“I can see you”

I downloaded MSN messenger almost as soon as Jack and I got broadband at home. I’m not what you’d call a prolific user; I only have three people on my contact list… and one of them is barely ever on line. In fact, I would go as far as to say that my main use of MSN is checking the online status of my parents’ computer, so that when I ring them, and their answer-phone clicks in, as it always does within a ludicrously short period of time, I know that they are actually in, and I can keep calling them back until someone answers. In fact, what is it with answer phones that cut in when the phone has barely started to ring? I can see that’s all well and good if the phone is, say, on your desk at work and only ever an arm’s reach away. But in a house? What’s with that? But I digress….

MSN Messenger has not been a real presence in my life up until now. But as of the day before yesterday, all that changed. I was chatting online happily to my little sister Joey. (Well, I say ‘little’. She’s eleven. I mean, how can this be? How can this be allowed to happen? I still think she’s three years old, and yet she’s practically a teenager. Good god. Even italics cannot fully convey my confusion.) We were exchanging badly typed messages, and talking at cross purposes… answering each other’s previous messages, and pausing at the same time, then doubling back, getting distracted, starting to type an answer that was then superseded by the subsequent message. All the normal online message stuff.

Then, out of the blue, a message popped up. ‘Joey has invited you to view the webcam. Do you want to accept, or decline?’ Well, I hit accept, didn’t I? And, lo and behold, a small, grainy, slow-moving, strangely brown-coloured, seemingly one-frame-per-five seconds web-cam picture popped up on my screen.

And I was transfixed. I was gobsmacked. I sat and laughed with pleasure for about ten minutes, pausing only to type such illuminating messages into MSN as ‘I can see you!’, ‘I can see your face!’ and ‘I can see you typing!’ and so on , and so forth.

When we’d done, and she’d saved goodbye ("I can see you waving!" etc. etc.) I tried to describe it to Jack. "My parents have a webcam! And we used it online!… and I could see Joey!" He looked a bit bemused. But I was still entranced. "I could see her, and the study, and everything!" He smiled at me and gave me a vague pat on the back. I could see him thinking, "That’s nice, dear." "I think we need to get a webcam!" "That’ll be nice."

So, as I am nothing if not a woman of my word… and also because what is the Easter weekend for if not going out and buying things… and also because I had promised myself a pair of cheap hair straighteners in Argos, and was decided miffed to find that they were sold out…. well, the long and short of it is that I bought a webcam. I bore it home triumphantly. Well. As triumphantly as you can when you’re also weighed down with Jack’s Easter egg (Cadbury’s Caramel, since you ask) and various food sundries from Sainsbury’s. And I set it up that evening.

Once I’d set it up, I did what any normal person would do, and rang Joey to ask her if she would play with me.
"I’ve set up my webcam!"
"Ooooh!"
"I know! So will you come online to try it out?"
"Yes – one minute."

So we both used our webcams. And spent ages both waving at each other, and making faces. Then my parents ran into the study, having been beckoned in by Joey, and we all spent ages laughing, making faces at each other, waving, and laughing again. And Joey and my mum typed into MSN, "We can see you!" and I replied, "I can see you, too!" and Joey said, "I can see the pictures on your wall!" and I said, "Oh oh, I can see the cat!" and we all laughed some more. At one point, for reasons too silly and complex to explain, my father moved past the webcam, pretending to swim backstroke through the air. At this point, I started laughing so hard, I knocked the webcam off the monitor. ("We can’t see you anymore!" "I know. Sorry." "Oh, that’s better." "Is that better?" "We can see you now! etc. etc.)

And when we’d finished exchanging these witticisms, it took us about ten minutes to say goodbye, because we were so busy waving at each other, and blowing kisses.

Part of me finds it very entertaining that all the wonders of modern technology have brought us to a place where we can sit at our desks and pull faces at each other through the ether. As I said to my Mum, "This is a lot like a really time-consuming, and slightly crap phonecall…" and she agreed.

But another part of me just finds it genuinely fascinating to be able to see someone move, in something approaching real-time, as I am talking to them. Apparently afterwards, my Dad said, "oh. It was nice to see rumtumtugger, wasn’t it. I mean, it was nice to see her face." And I said to Jack how good it was to see Joey. Because it was. Far more immediate than an email. Even though the image was grainy, and a slightly strange colour, it was even more immediate than speaking to her on the phone. It was great to see my parents’ house, even if I only saw part of one wall by the computer. I suppose it’s just nice to have bought something that brings them all a little bit closer. It might be frivolous, and it might be un-necessary. And I might spend a long time waving pointlessly, and laughing foolishly. But I am pleased with the webcam, and I’m glad I bought it.

With love
therumtumtugger
xxx