5 hrs of total driving, 256 miles driven, and 9 hours of tech support (there was a dinner shoved in there at some point) for my 80 year old parents.

Their new iMac is up and running.

My mother is no longer recording a TV soap opera she likes to watch by going into her DVR and recording each day’s episode individually. Each week. Yeah, that was happening.

She was concerned that after I set it to record the series the machine would run out of tape to record it on. No tape mom. No tape.

Oh and I also enlightened them that the reason the picture never looks right on the TV is because they are watching low def channels on an HDTV instead of the easily accessible hi-def channels further up the dial they pay for.

Did I mention their internet connection is 0.3Mbps? Which means an update that would download in a minute or two takes an hour or two.

While working on the new computer my dad sat offering “help” throughout the ENTIRE process. Which amounted to him sitting behind me softly whistling. The same tune, over and over again. The man can barely turn the damn computer on. So all his suggestions were … whatever the opposite of useful is. At one point they were both just standing over my shoulder asking, “What’s happening now?”

The answer, of course, was, “Trying to get through this process without killing one or both of you”.

By the way, zero alcohol consumed because I was driving home afterwards. It really needs to be mandatory for that much time with them.