Cumbersome Forms of Modern Communication

      I spent the majority of my evening attempting to communicate electronically with my son, who has been ill for the better part of two weeks, and lives with his mother most of a state away.

     There was an escalation of electronic communication at work here that ultimately ended in failure. It began as a series of somewhat frustrating text messages involving setting up Skype accounts so we could... Skype. Because product names are also verbs. We texted each other our Skype handles, couldn't connect, and tried to work out various options and settings, also via text, until I grew frustrated enough to call the kid on my cell phone.
     I tried to walk him through some settings (which is a thing in and of itself; I'm 40 and he's 12, which makes him chronologically more likely to intuit this stuff) with a bluetooth earpiece stuck in my head like one of those bugs from Star Trek II. Most of the 20 minute call was spent in silence while he worked out the settings and I caught up on my email.
     When I was the age my son is now, there were two forms of communication available when the person you wanted to speak with was not within shouting or rock- throwing distance; a stationary telephone (oft referred to as a 'land line') which required the memorization of a seven- digit set of numbers in order to make contact, and a CB (or Citizens Band radio) which required the memorization of the nickname (or 'handle') of the person you wished to speak with. The land line was generally attached to a wall and in fancy houses, an answering machine. The CB was generally attached to the dash of your fathers Pinto and when he used the thing, you could pretend he was Burt Reynolds in Smokey And The Bandit even if your father didn't have a sweet mustache or a Trans Am or a trucker buddy who was also a pop country music singer. You were also pretty sure the CB lingo everybody used was code for dirty jokes. Which it was.
     When my son and I were finally able to connect several hours later, he sent me a text message through Skype that he wanted to talk, but was too tired and had a fever or something and needed to go to bed. I was contemplating setting up a Twitter account so I could tell tons of strangers that I missed my sick kid and how I wished I could do something for him, so I just sort of skimmed his message. Anyway, those various forms of verbal and non- verbal communication methods somehow counted as interaction even though we said little and accomplished less. So I figured the thing I should do was start a blog with this as its inaugural post, and share it on facebook.