Technology and Wives

My wife has passed a milestone. While out of town she had the dubious honor of hooking up her parents' new computer to the Internet. Now, they are on dial-up, to it is not just a matter of plugging it into a cable modem or router. She had to find the modem, plug the cord in the correct slot, then find the ubiquitous AOL software on the new computer (I think it must be a law that new consumer computers have AOL software pre-installed on them), run the routine, get the account information from her mother and get them set up. And, yes, she managed to do it. I was very proud of her. She also had a printer issue: no printer port. What was good about this was that she realized that there was no printer port on this new machine. Without a USB cable no one could have fixed that.
I was quite impressed at her ability to work through the issues. Yes, she had to call me, but it was to confirm her own diagnosis of the issues and to suggest a couple of resolutions, not because she was lost.
It is good to see her progressing in this way. I'm not sure when she crossed the line from techno-lost to technology enabled, but she has. I think she retains much of what I teach her because she understands it at a new level and can then use that new knowledge and understanding to learn herself.
"Dial-up sure is slow," was her comment on her return. I guess she likes how I provide for her.