•

She

Says

When Internet access brings your
parents into the 20th century.

SUSAN SHAPIRO

Special to The Jewish News

W

hen I recently visited my
family in the Midwest,
my mother told me,
"You need a haircut,"
and my father said, "Get better health
insurance."
Since I- was back in their house,
they felt they had a right to be back in
my face, my hair and my business. It
was fine by me. With my three grown-
up brothers safely ensconced in their
own homes, I'd finally get what I'd
always wanted: I'd be an. only child
and I could use the phone to my
heart's content.
Unpacking, I picked up the pink
receiver and checked my Manhattan
messages. Then I dialed Josh, my new
beau. Josh said he'd call me back in a
second. In a second, I heard the phone
ring all over the house but not in my
room. I picked up anyway, but there
was a strange static on the other end.
Turned out we had a serious problem.
In my absence, my 63-year-old worka-
holic, completely out-of-touch physi-
cian father, famous for interjecting
such lines as "Who are the Beatles?"
into family dinner conversations, had
become a computer fiend.
a
My brother Eric, a serious hacker
since the '70s, had given Dad a •
PowerBook laptop and a printer for
his birthday and got Dad on America-
On-Line. I went down to his den and
saw my father, alias DR. KCAJ, fever-
ishly pressing keys. He called up his e-
mail and made several calls to Eric on
my line, the only free telephone line
in the house, to find out additional
functions of his new cybertoy. I
looked at his shelves for the books I'd
sent him for his birthday, tomes on
Einstein and Truman. He mumbled

•

•

Susan Shapiro, a Bloomfield Hills
native, is a New York City-based free-
lance writer and author of Internal
Medicine (IM Press)..

1P

that he'd exchanged them at Barnes
and Noble for "Mac for Dummies,"
"Stupid Mac Tricks," "Son of Stupid
Mac Tricks;" he hoped I didn't mind.
The next night we did have some
communication of sorts. First, Josh
called and, upon hearing distant ring-
ing in the other room, I picked up.
Then my mother picked up. Then my
father picked up and said,'"You got it,
Mickey?" She said, "I got it, Jack; I
think it's for Susie." Both of them
screamed for me into the receiver and
I had to walk downstairs to tell them,
"Please hang, up now."
Later, I was on a work-related call
when my father barged into the room
(hadn't we had the fight about knock-
ing first when I was 11?) and said, "I
need the line." I assumed it was an
emergency and got off. But the next
night he picked up the phone again,
when I was talking to Josh, and said,
"Get off; I need the line."
Embarrassed by this new, bizarre
interruption, I said, "I'll be off soon."
He continued loudly, "It's my phone.
It's my house. Get off my line." Josh
suggested that with all the children
gone, Dad had embarked on a second
adolescence. I thought it was the terri-
torial equivalent of the way Dad used
to meet my dates at the door wearing
his underwear, T-shirt and smoking a
six-inch cigar.
That night at 4 a.m. I bumped into
him in the kitchen, where he was
sneaking cookies. "That was really
rude," I said in my parental voice.
"Who were you talking to for two
hours anyway?" he asked. "My new
friend Josh," I told him. "You have
enough friends," he said, sprinkles
dribbling down his chin.
Josh called the next morning and
said, "I tried yOu back. Your phone
was busy for seven hours." I com-
plained to Mother, the computer
widow, who said that when Dad
received his new technology, he'd
rewired the house's phone lines, which

blew the circuits in the answering
machine and garage door, made half
the phones not ring and that he was
on his way to ruining her entire party
planning business, along with her
friendships. What the hell was he
doing down there anyway? Making
medical breakthroughs? Online house
calls? Mounting a secret attack on his
HMO? I decided to check.
When Dad went out to sneak a cig-
arette, I opened up his computer and,
following our dysfunctional family tra-
dition of intrusive behavior, checked a
week's worth of his e-mail. Items
included the picture of a naked girl
from my other brother Brian, also on
e-mail thanks to Eric; the contents of
every phone directory in the country;

stock tips from Barry, a judge friend of
Dad's with speculations on the silicone
implants of the naked girl in the obvi-
ously widely-circulated picture; and
several notes about dinosaur sex from
a book author, an editor at Omni •
magazine and the Herpetology
Hotline.
Dad came in and confronted me
with my snooping. I confronted him
with the evidence. He pulled a CD-
ROM from his black bag, showed me
the title, "Physicians Desk Reference,"
and said, "See, I'm working." I was
about to say, "But I have important
calls to make," when he pulled out a
cellular phone. "Now stay off my
line," he said. 111

eWIs

12/1c
1997

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