Bright And Early
My mom is sweet, but she has this notion she shouldn’t bother me unless it’s important. My phone rang last week while I was home. It was my day off.
Mom: “Do you have a minute honey? My internet doesn’t work, neither computer nor the tablet. I was thinking maybe you could come have dinner later and look at it? I bought chicken, soft cheese, and I’m baking a—”
Somewhere later down her menu, I had already fixed it. I work at a big company and have access to my tools remotely. I saw her computer had no valid IP so I reset the modem and the router we provide her. Basic lease renewal issue. It happens, everything else is green.
Me: “Boom, magic, you’re online mom”.
Mom: Whaa?…Oh. You’re right”. Sounds disappointed. “Thank you, that was really fast, I guess I won’t trouble you to come over then”.
Clearly she was more excited at the prospect of the meal than the free tech support, but for her it seems something broken or a holiday is required to “trouble” me to hang out.
Me: “Hey now, I was promised a home-cooked meal here. I’m happy to come anyway”.
Mom: “Haha that’s fine, it’s nice of you to be polite. But I know you’re busy, you don’t have to. We can do this another time”.
Okay let’s do this the hard way. I reach back to the tools and deprovision the router.
Me: “There, its broken again mom. And it’ll stay that way until dessert”.
Mom: “Oh! Lovely. Then, shall we say 6 o’clock”?