Sunday, May 18, 2008

a hard drive

I try not to blog too much on the weekend. This is the time to lay down tools, to be outdoors riding horses, paddling or cycling taking in the beautiful South African weather and countryside. I spend all my time outside the city on weekends with my family, so I can regain my sanity before we set back to work on a Monday morning in the urban jungle called Johannesburg. My mother-in-law is a dairy farmer and is heading for 80 years of age. She's an extraordinary personality, running an organic dairy farm single-handed, waking up at the crack of dawn each day, while other grannies an grandpa's are sitting in old age homes waiting for nature to put them out of their misery. My mother-in-law makes most able bodied younger farmers look lazy. Anyway, today, she showed me her new mobile phone, but she doesn't know how to work it. So I sat and tried to guide her through all its features. I told her she could take pictures of her cows, sms or email them to friends or potential buyers or even save them to her hard drive (she has a dilapidated computer) so she could archive their details when needed. Frustrated by my talk she yapped back at me. "Listen darling, just give me the basics. All I want to know is how to put it on and off, make a call, read a message and then delete it. I don't care for technology and all these fancy phrases. I mean, do you know what a hard drive is to me? Exactly that! A hard drive after a long day driving back to the farm after my milk round!

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