Thursday  August 17  9:53 PM EDT

Hour Lost Explaining Computer
Terms to Mom

Austin, TX - Josh Granger lost an hour of his life yesterday as he tried to explain the difference between memory and hard drive space to his mother Cynthia Granger.  The discussion started when Cynthia asked, "Will I have enough memory if I install this family tree maker software?"

"I should've just kept my mouth shut," a regretful Josh said, "but she says that all the time. It was driving me nuts. I thought this time is going to be different.   This time she is going to understand."  Alas, poor Josh was wrong.

What follows is the beginning of that "Lost Hour" as it has become known to Josh.

"Mom, it's not memory on a hard drive it's space, and loading a program on your hard drive doesn't have anything to do with your memory," said Josh.

"But I only have 64 Em-Bee of R-A-M," said Cynthia," and this program says it requires 85 Em-Bee. It says it requires a modem too.  Do we have a modem?"

"Yes, we have a 56K modem. And no, 64 MB RAM and 85 MB space on your hard drive is different Mom.  Just because they both are measured in megabytes doesn't mean they're the same thing.  Is a gallon of milk the same thing as a gallon of blood?"

"It doesn't say anything here about 56K, is that all right. What's a mega-byte and why all this talk about blood.  Have you been playing those games again.  How many times have I told you...."

Josh's brother Trevor witnessed the scene and said, "It was pretty sad, really. When I heard him start to explain 56K, it was like watching someone try to explain quantum physics to a goat.  At that point, though, he had no choice it was like the Titanic after the iceberg, just a matter of time until the people started screaming."

The situation ended with Josh screaming "Shut up, shut up, shut up" and then installing the "damn" family tree maker, while his mother cried in the family room.

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