VCR (“David? The display just says HH-MM! It just says HH-MM! And I can’t make it stop saying HH-MM!”) or how to unlock the oven from the self-cleaning setting or how to answer a cell phone without hanging up on the caller, we knew that introducing Martha to a computer or an iPad was beyond his tech-support capabilities. We wished the circumstances were different, but there was no way to ignore the cold, hard truth: MTS is a full-time job.
For a while it looked like Rose’s mother, Julia Claire, had come to the MTS rescue. Julia Claire owns a real live computer, and she offered to pull up some of my old blog posts and print them out for Martha. Martha was skeptical about whether or not the plan would work, primarily because, in Martha’s words, “I’m pretty sure Julia Claire’s computer is just for ordering things! It’s only for ordering things!” Fortunately, though, Julia Claire’s computer also worked for surfing the Internet, and she was able to print off four or five blog posts for Martha to read. It was an MTS victory, but alas, it was short term. Martha ultimately decided she didn’t want to waste all Julia Claire’s printer paper and really, since Julia Claire mainly used the computer for ordering things! just for ordering things!, Martha didn’t want to impose and ask for weekly blog printouts.
Hey there, MTS square one. Nice to see you again.
For the next couple of years Martha stayed in a technological holding pattern. But last fall, in what David and I considered to be a stroke of genius as well as the possible answer to all of our MTS prayers, Scott and Rose decided to give Martha a Kindle for Christmas. We figured a Kindle would be the easiest of all devices for her to manage because there are only a couple of buttons, a charger, and a black-and-white screen, so essentially it’s only slightly more complicated than a bag phone.
Not that Martha ever mastered the use of a bag phone, mind you. But still. The idea had some real promise.
The Friday before Christmas we drove to Myrtlewood to celebrate with the Hudson side of the family, and Rose suggested that we have our Christmas lunch at the country club since she and Martha both had been cooking nonstop for open houses and neighborhood parties and Sunday school gatherings. My parents have never been members of the country club, thanks to my daddy’s long-standing belief that he shouldn’t have to pay somebody money for the privilege of paying them even more money, but even he admits that the country club in Myrtlewood has some of the best food in town. The chicken salad plate with fresh fruit and tiny pimento-cheese sandwiches is one of those dishes that screams, This is home to me, and sure enough, that’s exactly what Martha ordered when we sat down for our Christmas meal. The rest of the table was a study in fried Southern goodness—fried oysters, fried catfish, fried chicken—and as is almost always the case when we’re with Scott and Rose and their daughter, Melissa, our time at lunch was easy and good. They’re a laid-back bunch, and getting to hang out with them always makes my heart happy.
It’s nice to be able to say that about family, you know?
After lunch we went back to Martha’s to exchange gifts, which meant it wouldn’t be long until the Unveiling of the Kindle. David and I nearly derailed the proceedings when we gave Martha a poncho that I’d found for her at Stein Mart, but after she got the poncho pirouetting and posing out of her system, Martha finally sat down to open her gift from Scott and Rose. David and I felt invested in her reaction to the Kindle—in fact, part of our gift to her was an Amazon account with a credit so she could start her collection of e-books—so we were hopeful as we witnessed the launch of MTS 2.0. It was just like Steve Jobs must have felt on the day Apple launched the iPhone. Except I’m pretty positive the first iPhone wasn’t operated by a five-foot-one-inch grandmother who owns approximately fifty-three three-quarter-sleeve jackets in varying shades of green.
When Martha finally opened her gift and saw the Kindle box, her reaction was more than any of us had imagined. She was thrilled, and as she carefully examined the box, she said, “Oh! You just don’t know! You just don’t know how I’ve wanted one of these! Because so many of the girls have one! And they all say they’re wonderful! Just perfectly wonderful! And I’m going to read and be so cute and so fun and I’m just going to enjoy it!” We were all happy to see her so enthusiastic, but at the same time we knew that enthusiasm was only half the battle.
Because somebody was going to have to teach her how to use that Kindle. And nobody was volunteering.
Martha had just started to dig through the box for (nonexistent) instructi
ons when David noticed that the “perfectly darling” red case Scott and Rose had bought for the Kindle was actually a case for a Nook. This discovery sent Martha into a chorus of, “Oh, you don’t mean! Do you mean it? You don’t mean!” and put a big, fat exclamation point at the end of Martha’s lifelong assertion that she has the worst luck in the world and every time she finds a cute top the store doesn’t have her size and whenever she finds a lipstick color that she likes it’s immediately discontinued and if she parks in the most remote spot at Dollar General her car will still get nicked by a shopping cart and she just can’t have anything because something always goes wrong and it only happens to her, do you see?
Do you see how it always happens to her?
Something always goes wrong!
Scott and David know all too well that when Martha starts to get wound up about the dire misfortune of a missing button or a humming air conditioner or an oddly placed electrical outlet, the best course of action is to keep calm and come up with a plan—preferably one that can be implemented quickly. Scott wisely suggested that we make a quick trip to Best Buy to get a new case, and I for one thought that was an excellent idea, especially since I’d been tinkering with Martha’s Kindle during the discussion about the wrong case and realized it was the wrong Kindle, too. Martha needed a 3G Kindle since she doesn’t have Wi-Fi at home (nor does she have DSL or a cable modem or one of those old-timey modems that cradles the phone receiver), so yes, going to Best Buy was a fantastic plan. Top notch. Crank ’er up.
Thankfully the exchange process at Best Buy was quick and merciful, and we would have been in and out of the store within five minutes save the small, surprising detail that Rose decided to buy a TV for Julia Claire while we were there. I recognize that the impromptu TV purchase might seem unusual to some, but it was a total Rose move. Rose rarely spends money on anything besides groceries and gasoline—she’d rather play tennis or run or work in her yard than participate in a big day of shopping—so when she buys something, she moves fast and decisively, trying to keep the purchase as painless as possible.
She’s a straight shooter with no interest in haggling or bargaining; she just wants to get the shopping over with and hurry back to the tennis court, for the love of Pete. That’s why none of us were surprised when she took time to pick out a forty-two-inch television when presumably we were only at the Best Buy to return Martha’s Kindle. It was a perfect way for Rose to check off “Get Mama’s Christmas gift” from her list without having to take away one second from the next week’s outdoor activities. Buying the TV wasn’t impulsive; it was efficient. Classic Rose.
On the way back to Martha’s we stopped by Scott and Rose’s house to use their computer so we could double-check Martha’s Amazon account and set up her new 3G Kindle. Somehow I ended up being the person in charge of all Kindle-related duties, and honestly, I was a little surprised that my own husband—the man who is my very best friend and, if you want to get downright biblical about it, is supposed to love me as Christ loves the church—threw me to the MTS 2.0 wolves so quickly. When I was typing Martha’s account information into the Kindle, I grinned at David and said, “Seriously? You’re just going to sit there and let me do this? Since when did I become the point person for all things Amazon?”
He shook his head. “I know it’s a lot to take on,” he answered, “but honestly, I don’t have the strength for this one. Because remember when she moved? And she wanted the phone in her garage? And she talked for two days about how her friend Gertrude has a phone in her garage and it’s just so fun because the girls like to sit in the garage and visit and when the phone rings it’s just right there! It’s just right there by the door! And you don’t have to go inside to answer it! Do you remember that? Do you remember how long it took me to explain that I was not in fact an employee of the phone company and therefore could not install a phone jack in her garage? Do you remember how hard I tried to make her understand that if she wanted a phone in her garage, then maybe she should just TAKE HER CORDLESS PHONE OUTSIDE?”
I laughed, nodded sympathetically, and he sighed.
“Well, it nearly did me in,” he continued. “So while I’m happy to help with the Kindle stuff if you need it, and while I’ll offer all sorts of moral support, I’d be mighty grateful if you could take this one for the team.”
In that moment, I understood. By default David had served as Martha’s electronic troubleshooter and repairman for almost forty years. He’d examined malfunctioning power locks, stubborn cable cords, and countless blinking clock radios. Now that Martha was going to have a device that would enable her to purchase books, download books, and subscribe to blogs—NOW THAT THE INTERNET WAS INVOLVED—he recognized the magnitude of the task at hand. And he needed a break.
I sat quietly for a minute and pondered what the Lord might be calling me to do in this particular situation. Maybe He simply wanted me to be my husband’s tech support helpmeet. Maybe He wanted me to be Martha’s IT person for such a time as this. Maybe He wanted me to be a Ruth to Martha’s Naomi, and wherever Martha’s Kindle would go, I would go. Wherever Martha’s Kindle would stay, I would stay.
Or maybe He wanted me to dial down the overspiritualizing a notch or ten and finish adding the account information to the Kindle so my mother-in-law could start enjoying her Christmas present already.
So that’s exactly what I did.
About thirty minutes later the Kindle was operational and secure in its sassy new case. We drove back to Martha’s house, and as I prepared to show her how to use the Kindle, six words ran on a loop in my brain:
Be near, Lord Jesus. Be near.
The next hour proved to be one of the most memorable of my life. Martha, bound and determined to figure out the Kindle, cemented her status as an auditory learner. She repeated every single word I said.
“Martha, this is the home screen.”
“This is the home screen!”
“Martha, this is your list of downloaded books.”
“This is the list of downloaded books!”
“Martha, this is your shopping cart.”
“This is the shopping cart!”
I don’t know when I’ve encountered a more eager student. And when I showed her how to tap the edges of the screen in order to turn pages, she was all over it. She hit the side of that Kindle like a buzzer, raising herself halfway off the couch and exclaiming, “Turn the page! TURN THE PAGE!”
If I’d had a medal, I would’ve draped it around her neck right then and there, proclaimed her the Kindle champion, led her to the top of a platform, and played a recording of the national anthem. It was Martha’s Technological Moment in Time, and she was giddy with progress.
However, when Martha’s Kindle coach (that would be me) returned to Birmingham the night of our tutorial, Martha lost her Kindle confidence. She tried to recapture it by taking her Kindle to the Best Buy and asking for help there. She was incredulous that there was no on-site Kindle tech support, so she called me. “Can you believe they don’t service the Kindles?” she asked. “And they don’t offer lessons? They don’t offer lessons at the Best Buy!” Martha then beseeched the local public library for help, where “there was the nicest young man there! Just the nicest young man! But he didn’t know anything about Kindles!” I tried as best I could to talk her through questions on the phone, but doing that meant we had to fight our way through a technological language barrier.
The next few weeks passed without incident, but at the end of January, Martha called and said, “Now, Sophie, if I click that little thingy at the bottom of the screen—well, I mean, I don’t really click it because it doesn’t click, I just sort of mash it, not real hard or anything, I just sort of push it, really—but if I sort of push that button and then wait maybe one, maybe two seconds, shouldn’t I be able to see that list with all that stuff I can do? You know, that list with all that stuff I can do?”
“Ma’am?”
“Well, I don’t really know how to explain it t
o you, but I’m trying to get to that list with all the stuff. Not the instruction manual. But the list with the stuff. The list with the stuff! How do I get to the list with the stuff?”
All I knew to say was, “Martha, I’m not sure.”
But what I wanted to say was, “Martha, you may need to make a trip to the Books-A-Million and buy some real books with some real pages. ASAP.”
I give Martha all the credit in the world, though. Trying to learn how to use the Kindle must have driven her absolutely crazy, but she never wavered in her commitment to it. Every time we talked, she told me how much she was enjoying it, how easy it was to read, how she could just sit in her bed late at night and “turn the page! TURN THE PAGE!” And it was fun! Just so much fun! It was more fun!
But the Amazon account we’d set up for her told a different tale. Martha hadn’t ordered a new e-book since Christmas. When she mentioned it made her nervous to click “Buy” because she wasn’t sure how Amazon was going to get their money, I promised her we’d taken care of those details. No matter what I said, though, I couldn’t seem to assuage her concerns, and I wondered if the Kindle might find itself called into permanent service as a coaster on Martha’s nightstand.
But finally—mercifully—a friend of Julia Claire’s gave Martha some excellent, in-person Kindle pointers, and the pieces of the techy puzzle started to fit together for her. Lo and behold, early that next May, more than four months after the Kindle Christmas, my e-mail dinged with a notification that there’d been a purchase on Martha’s Amazon account. She’d bought a Mary Higgins Clark novel—downloaded it and everything. I’m confident our neighbors must have heard me when I stuck my head in the hallway and yelled, “DAAAA-VID! You’re not going to believe this! Martha just downloaded a book!”
A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet Page 15