By JULIE GHRIST
Is it just me or does everyone have this problem? Your kids come to you 10 minutes before walking out the door Monday morning and tell you they need something for school “today.” I hate that. They had the entire weekend to share this bit of information with me, but somehow it completely slipped their minds.
Usually it’s fine, though, because I’ll hear something along the lines of, “Mom, I need a pencil.” Or maybe, “Mom, can I have 50 cents.” (Although I don’t have 50 cents because I spent it on that Snickers bar.)
But on this Monday morning I heard something I have never heard before in my life: “Umm, do you have a memory stick I can use?”
A what?
What in the world is a memory stick? And then they say plain as day, “You know — a jump drive.”
A what?
Well, I’m obviously out of the loop as to what this device actually is, so I gave a resounding “no” to that question.
Heck, the only thing that comes close to me identifying with that phrase is “jumper cables,” and I’m pretty sure that’s not a required item on the school supply list, at least not yet. Although, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the day came when I was told to send jumper cables to school along with that infamous bag of candy.
Some teacher may need help starting his or her car in the parking lot or something. And somehow, it more than likely will be my responsibility to take care of that problem for them.
Anyway, I did not have this “jump drive” that they spoke of, nor do I have any jumper cables. And why any child of mine would think I would have “an extra” one lying around the house is beyond me.
Why in the name of all that is holy would you need this kind of contraption anyway? Can’t we just stick to the chalk and blackboard anymore? Geesh.
So as I write this, I decide to broaden my world and find out exactly what this jump drive thing is. And here is what I discovered: “A plug-and-play portable storage device that uses flash memory and is lightweight enough to attach to a key chain. A USB drive can be used in place of a floppy disk, Zip drive disk or CD. When the user plugs the device into the USB port, the computer’s operating system recognizes the device as a removable drive and assigns it a drive letter.”
Not to be redundant, but, “What?” That wasn’t very helpful in my eyes. Good gravy, I think I’d rather just send the jumper cables.
(Stenger is a staff writer for the Herald-Star and a Toronto resident.)
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