Page 4 of Error Handling

Harrison Hall is a recent addition to the campus. During its renovation, the architects gave the 1890s grain mill a modernized façade and a small parking lot. From here, it’s a three-block walk to the main campus where the trees are taller and the buildings are more traditional.

My phone buzzes in my backpack. I pull it out and slap it to my ear.

“It’s me,” my mom greets. “Are you busy?”

We both know it doesn’t matter. When my mom calls to talk, she wants to talk now.

“I’m waiting for an Uber, and then I need to get ready for my date.” Oops. TMI.

Mom gasps audibly. “You have a date?”

“It’s a blind date. Don’t get excited. I don’t even know him.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“He’s a short HR rep with high standards of cleanliness.”

“Oh.” My mom’s tone reflects her disappointment. “That sounds boring.”

“I’m sure he went to college.”

“Undergraduate.”

“I only have an undergraduate.”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.”

She didn’t have to say it. My mom has a Ph.D. in American Literary Studies, and she has a habit of letting even strangers know.

“Maybe he has an MBA,” Mom says, “although those are a dime a dozen these days.”

Translation: My mother is already unimpressed by my blind date’s imaginary higher education. This is why I don’t share the details of my dating life (or lack thereof) with my mother, unless I’m tired, in a hurry, and smell like mineral spirits.

“So, you’re waiting for what?” Mom says. “An oob? What’s an oob?”

“An Uber.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what an Uber is?”

“No. Should I?”

“I guess not.”

Mom never drives. She owns a lovely million-dollar Cape Cod within walking distance of Ohio State University, where she’s a tenured Professor of American Literature, and she pays people to deliver her groceries.

“You read too many classics,” I add. “There’s a whole world out there waiting for you to discover it.”

“What’s an Uber? Is it some animal I’ve never heard of?”

My mom doesn’t have a single social media account or a smartphone, nor does she surf the internet. Ohio State’s vast library allows her to remain stuck in the 1970s. The only computer software she uses are the programs on her university-issued laptop.

I give her my best unpaid advertisement for Uber.

“I don’t think I like that,” she says when I’m done. “It sounds dangerous.”

“Which part?”