The inquisition is an everyday reality.
“Don’t you have any *real* friends?”
“Staring at a computer screen for hours together?”
“Get away, get outside, before you go crazy!”
The parents. Forever overreacting.
They see partial benefits though. Dad has discovered the world’s greatest library of WW2 documentaries, also known as YouTube. Mom has committed herself to that blue and white temple of baby announcements and perfect(ly staged) wedding pictures, also known as Facebook.
Yet they cannot bring themselves to see their son’s Internet usage as anything other than addiction. The lack of any business formals on my person in my newly chosen career as freelance writer has them convinced that their son is now that anti-social, work-shirking, manic-depressive Internet person that the newspapers sound warnings about.
So, when a severe thunderstorm conked out the Internet connection at home one morning, an opportunity to relive those golden pre-Internet days presented itself. The crew would take at least a day or two to restore services, I was told. I dusted out an old book or two, long kept in a forgotten queue. I stood for long in the verandah watching the rain pelt down. It was glorious.
My parents? All through the outage, every couple of hours they would ask me about the status of the Internet connection. After restoration, I ran upstairs to let them know.
I was late to the party.
Two senior citizens were already hunched over the blue glow of their respective smartphones, surfing with the devil.
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