Computer Time
Marissa’s birthday was Friday. Grandma made chocolate cupcakes and Chris took them into school for her fellow first-graders. Unfortunately her classmates had to celebrate without her because she had pnemonia and had to stay home herself.
Apparently she opened her presents shortly after I left for work. At 9 o’clock, Marissa calls me at work to request that I help her install her Zoo Tycoon 2 program on my PC right then. Marissa is adept at installing programs on her own older PC, but this program requires her parent’s beefier machine and I have no plans to make her an administrator on the newer box. Heck, I reluctantly made my wife an administrator so she could use the scanner. I told Marissa I would install it when I got home. She had to cool her jets.
It was bath night for the girls. And because all three of them don’t fit in the bathtub at the same time anymore, it was too late to install the software after the multiple bathtub cycles. Last thing I wanted to do was to install a program for her then tell her to go to bed. She had to cool her jets again.
So at 6:50am Saturday, Marissa appears at my bedside to request computer support. Not wanting to put her off again, I installed the program and she went to town. Daddy went back to bed.
She and her sister played the game pretty much non-stop all Saturday while I enjoyed running to the hardware store and cleaning out clogged sinks. By Sunday noon, I was requesting time on the main computer from Marissa. I needed to pay the bills. Reluctantly she acquiesced after lunch.
Expecting it to be a five minute process, Marissa kept on asking when I would be done. As I was doing alot of year-end stuff in Quicken, Marissa was disappointed to hear it was going to be all afternoon. I mean really disappointed. She was in tears. She had to cool her jets again. So unfair! I reminded her of all the other games that she just got for Christmas that do play just fine on her old computer, but to her they paled in comparison to Zoo Tycoon 2. She did feel better after I mentioned that I was going to work Monday and she was staying home for MLK day and could use the computer all day.
Around dinnertime, I completed my bill paying and relinquished the main computer. Marissa’s grin went from ear to ear. I could put off my recreational blogging/surfing until after the girls went to bed while I watched some mindless soap. But just as the program starts, my wife comes out of the bedroom with the laptop. She had work to do. It took her all evening.
I had to cool my jets. So unfair!
Marissa is spoiled. When I was her age all I was allowed to do was use paint on the 386 maybe once a year if I was lucky. Tell her that back in your time you only had calculators or something.