Would your relationship survive technology rage?

Technology rage, flat pack fury – been there done that.  Numerous times.

Mamamia regular Bern Morley recently received a new router – together with her husband Phil and children Sam and Jack, they got it working.  Amazingly they are all still together.  Bern writes

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I think I have worked out why some female spiders eat their lovers directly after having sex with them.

It’s to save themselves the technical based rage that goes hand in hand with the installation of a new electrical item together.

If spiders, you know, have access to that kind of gear in their lairs.

Wait, don’t go anywhere, I do have a point.  And a story.

I believe, in reality, it would be much smarter to replace Pre-marital counselling with the following scenario:

• The Couple
• A barren room
• A flat pack coffee table
• A Leather lounge that doesn’t quite fit through the door
• A Plasma TV
• A Wii Console
• An Allen key
• And ten different, yet oddly similar cords.

Then, survivor style, they would have 1 hour in which to set up the room with fully assembled coffee table, couch in mutually agreed spot, fully functioning Wii Console and Plasma with all the channels tuned in.

If they complete this challenge without stabbing each other in the eye with the Allen key, they are free to marry.

Last night, we received our new router in the mail.  As I stood in line at the Post Office waiting to see if I was about to pick up a speeding fine or a Christmas Parcel, it didn’t even occur to me that the Telco would be this quick sending out the promised equipment.  But they did, and shortly after that, our night went to shit.

We opened up the box with Sam literally jumping off the couch, repetitively singing “It’s Foxmas Time, Foxmas time, Foxmas will save you” with a lot of enthusiasm.  Sorry kid, this isn’t Pay TV, but carry on.

Phil dug out the cords, the modem/router/gateway/whateverthefuckitscalled and the ONE piece of paper that accompanied it.  We rooted around in the box for more instructions – Nada.  Well then, this can’t be too hard, surely.  Clearly we had forgotten the great Christmas Wii Setup of 2009.

The instructions were like a picture book.  Hardly any words, just a flow chart of mindfuckery.  We put the “installation” CD into my computer, but nothing happened, it refused to recognise it.  OH, I thought, perhaps it’s a CD, like a music CD that needs to be played in a CD player with step by step voice instructions.  Shit.  No CD player in the house anymore, only in my car.  So I went outside, in the torrential rain in darkness and inserted the CD into my car stereo.  Nothing.  Silence.

By this stage, Phil had set up the modem next to the home phone.  He then started to tell me, according the flow chart,  I would  need to move my computer, my printer and the T-Box onto the kitchen table, near the telephone line, FOREVER.  No, no the whole idea of getting this was so that we connect from anywhere in the house.

You see, the installation of all new electrical goods such as TV’s or DVD players, has always fallen to Phil.  So too, the assembly of flat pack items.  Because he’s a man see.  Sure, I wouldn’t send a Nun into the room when he’s doing this, lest she has a stroke from hearing his foul language, but it’s the way it gets done.

But computer stuff is my domain.  The furtherest he has ever gotten to being on the internet is to Google tits.  And this is why our worlds collided last night.  He needed me and I needed him, we were like Sao’s and Vegemite – nothing without each other.

This is also why it unravelled so quickly.  I am quite the easy going, it will happen when it happens kind of gal.  He, on the other hand is the, If this doesn’t fucking work right now, I will smash something kind of guy.

I rang the Telco and spoke to no less than 6 different people, three of which spoke English. Phil turned equipment on and off, finally started reading the instruction booklet he found, and I very nearly lost my shit at the kids when they kept talking loudly when I had to direct my query via voice activation. “I’m sorry, did you just say Activate my Account or Shut the Fuck up?”

In between all of this, Jack was running in and out with Ben Ten Stickers covering me in them, obviously sensing the tension and trying to break it.   Not helping Jack.

Eventually, we got it sorted.  Not before a few choice words were exchanged and the pure, ugly, unadulterated side of ourselves, was presented.

As I was hopping into bed, too shagged to even brush my teeth, Phil was smirking at me which of course did nothing to alleviate my shittiness.  “What?”

Him: “You’ve got something on your forehead”

Me: “So do you, but yours needs to be surgically removed”

Him: (still smirking) “Go have a look in the mirror”

I got up, went to the mirror and there, on my forehead, were 3 Ben 10 stickers.  Bloody Jack.

I brushed my teeth, took my sweet time and eventually got back into bed.

Me: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Him: “Because every time I looked at you, it made me calm down, you looked so ridiculous.  I needed to calm down”

There will be no more appliances purchased this Christmas.  No.   I will simply purchase, from Santa of course, a few bastard items that require assembly Christmas Eve.  Oh yeah, who’s wearing the stickers on their forehead now?

Do you suffer technology rage?  Flat pack fury ?