My Wife Speaks Computer...
And Other Amazing Events

By Jack Kean

"Dad, I don't want a car because it won't leave me enough time to study." "Honestly, Mom, I don't think I'm ready to date at 16, maybe 18."

What? You never heard those words?

"Gee, Hon, we just won the lottery." "We made a mistake on your tax return, and enclosed is a check for your overpayment."

The sad truth is that I've never heard those words either. Of course, just the idea of hearing them makes me smile.

In 1996, I bought my first computer. My wife had no interest. Over the years, I wrote a couple of novels, published a humor book and wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine columns. My wife had no interest. On the computer I sent and received e-mails and pictures. My wife had no interest. I played games and even created a rather basic web page. My wife, you guessed it, had no interest.

"What do you do all day on that computer?" "You spend all your free time on the computer." "I can't believe you are always on the computer." These statements were seldom uttered with a smile. Explaining was useless, and just as I was about to give up, an astounding thing happened. For reasons I cannot explain, my wife decided that she wanted a computer.

While this might seem to the uninitiated a great idea, it left me with some concern. Computers are tricky things. Even if you do the same thing the same way every time, it doesn't mean the computer will respond in the same way. It takes a lot of patience and practice, and even then, things don't always go well. Visions of a computer flying across the room seemed all too real.

Nevertheless, a computer showed up on a table in our bedroom, and my wife inquired whether I wanted to set it up or pay $129 for the Geek Squad to come over. After giving the options due consideration ($129 or 15 minutes of my time?), I had her computer up and running in short order.

Those of you with computers know full well that because a computer is running doesn't mean the operator knows how to make it actually work as one intends. Things went much better than I had any reason to expect. My wife picked up doing the things she wanted to do on the computer much faster than I ever did. Still, I believed that much of the terminology was foreign to her.

So you can imagine my surprise the other day when walking through the house I heard,
"You just go to www dot bulldogs dot com" It was a voice I recognized talking on the telephone, and while I didn't hear the end of the sentence, it was the first part that stopped me in my tracks. It was, amazingly enough, my wife sharing an internet site and even using the correct terminology.

Okay, as amazing events go, this doesn't rate with the guy who recently floated from Oregon to Idaho in a lawn chair attached to helium balloons. Maybe it is not even as amazing as Ken Kemper of Hagerstown, Maryland, leaving $400,000 and a $400,000 home to his three dogs. (Though at the rate I'm spending money on my dog, that inheritance will pale by comparison. Let's just say that surgery at the University Of Georgia School Of Veterinary Medicine is not cheap.)

Back to the topic at hand. Any day now, I fully anticipate walking into the bedroom and saying, "I can't believe you are always on the computer."

Of course, I'll be smiling.

Jack Kean is the author of three novels: Being From The South Doesn't Make Me Stupid, Deadly Sacrifice, and What If The Winner Dies? Prior to retirement, he was employed in law enforcement on the federal level. He is a graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law in Oxford. Jack is a native Mississippian, but he currently lives in Alabama, having moved there from Woodstock, Ga.