My father-in-law has a computer. He used to be a smart man. Then he retired, from installing server rooms for AT&T. Somehow, after being a very smart man, all of his technical skills dribbled out his ass. This man, for the 8th time(?), called me up in a panic over his clicking an ad for ‘Maine Lobsters’. The link, of course, was a scam. A Microsoft-looking web page loaded up saying he needed to validate his system by entering in his contact information, which he did. Two minutes later his phone started ringing and a person began walking him through installing a remote access program on his computer so they could “fix the issue.”

This time…

This time no sooner than had he done the remote install, did he call me on his other phone saying “I think I screwed up, again.”

Yes, he said again knowing full well he had done this same thing a few times before. The cycle continues.

My first words to him were “unplug your machine and don’t turn it on again until I get there.” Getting there was of course later that day as I had child care issues and couldn’t just drop everything to go save his dumb-ass. It was my day off but even then it’s only from work. I never get days off in the ideal sense of the word.

Yeah yeah, stop your bitching dude. You chose to breed, now deal with your deed.

True, but I didn’t ask for the bonus kids. Granted, they are the easy ones compared to my two loin tainted nightmares.

Anyway, I finish my child care obligations and begin my thirty-minute drive up the hill. No sooner than do I get on the freeway, do I get a call saying “Can we do it another time? We have dinner plans tonight. What about tomorrow?”

Hello McFly? I have a job. I can’t just drop everything to cater to your dumb-ass needs. I’m not the retired idiot in this scenario. Using slightly different words, I remind him that’s it’s now or it will have to wait for another day, probably next week. I also assure them that I don’t think my cleanup will take several hours. I get there and exchange pleasantries and five minutes later I’m in the office and loading up their computer. The first thing I do is disconnect it from being online. The second thing I do is go in and create a new account on the machine under my own name. I then demote his account as a child and begin cleaning up the installed programs after going through the active programs running listing. I open my own little travel laptop and begin googling the names of the stuff I don’t immediately recognize. An hour later, and a few reboots, I’ve gotten his machine trimmed up and slimmed down. No extra stuff that shouldn’t be there.

Here is the weird part. Apparently, he needed to run his scanner and did so while I was there. His scanner software wouldn’t run anymore with his profile now being deemed as a child account. Say-Wha???

I had to call it quits at that point so they could still make their dinner reservations. Yeah… I haven’t gone back up to address that issue yet either. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Guess what tonight is? Tonight is my peer review night with my writing group. Guess which crotch-spawn is behind in their homework again and is going to make me miss logging in to help the rat out? I swear I’m stuck in the middle of an idiot sandwich.

Doesn’t that make me part of the idiot sandwich myself? Yeah… I chose to breed. I swear I’m going to be such an idiot to my own children later on in life. The cycle continues.

No children or elderly adults were harmed in the creation of this post, though plenty of brain cells died off through aggravation.

😛

Tootles all.