Don’t you dare yell at your mom when she needs IT help

My mother called me Wednesday night, which meant one of two things, but likely both.

She either wanted to remind me that I am someone’s child and to catch up on life.

Or she needed help with her iPad.

Or her iMac.

Or her iPod.

Or her Kindle.

All pieces of technology gifted to her or handed down to her over the years by and from her children in the hopes that she’ll one day join us on the other side.

She did not ask for any of these things, and she could easily do without them.

In fact, this collection of cold rectangles was forced upon her, if I’m being honest.

And she resisted them at first.

“Oh. I don’t have time to use that,” she had said to my sisters and me, as if checking email were a significant act requiring that time be carved out of her day, like gardening or Zumba or going to a movie.

My father was no help with our crusade, either.

He, too, had no use for computers or their spin-offs.

He had tried.

And he had failed.

My sister, the one most patient with his drama and temper, put the toe-tag on his effort to learn.

After he’d gone to the library for a lesson — and said God knows what to the librarians — and after he’d been home-schooled by my saint of a sister, she looked him in the eye and told the man, “You’re unteachable.”

My mother, though, she had promise.

At the beginning, she regarded each new iThing the way a semi-feral cat might a human.

I knew if we were still enough, if we didn’t pressure her or exhibit any expectations, that my mother would eventually be overwhelmed by her curiosity and start sniffing around, venturing farther and farther into a world she sees as booby-trapped.

It had to be on her terms — all of it.

But I knew she’d come around. I knew in my heart that one day there would be a coupon that would require a visit to a website.

A discount given only online.

I knew the promise of a deal would force her hand, and she’d have to find her way.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but my mother’s necessities are often linked to the invention of free shipping.

I was reminded of my faith in her after Christmas when I called The New Yorker to find out why the subscription my parents have gifted me for years had lapsed.

“Oh,” the customer service agent said. “Your mother didn’t order this through us. It appears she ordered your subscription through Krazy Magazine Deals OMG Can You Handle the Savings on The New Yorker Boy-yoi-yoing dot com. You’re going to have to call them.”

Yes, my mother had learned the Internet.

Whenever I visit my parents, I still check her iPad as if it were the food and water bowl I left out for that undomesticated animal, though.

Did the cat eat while I was gone?

Oh my goodness. The cat downloaded Candy Crush! How adorable!

My mother, now a regular iUser — but still on her own terms — rarely asks for the IT support outright.

She will slip it into conversation casually but masterfully.

If her request were a wine I would say it tastes like “I don’t want to bother you” with some hints of “I think I broke it.”

Lately she has needed more help.

Lately it feels like I didn’t leave home, so much as I was outsourced.

And each time I’m reminded of an Amy Schumer sketch in which Amy works with a therapist to conquer her frustration with her mother’s technological inabilities.

Her mother comes to the session with her laptop and asks her for help sending photos. Amy tries to help. But it’s too much for any one human.

The therapist tries to mediate.

My blood pressure goes up just thinking about this sketch.

Each time my mom needs help, though, I am determined to be even-keeled and not scare her. I harness my reactivity. And I resist the urge to scream like a she-devil.

My mother never yelled at me when I was learning to be a human. Surely I can return the favor.

Besides, I want her to know she can do this.

That it’s easy.

It’s intuitive.

“I think my Facebook is in French,” she told me Wednesday night.

“What?”

“It says Church-er dez persons. It says you’re a journalist-ay.”

“What?”

“On the page. It says Church … Search-ay … vous.”

“Mom. ... OK, we can, um, fix this.”

I was going to help my mom get through this IT problem in a language neither of us speaks.

Oh, yes, I was.

I switched my own settings so I could see what she was seeing, and then I directed her step by step.

There were four steps.

But there is not enough room in this paper for me to document the journey we went on to get to the final step.

So I will give you the midpoint of the story: “I think. OK. Do you know what I’m asking you to do when I say ‘click.’ Like ‘click on that.’ Tell me what you’re doing when you think you’re ‘clicking’ on something.”

And I will give you the climax, the fireworks, the police chase: “No. No. Mom. Langue. Click. Remember how to do that? Mom, click. CLICK. On ‘Langue.’ What do you see when you look to the left?”

“Lang-gay? Longwa? What did you say to look for …”

And I will give you the public service announcement of the story: “I would like to tell you that this isn’t your fault and that you didn’t do anything wrong, Mom. But you did. You did this.”

And I will give you the end … neither of us could breathe because we were laughing so hard.

This story was originally published May 6, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Don’t you dare yell at your mom when she needs IT help."