Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 18, 2006 / 26 Tishrei, 5767

You can't tech it with you

By Malcolm Fleschner


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's always difficult to lose a loved one. Worse yet is having to explain the loss to a young child who has, at best, only a very basic understanding of what death means. Nevertheless, when faced recently with just such a loss in our household I didn't shirk from my grim responsibility. I sat down with my four-year-old daughter and gave it to her straight.


"Sweetie," I said, "I have some sad news to tell you. Maybe you've noticed that I've been pretty upset the past few days, and you may have even seen me crying a little bit. Well, there's a reason. And much as it pains me to tell you, I think you're old enough to hear the truth. Daddy's computer died."


I admit I was tempted to use one of the standard lines we feed to kids about death, like saying that the computer she'd enjoyed playing so many fun games on was getting old, so daddy was sending it back to the "computer farm" where it was born so that it could network and play with all the other machines.


Or I could have sugar-coated the truth by saying that the computer was happier now that it had gone up to a better place called "PC Heaven."


"You'll see it again one day, I promise," I could have lied. "As long as you keep doing good behavior, that is." Nothing like using a family tragedy to keep kids in line, that's my parenting motto.


The whole ordeal was tough for me too, however, as I worked through the standard stages of grief. At first, when the computer began acting funny and crashing more frequently, I was in denial.


I reassured myself by saying, "Oh, it probably just needs a new motherboard." But in my heart of hearts I think I knew, in that intuitive way you sometimes understand the truth of a situation even though you don't want to admit it, that I had no idea what a motherboard is.


Eventually I had to face facts -- the end was clearly approaching for the machine that had seemed so vibrant and fresh when I bought it way back in the long-forgotten era known as the spring of 2002. This was tough on me. Sure, my computer may have become hopelessly obsolete, and yes, I admit I had recently gazed longingly at the computer ads in the newspaper circular, but the fact remains that my old PC and I had been through a lot together.


(If this column is ever made into a movie, here's where the slow motion soft-focus montage of the two of us will go: scenes of me laughing over yet another hilarious forwarded email from my Aunt Libby, my tears pouring out onto the keyboard as I watch my entire investment in www.TubeSocksDirect.com go down the toilet, the computer and me frolicking hand-in-mouse as we run through a field of daisies, etc.)


But then things actually started looking up for the old machine. The fixit guy at the local repair shop called to say that he couldn't find anything wrong with my computer. I figured we'd just witnessed a high tech version of "Scared Straight" -- once my PC got a look at the other machines strewn around the back of the shop with their guts spilling out all over the place and technicians applying red-hot soldering irons to their private parts (the computers' private parts, that is), my old desktop figured it had better shape up or else.


Sadly, before long the same old problems cropped up again, until the machine stopped loading entirely. But as with any great loss, eventually comes acceptance. And while I'm no grief counselor, I'd pinpoint the moment I achieved that critical stage at about the time my new computer, with its powerful Pentium D microprocessor, 500 gigabyte hard drive and rewriteable DVD drive, arrived a week later.


My daughter, unfortunately, is still wallowing in denial. She gazes sadly at the old machine, perhaps lamenting all the games she played that I haven't yet bothered to load onto the new computer. Today she even came up to me with excitement in her eyes and said, "Daddy, Daddy, the old computer didn't really die!"


"Of course it didn't, honey," I reassured her, not looking up from my new 17-inch flat screen monitor with its razor-crisp graphics. "And it never will, as long as we keep its memory alive."


"No, Daddy," she said. "I pushed the button and it came on just like it's supposed to. We don't need the new computer!"


"There there," I replied, patting her on the head and standing up. "Honey," I added, as I walked over to unplug the old machine from the wall, "I think it's time Daddy told you about a wonderful place called PC Heaven."

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Malcolm Fleschner is a humor columnist for The DC Examiner. Let him know what you think by clicking here.


Previously:

10/04/06: Award to the wise
08/24/06: Phrased and Confused
08/09/06: We're Gonna Party Like it's $19.99
07/19/06: Just Singing in the Brain
05/24/06: Who says you can't go home again?
05/11/06: When nightly news stories go off script
04/26/06: Cents and sensibility: A thought for your pennies
03/16/06: The day the Muzak died
02/23/06: Checkbook diplomacy begins at home
02/15/06: Today's toys: Where learning means earning



© 2006, Malcolm Fleschner

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works