My Dad is Old School, But He’s Coming Around

My dad was pretty tech-savvy in the 80s and 90s. He actually bought me a Nintendo for Christmas before I even knew what it was. He had an actual car phone. I’m going to boldly assume that most people reading this (i.e. my friends) are mostly my age or older and know what a car phone was. If you don’t, allow me to provide an explanation that is going to seem crazy to you. It was an early iteration of the cell phone-a big phone that you lugged around in a bag that looked like one of those old, black leather medical doctor’s bags you see on tv. The bag was necessary to hold the 867,000 cords this monstrosity required. You plugged it in to your cigarette lighter, or hotwired it to your battery or something; I don’t know. I was like 6 at the time. But it allowed you to make and receive wildly expensive calls while you were in your vehicle. This was cutting edge in the early 90s. 

At some unknown point in my dad’s life; however, he decided, “Ok. This is enough technology” and adamantly refused to adopt anything new. My mom got him a cell phone…which he kept permanently plugged in in our kitchen and refused to answer.  He eventually just gave it to me. I’d already had some (much nicer) cell phones at this point in my life, but I’d gotten in some hot water with Sprint (is that even still a thing?) and I needed a new phone and a new number because I owed them too much money for them to keep giving me a signal. 

The world continued to evolve and my dad stood strong in his protest against the progress of the internet. My mom (who is actually slightly older than he is) got an iphone even before I did. She got an ipad, an apple watch…learned how to synch them all up with one another. She bought a wifi booster and learned how to connect it so that her signal would be flawless.  Meanwhile, my dad staunchly refused to learn how to work the DVD player I bought him. 

The world was leaving him behind and he was determined to stay there. 

“This shit is scary,” he’d tell me. 

“Dad. This world is amazing. You can get or learn anything you want 24/7. If you’d just give it a try…”

My dad loves learning. He loves new information. He loves new skills. I knew if I could just leverage that, I could get him “on the internet.”

My mom and I set him up with an email address.  You can’t even order something over the phone without an email address anymore.  He never checked it; he didn’t know how. Nor did he care to learn. 

I don’t know exactly what the watershed moment was to get my dad on the internet.  But I have my suspicions.  When I bought my new truck, we watched a YouTube video together to see how to install my roof racks.  He was amazed that there was a video that you could watch for free that showed you how to do that.  

I told him I figured out how to repair his carpet shampooer using a YouTube video.  He was impressed.  He said, “I might have to look into this internet thing.”

Then I showed him the honey badger video.  You know the one.  “Honey badger doesn’t give a sh*t.”  

He laughed hysterically.  

He told me to play it again. 

I did.  

He laughed again. 

The next thing I know, he’s on Amazon, buying anything and everything.  He’s checking his email. He’s asking me why the tracking hasn’t updated. He’s scouring Amazon for tiny leggings and shoes for his granddaughter. 

It’s been about four years now since the angry and majestic honey badger got my dad to fully embrace the internet.  

I went to his house the other morning.  I walked in and found my dad, in his computer room (because boomers all have “computer rooms”) and realized he had come full circle.  He was rewatching that honey badger video and giggling. 

But this time, he’d scoured the interwebs and found it himself.