DOUBLESPEAK

Due to the pressures of family members, I have consented and am now shopping for a personal computer. The consensus of opinion is that I am the most technologically illiterate female in the history of womankind. For 20 years I have stuck my head in the proverbial sand and have refused to progress with the rest of the world.

All of my friends have taken computer lessons, have purchased home computers and discuss subjects pertaining to such matters with intelligence and complete understanding. When the subject is computers and it is my turn to speak, I quickly change the topic of conversation to the possibility of rain tomorrow.

Boulware, who is an electrical engineer, has used computers in his business for 20 years and we have never been able to discuss hardware or software over dinner. A spark of romance has been missing in our marriage due to our lack of conversational computerism.

Cara, who is now 20 years old and a mechanical engineering student, first took computer lessons when she was in the third grade. I gladly drove her to the nearby University of North Alabama for Komputers for Kiddies classes three times a week. On the way home, did we discuss what she had learned? No, Cara's mama would not touch the computer subject with a 10-foot pole. The mama knew that Cara knew that certain traits are hereditary (you get them from your mama) and she did not wish to discourage Cara at such an early age.

Cara grew up and I grew older and wiser and now a completely new vocabulary has entered my small world. I am not secure enough in my knowledge to define the new meanings, but I do know what the double-meaning words meant in my pre-computer days.

MOUSE: a small rodent that causes most women to scream and leap onto dresser tops. Because I am not the typical screamer-at-a-mouse type female, Minnie May Marble called me once to get a live mouse out of her bathtub. I used a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese to entice the small rodent into a huge grocery bag. The mouse scurried into the bag and I raced to the back door and released him into the wide outdoors.

MOUSE PAD: a home for a hippie mouse who rejects established institutions and values and seeks spontaneity, love and expanded consciousness. I envision the hippie mouse wearing flowers and beads and experimenting with psychedelic drugs.

MACINTOSH: a variety of red apple. One a day keeps the doctor away.

HARDWARE: the store where Boulware sends me to buy nuts and bolts and tools. I hate to go there because I never know the answer to the questions from the salesperson.

RAM: what my farmer cousin with the uncontrollable temper did when he became really angry because he could not make his combine work properly, and he jumped into his pickup truck and rammed the combine with the truck. The time that he floorboarded the accelerator on the truck, we capitalized the RAM in our letters explaining his hospitalization to other cousins.

SOFTWARE: my plaid flannel shirt that has been washed 953 times.

HARD DRIVE: the drive from Cape Girardeau to the home of Boulware's parents in Lakeland in one day with only one break -- a stop at the Varsity in Atlanta for chili dogs.

MEGABYTE: what my daughters accuse me of doing when they offer me a bite of their white chocolate macadamia nut cookie.

MEMORY: what I lose more of every day.

CHIP: a food that I hide and eat because some members of my family count my fat intake.

VIDEO: the movie that I rent on a cold, dark, dreary day.

MONITOR: an instrument that a heart patient wears to record his heartbeat. I don't understand it any more than I understand computers.

DOUBLE SPEED: going 100 in a 50 mph speed zone. This is not a healthy practice in which to engage.

DESKTOP CASE: a little plastic box made to hold pencils, paper clips and other paraphernalia that we used B.C. (before computers).

WINDOW: the openings in the walls in my home through which I spy at my neighbors.

Won't Cara be surprised when she comes home and finds her mama sitting in front of her computer, holding a mouse as she closes windows?

Caroline Simpson's columns and feature articles appear in other Rust Communications publications.