Creating A Monster

Well, once again it’s been over a month since I posted anything on here, and I’m a little ashamed. Not abject, but a little disappointed with myself. In some ways it would be worse if my readership extended further than a cynical curmudgeon from Iowa, a pert-breasted nymphet trapped in the body of a portly Welsh accountant and a very small lady writer with a bad attitude, but they are loyal, if infrequent, visitors and I really should make more of an effort.

I’ve just spent a week in Ireland, trying to persuade my mother to allow a measure of helpful technology into her life. She’s eighty-seven, and physically a little frail, although she still lives alone and manages to do her own housework. On this visit I noticed there were a lot of cobwebs on the ceilings, but I reckon that’s bound to happen if you’re both short-sighted and four-foot ten in height. Mentally, she’s still in pretty good shape. She repeats herself a lot, and forgets things, but then I’ve been like that myself since I was thirty.

My mother is also becoming a bit deaf. “DO YOU KNOW, DAVID,” she bellows “I DON’T THINK MY HEARING’S AS GOOD AS IT WAS.”

“Well”, I say, “at your age you have to exp-“

“WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO YOU THINK MY HEARINGS NOT AS GOOD AS IT WAS?” she roars, not realising that I’ve said anything.

“NO! I THINK YOU’RE RIGHT!” I shriek.

“Oh.” She says quietly, looking crestfallen, and I have a sudden surge of sadness at the ageing process and the way it will ultimately turn us all into creatures who are figures of fun at best, and, at worst, a bloody nuisance to our families. (Our friends, of course, will still love us as they’ll be just as deaf, daft, drugged and incontinent as we are, so make sure you keep in touch.)

I had a long list of things to do, or rather to persuade my mother to do, but after a day or two I realised none of it was going to happen. Old people don’t like change, especially those, like my mother, who come from a background where money was always tight. They don’t like splashing out on luxury items like living-room windows which keep the draughts out, washing machines that work properly, and TV sets which don’t have to be slapped firmly on the right-hand-side every ten minutes to rid the screen of scrolling horizontal lines.

So I gave up on everything except for the mobile phone I’d bought her for Christmas, which my daughter had spent a full day teaching her to use, and which, inevitably, had been back in its box since December 28th.

It took five days. Five days of being shouted at and shouting back. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to try to explain something slowly, calmly and gently at the volume you’d use to stop a stray dog from crapping on your lawn, but let me tell you, it’s exhausting. Because mobiles look a little like TV remotes it took a full day to persuade my mother not to hold the phone out in front of her, pointed vaguely towards the corner of the room.

“NO! HOLD IT TO YOUR EAR! NO! WITH THE SIDE WITH THE BUTTONS ON IT TOWARDS YOUR EAR! NOW SAY SOMETHING! I DON’T CARE WHAT! TRY “HELLO”, FOR FUCK’S SAKE! NO, DON’T CRY, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY!”

Actually it wasn’t that bad. Well, it was, but I didn’t swear and she didn’t cry. And it worked so well that while I was in the airport waiting for my flight home my mother used her mobile to call me four times. Once while I was checking in, once while I was having a pee, once while I was, at the insistence of the security staff, removing my belt and shoes, and once while I was sitting in the bar trying to relax. But that’s what always happens with mobiles, and I was proud of her.

But I think I may have created a monster.