Say Cheese!

My wife is one of the most intelligent people I know. She is practical and has more common sense than I’ll ever have. Maybe the dumbest thing she’s ever done was marry me. Or maybe it was the smartest. Anyway, despite her vast wisdom, when it comes to technology, she sometimes has a wee bit of a problem.

Over the holidays, we flew our 23-year-old son home from San Francisco, where he currently works while applying for graduate school. We miss him an awful lot, and so having him home was our Christmas present. Our 15-year-old daughter adores her big brother, so she was elated that he would spend Christmas and New Year’s with us.

On Christmas Eve, we went out for a nice, intimate family dinner. After that we decided we would go look at all the decorations and lights at City Hall. That was something we did every year with the kids, and so seeing that would bring back good memories as well as create a few new ones.

My wife decided this would be a great opportunity to get a photo of the kids for our New Year’s greeting cards. She announced it as she pulled from her purse a digital camera that, on a scale of technical know-how, required you to at least be able to maneuver the land rover robot on Mars. This was going to get ugly, and my kids knew it.

First, she had to pose them just right in front of the city’s Christmas tree, which probably had more pedestrian traffic than the Honolulu Marathon. Every time she was about to snap a photo, someone would cross in front of her camera. This caused her to have to retake the photo at least five times. When she did have a clear shot, the flash wouldn’t go off.

When the flash did work, she couldn’t get the zoom to frame the picture correctly. Just as everything seemed to be perfect, she threw up her hands claiming the battery just died. My kids looked at me, desperately seeking a rescue. That’s when my wife said she’ll just use the camera on her phone.

People are going to love our New Year’s cards – when they get them in 2018!