High Primals And Computers

High primal thinkers pride themselves in being very literate and politically astute. They do however have one flaw . They are computer illiterate. My high primal thinker only recently admitted that typewriters are outmoded. More importantly , in the spirit of AA she came before the family and proclaimed “I am computer illiterate”. Admitting any form of illiteracy is very difficult for a high primal thinker and it takes time to address the problem, a lot of time.
There are the usual excuses. The best one being that I am always at the computer. The implication is that if she had a computer of her own she could become computer literate. Once she was convinced that being a computer owner was not the first step to being computer literate we were able to proceed to less costly excuses such as “I can’t practice on the computer and do the washing and cooking at the same time”. I pointed out that all these tasks were sequential and could be organized. I guess I could have volunteered to do the washing and cooking but then I wouldn’t have time to play with my computer. Where have I heard that before? The problem was finally solved when she learned that she could do all kinds of shopping on the computer. Washing and cooking were put on the back burner and the high primal thinker was ready to “mouse”.

Teaching a high primal thinker the fundamentals of computer usage is a daunting task. One has to listen to how ill suited her hand is to manipulate the mouse. Bifocals of course are a detriment. The mouse pad is too small, if it were larger she could get from one end of the screen to the other much easier. "The icons are too small!" "I click but nothing happens." “I need to practice “mouseing” more but I might be practicing until I am 100.” It was agonizing to see her whole body move with the mouse to the point where she could easily fall off the chair as she moved the pointer from left to right. Moving the pointer to the top of the screen resulted in almost a standing position. To her credit she has diligently devoted 3 hours in the past week to maneuvering around the internet. All was going well until she asked “ How do I get to the front of the internet”. Translation - how do I get back to the home page.

Accessing a book store web site proved to be a major disappointment. The high primal thinker thought she would be in a virtual book store complete with aisles and stacks of books. Having to click away with a mouse to browse the site was a bummer. Once again she decided that she needed to practice more “mouseing”. Fortunately I found a web site devoted to mouse aerobics which looks like an ideal way to practice “mouseing". As soon as my high primal thinker finishes the wash and cooking we’re going to give the mouse a whirl.