Yesterday, my dad reminded me for the umpteenth time that the battery in his 8-year old laptop was dead, and needed a replacement, despite the fact that I sent him a link to the replacement last year for him to buy, only for him to sit on it, and do nothing.
Yesterday, he asked me, “If I take the battery out, will all the data on the SSD get erased?” After the obligatory facepalm, I had to sit there and explain the concept to him that while an SSD is a newer version of it, it is still a hard drive and will not lose data when the laptop loses power, and he shouldn’t confuse what’s saved on the hard drive with memory. But then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s spent a lifetime utterly confusing things. You could tell my dad the sky is blue and five minutes later, he’ll ask you why you told him there were golden retrievers in the sky…
I should feel blessed. My own dad has never said anything worse than “I’m not sure of the difference between files and folders.” Then I remembered that in user speak we’re supposed to say documents instead of files.
While my dad is a great engineer and can more than hold his own in mathematics, in other fields, it’s like dealing with a toddler that has some severe ADHD. And that is a direct quote from an old coworker of his. Of course, you can’t say anything remotely like this to my dad, due to his horrendous, bordering on thermonuclear, temper, so we have to do our best to tip-toe, to say nothing about the fact that he has no patience for anything. Plus, trying to get him to acknowledge boundaries and not just come over unannounced, would be like him freely and willingly acknowledging the existence of UFO’s, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.