–or, “Ever receive advice so far out of left field that your brain has absolutely no clue how to process it?”
I’ve had some computer difficulties recently. Turns out that the problem was a bad graphics card, but for a while it seemed as though a corrupted operating system might be to blame. There’s a computer repair place at the local university that offers relatively cheap (if correspondingly slow) service, of which I availed myself.
I happened to mention this inconvenient situation during a recent phone conversation with my mom. She has a phobia of computers (no doubt reinforced by my occasional tales of expensive and/or frustrating technical difficulties), and refuses to own one. However, every so often she’ll see a news article or whatever on TV that she’d like to get more information about, and at these times she relies on me to search out the requisite materials online for her. She therefore has a vested interest in knowing that my machine is active and internet-capable, so that she’ll be able to get a transcript of that Chicken Dijon recipe from last night’s **PM Magazine ** if necessary. I don’t have a problem with this, although I have yet to see evidence that she’s ever actually prepared any of these recipes I’ve downloaded for her. But I digress.
In any event, Mom commiserated with me over my computer troubles. I said that it probably wasn’t that big a deal, but that the repair process would probably necessitate wiping the hard drive (although as I mentioned above, this turned out not to be the case-- I myself am barely competent with computers, alas). My main concern was that I’d probably lose some files permanently in the process, since I don’t back up my data as often as I ought to.
All of this, really, is by way of preface to the central issue at hand. When I told Mom that my files would likely get lost, she asked if the repair folks would be able to copy them. I said that it was possible, but that it would probably mean an additional fee, and in any case I wasn’t too worried about it-- the material in question being mostly unfinished short story ideas, wretchedly bad attempts at poetry, saved PC games, and various image files. With the exception of my most recent progress in Morrowind, losing any of this stuff wouldn’t hurt me too badly.
Mom then asked if the repair guys could view my files without my knowledge. I said: perhaps, but again, I wasn’t too concerned about the possibility. It’s not as though I had any patent proposals or anything saved in there. I wasn’t going to lose sleep over the possibility of the computer repair guys stealing ideas from my crappy unpublished attempts at fiction.
Mom wanted to know if I’d had any porn on my computer.
Well, she’s my mom. She’s known about the Playboys for some time. I acknowledged that, yes, it’s not impossible that some of the image files in the machine might have possibly been porn. However, while trying to troubleshoot my computer problem, I’d already made a couple attempts to wipe the hard drive. I didn’t know if any of that stuff was still readily recoverable or not, but maybe so. In any case, I was fairly certain that there wasn’t anything in there that would have embarrassed me too much (except, perhaps, my extensively Photoshopped Jennifer Blaire screenshot gallery).
Mom asked if I was sure. Did I have child porn on my computer?
…Um.
So, yeah, this was the point where the conversation ceased being merely awkward and jumped the tracks completely. I discovered that I didn’t seem to possess the necessary neural connections to even begin to make sense of the question. How do you respond to something like that? I can honestly say that I don’t recall anyone, ever, asking me flat out whether I had child porn lying around. If a random stranger asked me such a question, I expect I’d be fairly offended. If a coworker asked me, I’d definitely wonder where the hell that question was coming from. But this was my Mom!
Why, no, Mom! No, I don’t have a stash of child pornography on my computer! Thank you for asking! Have I done or said something at some point, to suggest to you that this would be a likely possibility? Why would this question even occur to you?
Well, it turns out that Mom watches a lot of cop shows, and sometimes people get arrested for having child porn on their computers. She knows that I spend a lot of time cruising the internet… so, you know, just in case I did happen to have any child porn on my computer, she was worried that I might get in trouble for it.
Ah, that explains it, then. Thank you, Mom. Thank you so much for your heartwarming show of concern. I’m gratified to be able to assure you that such is not the case, however. To my knowledge, I have not now, nor have I ever been, in possession of child pornography, digital or otherwise. I’m deeply touched by your thoughtful reminder to hide the child porn, but I think I can safely state that your warning was unneccessary.
I took the opportunity to assure Mom that I’d never murdered anyone, either. Just in case she was also harboring any worries in that area, you see. She confessed that she’d never really thought about it. (Actually she said she didn’t think I was capable of successfully concealing a murder. I told her that sounded like a dare to me.)
So now I don’t know what to think. Our phone conversation ended amicably enough. Mom seemed genuinely baffled that I took her question so badly. For my part, I found it impossible to maintain a sense of indignation; the situation was just too far removed from any familiar context. Now I’m just deeply puzzled. How much significance ought I to read into any of this? Are Mom and I closer as a family, now that the spectre of my potential child pornography hoard has finally been aired out?
Do other families have these sorts of conversations?
