But I said, "No, no, no..."

Tomorrow, I am doing a little moonlighting as a computer technician.

Actually, 'technician' is the wrong word. 'Technician' would be implying that I am actually competent in that field.

And that is a LIE.

So let me rephrase that- tomorrow, I am masquerading as a computer technician.

So this could go down very, very badly.

And this is why I should just keep my mouth shut.

So why take on the job, you ask?

Well...let me tell you a story...

When I was but a lass of seventeen, I was desperate for a job. Even McDonalds didn't hire me, so I really only had two choices- prostitution or telemarketing...cos really, those are the only two careers where you don't really need experience to get a foot in the door...

...needless to say, I chose the latter :P

Please not that I really only suffered through five days of telemarketing, only two of which were on the phones. It was, quite frankly, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," with emphasis on the 'short' part. I actually did quite well, but I hated it with such a passion that I quit immediately after I'd finished the five-day training sessions.

Except...my mother was deeply affected by my plaintive tale of telemarketing woe. So much so that now she actually exhibits sympathy for telemarketers. In fact, she now exhibits sympathy for anyone trying to sell her anything. As she said to me, "Oh, but I was thinking, 'This could be Daphne' and I felt really sorry for her..."

"Mum, I only did five days of telemarketing. Not even that- only TWO days on the actual phones!"

"It doesn't matter, I still thought of you with your little childish voice asking for donations..."

And that mentality has just made her WEAK.

Let me just cite three examples off the top of my head:

The first incident happened when she got a young girl on the phone asking her to sell tickets for an epilepsy raffle. "I thought of you in your telemarketing days," says mother, and so she caved.

Now, the Epilepsy Foundation will not leave us alone.

Secondly, one day she returned from shopping with a bizarre chicken strudel.

"This is random," says I. "Why'd you get one of these?'
"They're new. The girl at Lenards was trying so hard to get me to buy one. I thought of you trying to get a sale and I felt really sorry for her."
"Right. So you bought a strudel."
"Yes."
"Oookay..."

Probably the most impressive one was when she was swayed by the over-eager desperation of the commission-based World Vision girl at a shopping centre- "She was so desperate, and I thought of you trying to get a sale..."

So she adopted a child.

And now I have an adopted little sister in Bangladesh.

Anyway, the point of my story was this- I've been ridiculing her for this weakness, but today I was coerced into saying yes simply because the desperate woman in front of me was my Mum's age, also Asian, and completely hopeless with computers.

Just like my Mummy.

And I thought, "What if it were my Mum seeking out computer help and everyone wanted to charge her $98 just to look at her PC?"

So I caved.

Sigh.

Anyhow...from what I gathered, her computer just seems to be low on virtual memory. So I figured that all I have to do is delete some shit on her hard drive and browser cache and increase the size of her paging file.

I think.

I mean, if it turns out to be anything harder than that I am royally, royally, screwed.

At any rate, it wasn't just the fact that she reminded me of Mum that made me say yes...she also looked at me desperately and said, "I'll pay you whatever you want. Anything!"

And y'know, that might have swayed me.

Just a little.