Patience is a virtue

Teaching my mom how to use the computer makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I just spent 25 minutes trying to teach my mom how to attach a file to an e-mail (in IE, so no easy drag-and-drop function. I installed Chrome for her but she doesn't use it.). It started out pretty promising because she said she already scanned the paper, which I taught her how to do a few months ago. But then she didn't know what she named it. And she couldn't find the file. And then she found it, renamed it and removed the jpg extension. And then she didn't know how to to click and drag. And then she couldn't find the desktop. ...

Me: "The desktop is the blue screen right when you start up the computer, that has like the recycle bin and my computer on it..."

Mom: "There's no blue screen! There is only My Documents."

Me: "But the file "My Documents" is on a blue screen, right?"

Mom: "No, there is only My Documents"

Me: ...

And then after a few more minutes she FINALLY got it!! By this time I was pacing and gesturing like a lunatic in the student center. I must've sounded like an idiot, "The DESK-TOP... is the BLUE... SCREEN right when you turn on the COM-PU-TER... It's just blank! With a few icons on it!" Anyway, I was super excited when she finally did it (I made her email me too), even though she had removed the jpg extension on the document.

And THEN she was like, "I need to do this so many more times!"

Me: "That's okay, you know how to do it now! I taught you how to fish!"

Mom: "Fish?"

Me: "Nevermind. You just did it, you can do it again now!"

Mom: "It's too complicated. I will just send them all to you and you can send them to Uncle, ok?"

Me: "MOOOOMMMMM if you can send them to me you can send them to Uncle!!!!"

Mom: "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah."

Me: *smack* *smack* *smack* *face-palm*

Mom: "I don't know how to do any of this. You also need to teach me how to upload pictures from my camera to the computer."

Me: "Another time, Mommy, another time, please."

I know I really should be more patient with my mom, especially because she's my only parent left, and my dad used to take care of all this stuff. But I really am proud of her; she's learned a lot in the last few months, learning how to pay bills herself, getting a credit card for the first time in her life, taking care of the rental house, finding new tenants, etc. Just sometimes, no, a lot of times... I need to be more patient. Sigh...