Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine, Romance and Life Among the French

Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine, Romance and Life Among the French

Sunday 24 January 2010

The dangers of speaking over video links

Since I'm leaving tomorrow, my parents have decided to both download Skype so they can talk to me and my sister who lives out west.

Last night, they downloaded the program and tried talking to each other from different rooms to make sure they knew what they were doing. Then they closed their computers and that was it.

Today, my mom opened her laptop in the TV room and called me over to have a look. I was at the kitchen table fixing my own computer and was afraid that I'd have to fix hers, too.

She said, "Can you please come here?"

When I said I was fixing something and still had to pack, but would help in a minute, she said, "But there's a sleeping man on my computer!!"

So I went to have a look...

On my mother's screen was the face of a man lying on a couch, sleeping with his reading glasses on.

The camera, on Skype, was bobbing slowly up and down as the man breathed in his sleep because the laptop was still perched on top of his diaphragm.

We turned up the sound, but rather than snoring, heard the hockey game.

Note: earlier, my father left my mother with the television and went into the other room to watch the game on his laptop.

Since my mom's shouts through the computer didn't alert him to the fact that he was being spied on, I walked into the other room to let him know.

He smiled, "I was watching the game, I was thinking!"

The fact that he never had to accept the call is eerie for everyone, but I still hope my parents will give the technology a chance. It would be fun to video conference with them from France. I can't wait to show them the view from the terrace.

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