Decameron: Sage Tech Advice [IV/7]
“This is so nice,” said mom, as she looked upon a Zoom call full of children and relatives. “What a nice surprise.”
Gathering everyone was hard, but it paid off in the smiling faces set before her.
“I want to take a photo, everyone smile!”
Like a Kubrickian planet emerging from the bottom of the frame, a large iPhone SE encased within a bulky Belkin protection seal began to take over the screen, the glint of the cellular device’s 12 megapixel camera reflecting as it attempted to focus on the screen nearly eight inches away.
“Wait, mom, just take a screenshot,” said an idiot. “You’re on your iPad?”
“Yes! How do I do that?” she asked.
“Just click the power button and the home button at the same time,” said the idiot, realizing his error with a shock, a second too late.
“Okay! Everyone say cheese in 1, 2, —” and their mother immediately left the Zoom chat.
“Ah crap,” said the idiot.
“What gives?” asked his sister.
“What did you do, Stanley?!” asked an aunt.
“I’m sorry she must have —” he pleaded
“Every damn holiday I swear to god,” said his brother.
Eventually, four minutes later, mom got back on. “Sorry everybody! I accidentally closed out of Zoom. Guess the tech whiz doesn’t know everything after all.”
“I’ll just take the photo,” pleaded the idiot, feeling the need to dig in deeper. “It’s fine.”
But as he primed up to take it, his finger slipped on the home button, and he also mistimed it, pressing the power button but not the home button, shutting down the screen and exiting the chat.
Decameron is a newsletter recounting the 14th Century set of quarantine tales for 2020. Read the original story.
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