Posted by Ana

Just for fun!! Tech Support for Dad by Tom Smith

It had been a long ass work week, it had been a long ass day, I was hoping I could just go home and sleep the night away, But the message waiting for me was the worst a man could know: “Hi there, son, could you call me back? My computer’s running slow.” There are bamboo shoots and water torture, German blondes named Gert, Films with Adam Sandler and lots of other things that hurt, But it’s not my job or girlfriend that finally drove me mad, I’ve been on the phone long-distance doing tech support for Dad.

It took seven tries to get him to the Start menu and Run, He had Bonzi Buddy, Comet Cursor, and Quicktime 3.1. I said I’d try to find out if his firewall had been breached, Turned out he’d bought this Compaq before Clinton was impeached.

Service packs and driver updates, he needs every single thing, And he gets online by dial-up, so he might be done by spring, But he trusts that I can fix it, his beloved college grad, Never mind it was in Russian, now I’m tech support for Dad.

After thirty seven reboots and a dozen clean installs My room is trashed, my plants are dead, and there’s green slime on the walls But his ‘puter’s running smoothly, I can finally get away, When he says, “Oh, son, one more thing — how do you sell stuff on eBay?”

Here’s a pox on all programmers puttin’ crapware on your shelves, May you have to teach your programs to your dads by phone yourselves, There’s the Normandy Invasion, and the Siege of Leningrad, And the special hell filling in for Dell as tech support for Dad.

Now I’ve built him a computer, nothing can get in or out, The firewall’s adamantium, and the drives are sealed with grout, And if this one starts to run slow, well, that’s just too damn bad, ‘Cause I’d rather shave my eyeballs than do tech support for Dad. Tech support for Dad. Tech support for Dad. 

Hang on, son — your mom wants to know how to set up a web page.”