How the Elderly Understand the Internet

Your parents and grandparents are probably online now and that’s terrifying. Not because they might add you to Facebook or keep emailing you the same message because if they forward it to 10 friends they’ll get a free baked potato at Applebee’s but because they have little to no concept of what they’re doing or how.

Physically:
The internet is a place. To you and me it may be a place also, but to grandpa it’s like Home Depot or the bathroom. It’s a fixed location that you go to on a computer. You keep the toilet paper under the sink and you know where to find it every time. Likewise, your internet should be organized in a similar fashion. The websites should be there when you jack in. Don’t jack off too soon because the website might not be finished playing.

Getting There:

You can’t get to the internet in a car or even on some kind of boat, meaning it’s hard to trust, like Russians. To reach the internet, you need to use a computer. They keep the internet on them. You have to use the window to get the internet on the computer, otherwise you might end up in solitaire, which is like an internet, only it doesn’t go too many places. It’s a small internet that only shows cards. You can make it deal three sometimes, or just one though, so that’s neat.
Once you have the window, you have the internet. You got there! Didn’t cost much gas either.
Navigation:
The internet is usually broken. Sometimes your internet starts normal on the page with AOL news. Then one day it’s a porn site, probably Russian. That’s no coincidence. The internet is always trying to pull a fast one on you, because it’s lazy and run by idiots.
You’re probably on the internet looking for a better version of solitaire. You’re not here to do banking, because if you try to put your money on the internet odds are it’ll get lost on eBay. Did your friend mention a website, or did you hear about one on the 6 o’clock news? See if you can spot it in your window. The internet works a bit like a flea market that way. The stuff’s there, you just need to browse and see if it shows up this time.
If you have your version of solitaire which wants to install on your C or D, whatever those are, you might also be looking for hemorrhoids. The internet can tell you why your ass hurts, why your pee smells like pancakes or why your left eye is getting a little too milky. This is good because it means you won’t need to waste a trip to the doctor. Instead, find a nice, reliable sounding internet, like Answers.com. They have answers.
Email:

Your kids and grandkids keep emailing you stuff, so you better figure out what the sam hell email is. This isn’t too daunting because you know what mail is already and e is just a letter so it’s probably not important. They keep your email on the AOL page that the Russian porn site stole. Or was it MSN? Doesn’t matter. The guy who sold you the computer helped you set this up once, so it should be easy to remember. If not, you jotted it down and stored it in the drawer with all your installation disks and printer paper.
Your email address is probably FishingGranpa@aol.com or Sassy_Granny_1943@msn.com. Honestly, try those two right now, there’s a 50% chance either will work. Once you get in, don’t be surprised when it says you have 4,000 emails in your inbox. That happens when you sign up for every newsletter you come across.
Videos:
Have you seen that one youtube of the cat playing keyboard? It’s a riot. Or the youtube of the boy who bites his brother’s finger? Oh my God, where do they come up with this stuff? I’ve been watching these tubes all day! I think I’m going to make my own tube for Mr. Jiggles! You know how sometimes he sits on the couch just like your father? I love it!
Troubleshooting:

At some point the internet will become too broken to manage. Because the spine of your younger relatives slowly erodes to jelly under the onslaught of constant nagging from elderly relatives who desperately want their refurbished e-machine to work, they’ll go investigate and because, since they once talked about that Angry Birds everyone loves, they’re computer experts. When they arrive they will say things like “does it always take so long to boot up?” and when they see the Russian porn homepage, “I’m pretty sure just knowing about this site is illegal.” You can smile and nod and remember to look up the word “boot” once the internet is unbroken. Then look up what “popup” means as your younger relative attempts to outrace the marathon of windows that continues to pop up due to the massive amounts of spyware and viruses infecting your machine.

An elderly person will not ask why their antivirus has an error message that just says “f*ck you” before the computer shuts itself down.