It Was A Wasted Gift

A little over a year ago Doug & I were discussing what to get his mother as a Christmas gift. After much discussion we decided to connect the computer we had given her a few years before to the internet. Our thought was that we would be able to keep in touch with her that way.

So I began the task of choosing an ISP. I had to find one that would work in her remote area and wouldn’t cost us too much- just in case she didn’t use the service. I chose a dial up internet account for the basic reason that it was inexpensive and they had a local phone number.

When we told Doug’s mom about her gift she was so excited. We got the necessary hardware (the computer didn’t have a modem) and set it up for her. Then we walked her through how to use email, how to get online and the other fun aspects of life on the World Wide Web.

We left happy thinking that we would be able to email photos and little notes about the girls activities to Doug’s mom and be able to keep in touch more. We were even discussing how, if she really liked being so connected, we could look into high speed broadband ISP deals to speed things up for her.

You can probably see where this is going… We never got an email from her and all of our missives went unanswered. We were worried that something had gone wrong with the setup so we had Doug’s brother check the situation when he was visiting.

The verdict: her husband didn’t like her to be online. Yep, he didn’t say a word while we were there and let us spend about $100 on hardware and sign a one year contract for service and then he wouldn’t let her use it.

As you can imagine I was a bit annoyed because of the wasted money. And the fact that I had to wait a year to cancel a non-used account. Which is not so easy; companies will do about anything to get you to keep your account. I ended up telling them that Doug’s mom was in a nursing home and couldn’t have a computer.