Genius

Like many people my age, I'm the go-to-guy for any tech questions in my family, ranging from the banal (how do I download a ringtone?) to the super banal (What's a Java?). It's annoying, but it's occasionally fun to have people think you're some kind of wizard because you know to set up an iTunes account.

My Dad is especially inept when it comes to anything computer related. Which isn't unusual, but Dad has the innate ability to ask questions that are so maddeningly obtuse that they can only be the creations of a boiling, genius mind. Dad takes bits and pieces he reads in magazines and hears on TV, some science he learned from Robert Ludlum potboilers, and synthesizes it into the scientific equivalent of ghoulash. Like when he asks me if Microsoft Word uses 128-bit encryption. For what, I ask him. Oh you know. For encrypting.

I got him an iPhone because even I couldn't get my head around most Nokia phones, and I found the iPhone enjoyably simple to use. I sat with him and loaded on music that he might like. I came across some Tenacious D. He'd never heard the D, and asked to hear some. I played Fuck Her Gently. This conversation followed.

Dad: Hahaha! That's great! Hey, do you think I could play that on the TRAIN?!?!? OUT LOUD?!?!?

Me: Uh, yeah, you could.

Dad: But I never take the train.

HOW DID HE DO THAT!?!? I could sit down from now until Doomsday and I would not be able to conceive such lunacy.