The Beautiful Parents

My parents live in what my EBD calls "the place where technology comes to die" I might have mentioned before that I have a gadget mad dad. My dad has a penchant for buying the very latest in technology, I have no complaints that's how I got my very posh Tom Tom but it is guaranteed to annoy the EBD. In their house my parents have...

A 50 inch TV with surround sound and the all singing all dancing every channel going Sky package in the 2nd lounge. In the main lounge they have the plasma one that hangs on the wall like a picture and ditto both the bedrooms.

An Xbox 360 and a Wii, not forgetting a Gameboy, a PSP and a Nintendo DS, my dad will always buy the new version so he can play his "Who wants to be a Millionaire" game on it.

There are 2 Ipod Nano's, an Ipod classic and at least 3 other MP3 players. Not forgetting 2 Ipod touches, my mother has yet to use hers.

There is a replaced every year computer and a laptop because I foolishly pointed out they didn't need the router they'd bought as they only had a main pc, so obviously they needed the laptop to go with the router.

An Iphone and another fancy Samsung touch screen phone which he bought for my mother. She has yet to take it out it's box as she still has £7 credit on her old phone and she wants to use it up first, that'll take her a decade or so. This is really ripping EBD's knitting as her phone is so old it doesn't even have a camera on it and it switches it's self off every hour or so when it's tired and needs a wee rest.

So you get the picture, their house is stuffed full of technology that they don't use to it's full potential. This pains my daughter muchly, she is so jealous of all the clicky finger gadgetry at their disposal that they don't use. Actually she is jealous of them being pensioners which she thinks would be a dream life, getting up and going to bed when you like, no work or studying and no one making derisory and smart arse comments when you want a wee afternoon nap.


Every year my parents spend 2 weeks in May at The Beautiful House in Turkey and every year I tell them to book flights online as it's cheaper. Last year we had the saga where I booked the flights for them online. This year as I'm with them I offer to book the flights on their computer while they're with me and I get a flat no, the last time was stressful enough and the company I used has since gone bust (way after they had flown home).

They will use a travel agent thank you very much, so I leave it and go back to my house and you know what's coming next, don't you? Cue my mother calling in a state of high agitation (my mum is getting extremely anxious as she gets older and me being a smart arse is a real trial for her) The travel agent can't get them on the Wednesday flight they want, can I?

Sure, I've now become God of all flights, I had left the flight details I found for them written down so they could tell the travel agent what they wanted and how much it cost online but she has to try and type in the site and find the same flights, I then spend an hour trying to talk my mother through the online booking process as I have no Internet access, so every screen has to be described and explained, we find flights, she's still agitated but by the time we get to the checkout someone else has bought the last 2 flights.

My mother just about explodes but has to leave as she has a dentist's appointment and she's trying to impress the new dentist (she has a new dentist because she got barred from her last one, yep, that's right Mrs Stresshead fell out with the hygienist over the hygienist's poor opinion of my mothers electric toothbrush which was, of course, a present from gadget mad dad and my mother refused to see the hygienist and this caused a bit of argy bargy so the dentists have asked her to leave) How can I have a mother who's been barred from a dentist? Who has ever been barred from a dentist? Ever, in the whole history of the world?

As soon as she's gone my dad rings and asks me to book the flights myself, I do, in 4 minutes and I send him the email confirmation. Of course their printer doesn't work, actually neither does mine, I know my mother will die unless she has those printed off tickets in her hand so I email EBD's boyfriend Hot Boy and he prints off a copy and posts to my mum, going for the belt and braces approach I ask the ex mr auntiegwen to do the same.

So by the time you read this my stress head of a mother will have 2 copies of her tickets and the next hurdle in this saga will be the inputting of the e border passport information, which will have to be saved for another day as I can't cope with her when she speaks in that tone only dogs can hear.