Did you ever feel like saying something like this?

Let’s face it. We all have times when we are not our best selves, when we are exceedingly judgmental. I am finding that this is happening to me with regard to technology, specifically to the way that so many of us (myself often included, I’m afraid) get caught up in technology and lost to the wonders of the world. This monologue is fictional, but speaks a certain truth for me.

Imagine a mother, exasperated with her teenage son, who is sprawled out on a sofa, tuned out. Imagine her saying:

Give me the ear pods.

GIVE ME THE EAR PODS!

Thank you. Now turn off your phone.

Give it to me.

Thank you.

Sit up.

And now: Just listen. Pretend I’m a text in the flesh.

That woman you so assiduously ignored after you mumbled thanks for the newest and quite expensive version of your addiction is your grandmother, and my mother.

You got your musical talent from her: she was offered a scholarship to study voice in Vienna when she was 20 years old, but she opted instead to get married and have children and to devote her life to the care of others. Were it not for her selflessness, I would not be here. Nor would you. Nor would many other people you admire, like your cousin Sammy. And your cousin Isabel, on whom you have major crush—just listen, it’s no big deal, lots of people get crushes on their cousins, I was in love with my cousin Ned for a whole year, and one time we kissed.

Your grandmother’s nickname was Flash, because she was such a good runner. She delivered a neighbor woman’s baby when she was ten. At the same age, she smoked a cigar and threw up behind the barn.