OBTUSE

I'm participating in this year's A-Z challenge, and so will be posting daily about a subject focusing on a letter of the alphabet.

I'll admit it -- when it comes to technology, I am a total idiot. Yep, that's me, sitting on a stool over in the corner, weathing a huge, pointy dunce cap.

How do people learn about these things?? It was easy when my kids were all living at home. I'd be on my computer and it would hit me -- I need to insert this photo into my post! "Kiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiidsssss! Who's home??? Come help me!!!!" And one of them would trot in, heaving a huge, indulgent sigh, grab my laptop, and with a few clicks and lightning-fast speed typing, it would magically be accomplished.

Oh, I would ask them how to do it myself. But they'd give me that look. The one that said, "I have no desire to spend the rest of the evening wasting 3 hours of my precious life dumbing this down for you, when in approximately 7 minutes you will have completely forgotten the entire procedure and will be yelling for me to do it all over again."

I can't blame them. They're like Robert Oppenheimer trying to teach quantum tunneling to a two-year-old Forrest Gump. It's sad. I need your pity.

I'm trying, though. I recently hired an amazing guru to evaluate my blog. The first thing she had me do was fill out a detailed questionnaire. Those were some great questions, and I was eager to show how intelligent I am. The only thing was, it wouldn't let me copy and paste into an email. (Yes! I an quite the copy-and-paster!) Finally I had to break down and shoot her an email (more techno-talk, if you're not familiar) and ask how I was supposed to get my answers to her. No, not by osmosis, as I was beginning to believe, but "in the cloud."

Oh. I've heard of this "cloud" thing. I absolutely do not grasp the concept. Luckily, all I had to do was simply type my responses RIGHT ONTO THE DOCUMENT. Genius!!!!

So after that faux pas, where I once again felt like the afore-mentioned F.G., she completed her evaluation and sent me several pages of outstanding suggestions. I then had about 10 days to submit any questions I had.

Well, my questions were longer than the report. And let me preface that by saying she explained everything in simple terms, using great detail, giving me links to tutorials, and good examples, and so forth. The problem was not with the report, the problem was -- as usual -- with me.

I have so little knowledge. If you're a Game of Thrones fan, then you'll understand when I say, "You know nothing, Jon Snow." I was embarrassed to even submit some of the questions. But hey, that's the only way I'm going to learn, right? At least when my head is in "the cloud," I can't see her give me "the look."

So, as I said, she gave me incredibly valuable advice, and I've already begun implementing some of them. It might take me several years to figure out how to do them all. "Oh, kiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiidssssss! Can anyone come home to help Mom?"