What is your mobile number? WWW. ?

Disclaimer: I love my parents and this post is NOT making fun of them. I'm just stating facts.

With the authority of being my parents' kid(yes, I'll always be their kid, 24 or 42), and let's say, due to the pent up frustration from my last visit home, I'm taking the liberty of sharing the following facts about my parents' technological know-how. Now, I'm a short tempered software engineer, and I desperately want my parents to gain some basic knowledge in computers and mobiles. No, I'm not asking them to remember the comp's configurations(probably 'cause I don't remember them myself :D ), nor am I asking them to download songs and softwares on their cellphones(not tuff for us, but wayyy tuff for them). I'm just simply asking them to get technology literate. I want them to understand what amazing creations the computers are and how the distances reduce immensely once you use your cellphones.
Just listing a few memories from the years gone by..

It was a 3-4 summers back when my mom and dad finally found the courage to get themselves a cell-phone. Being hardcore medicos, the part of their brains that is responsible for gadget-handling is as small as that of my brain responsible for cooking. Sample this-

Phobia:
-- Ma didn't venture near the comp when we first bought it, for quite sometime. She wouldn't even dust the comp, or its vicinity. When finally after years we convinced her to start learning the basics of operating a comp, this is what her learning record was-
First, I tought her how to switch on, shut down and turn off the UPS. I left. Bro got home a few months later, tought her the on,off thing again and left. Then I got home a few months later. Repeat. This continued for the next two years.
After nearly 3 years, she's not even confident of the on-off thing anymore. And she's back to the not-venturing-near-the-comp routine. Last I saw, the comp was covered in dust.

Amazement:
-- This time I went home, I took my laptop with me and dad finally showed some interest in exploring it out. He was amazed to see the screen get brighter when I connected the adapter.

Confusion:
-- Dad: Beta, please create an email id for either one of us. We will need to start using the mail facility.
Me(thoroughly amazed and proud): Sure, mom's account already exists.
*Tell him the id(xyz) and password*
Dad(after a full 3 minuted silence): So we just go and type 'www.xyz.com', right?
Me: Um.. no dad, see, it's an email account. You need to give both id and password.
Dad: What is a password?
This last question came when I'd already given him a 30 minute info on websites, emails, passwords et al this time when I'd gone home. I should have known better then.

Differentiation:
-- Mom finally learnt how to use her cellphone to make/receive calls and send SMSes. But before she became the pro she is(*cough!*), she would be majorly confused about anything that remotely sounded like an SMS. Sample this:

Ma: I sent you the email. You got it?
Me: Huh? What email?
Ma: You know, you told me to send you one from my mobile for practice?
Me(pulling her leg): Ah, that.. no I didn't receive it. What ID did you send it to?
Ma(confused): I sent it on your mobile number.
Me: Come on Ma, you don't send an email from your mobile to a phone number!
Ma: Okay, so what should I have typed? www. ?
Me: *speechless*

These are but a few examples of what I have to endure every 6 months when I go home and start their training anew. But you know, Ma's finally finding her way around the mobile thing. Now she makes calls, send SMSes and stuff. My proudest moment?- When she forwarded, I repeat, forwarded, an SMS JOKE to me. Maybe my hard work of years is gonna pay someday :)