Weening Myself From My I.T. Tech

I've been trying to ween myself off of my need for our official Skillman Family I.T. Tech. That would be Mitchell who unfortunately will be leaving for college this week. You know the old adage, "you don't know what you got till it's gone", well, quite sadly,  I DO know how good we have it around here with that boy and I bust up in tears that Mitchell will soon be gone.

Sadly, I'm not actually crying that my son is leaving for college. Secretly I'm excited about less laundry, having his room stay eternally clean, and not smelling Mitchell baking some satanically evil chocolaty goodness downstairs at midnight beguiling me into coming downstairs to enjoy a deliciously fatty a late night snack with him. No, I will not miss that.

What I am going to miss is the horrifying fact that I'll have no one to turn to amidst all my electronic and computer woes. The kid's a computer genius and he's always fixed all my problems--and all my friends problems too, for that matter. Case in point, the other day a good friend of mine had the nerve to call the house and when I answered she gave me a quick "how-do-you-do" and then asked for Mitch. She hadn't called for me. The next thing I know the kid is remote accessing her computer and fixing her dilemma in a blink of an eye.

I've been using Mitchell to solve all my technical tantrums for so long that I've become totally inept handling any electronic crisis on my own.  The past couple of months during his senior year of high school, my dependency on the kid almost got him kicked out of class.  Often in the middle of the day I would need some serious help with some sort of demonized electronic issue and so naturally I'd call my I.T. Tech. Unfortunately my I.T. guy happens to be in high school where it is strictly forbidden to answer your phone. But is it really my fault that my gadget guru is somewhere in the middle of a high school spanish or chemistry class? Noooo.  So since it's not my fault, I call him anyway.  I figure I pay for the kid's gas and insurance and in exchange he helps me with my computer woes. Shouldn't I be able to get in touch with him at anytime then? Yes, I think so-contrary to what his teachers say--after all, they're not paying his auto insurance premiums.

The poor kid started getting so many texts and calls from me during the day that the teachers finally gave in and let him take my calls.  I guess he explained that it was his mother was psycho and probably wouldn't stop calling until the problem got fixed.

My weekly (okay, sometimes daily) calls usually went like this:

Me: [pushing the speed dial for Mitch--he's the first one listed under "favorites", even before my husband Mark]

Mitchell: [whipering] "Mom, I'm in class right now. I can't talk."

Me: "I know but I have a really big problem."

Mitchell: [still whispering] "Mom, can I call you back after class? My teacher is looking at me."

Me: "Tell your teacher I have a very serious problem and that I need you for a second."

Mitchell: "Seriously mom."

Me: "I can't get my printer to print."

Mitchell: "Hold on mom." [long pause] "Okay, I'm out in the hall. But you have to make this quick. My teacher knows it's you on the phone and she said to hurry."

Me: "Okay I'll try and make this quick. My stupid printer isn't printing."

Mitchell: "Is it plugged in?"

Me: "What do you mean 'is it plugged in'? Of course it's plugged in! ...oh wait...uh yeah....oops...your right. Someone unplugged it from my computer. Okay. Uh thanks son."


Mitchell: "Seriously mom, you're gonna have to start figuring this stuff out on your own soon. You're gonna get me kicked out of class."

Me: "I know, I know. Thanks son."

Mitchell:  "Next time just text me okay?"

Now that he's leaving I've got an even bigger problem on my hands once September comes and he's safely tucked away in a dorm room somewhere and refuses to take my calls because he no longer lives at home where I can threaten to deprive him of gas money.

So when he recently spent a week up in Portland 'writing code' for some website (whatever that means) I decided that I would try to solve any electronic problem that creeped up--all by myself. To sort of practice my new Mitchell-free electronic life.   Here's a list of life-threatening techno tragedies that I was proudly able to solve all on my own:

• I reprogrammed a remote I for one I couldn't find. Though I must note that by the time I programmed said remote, it was too late to start the movie I was hoping to watch.

• My iphone's clock was 6 minutes behind the real time which was making everyone late for everything. After failing to fix the problem on my own,  I did what any reasonable person would do...I handed it to my 11-year old daughter Chloe and she fixed the problem for me. I'm not sure what the heck she did but all I know is that it tells the right time now.  And while Technically you might think I didn't solve the problem on my own, I disagree. I figured out, all on my own, HOW to solve the problem.  Which was to give the phone to Chloe and have her fix it for me. Problem solved.

But, once Mitch got home I had issues waiting for him that I could not solve:

• Namely, I couldn't get my ipad to relay video while I was trying to Skype.  After earnestly trying to "resolve my issues" on my own I finally yelled for Mitchell.  The kid had the gall to get it fixed in under two minutes and then handed it back to me without a word.  RUDE.  The kid could have at least held on to it for ten minutes to make it look like it was a serious and legitimate problem that took some time to solve.

As you can see, once this kid leaves the house, I'm dead.