So you're tired of your elders being Depends-wearing bricks on the backs of productive society. You're wondering why your grandmother doesn't reply to your emails or IMs. You want your Aunt Matilda to actually look at your Wish List on Amazon and get you something that you want, and not just another pair of woolen, knit socks for your birthday, Christmas, and MLK Day. You're ready to Teach Women Over 50 How to Use a Computer.

Step 1: Realize what the fuck you're getting yourself into

First you must take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask your reflection, "Do you like pain? Do you like mental anguish? Do you like banging your head repeatedly against hard surfaces in order to stave off insanity?" If you answered "yes" to any of these questions then you are a masochist, and you may be up to the job of teaching women over 50 how to use a computer.

If you have any doubts (ANY doubts) what-so-ever about your threshold for despondency and suffering do NOT attempt to teach a woman over 50 how to use a computer. Do not even attempt to teach one how to turn ON a computer. Do not even attempt to teach one that when she "misplaces" her glasses that they are ALWAYS already on her head. This will cause severe trauma to you and may cause you to physically attack the woman in question. You would never forgive yourself if you ever slapped your Gram-Gram and called her a "useless bag of soiled undergarments." Plus Gram-Gram carries a cane, and with it she has a longer reach than you do.

Step 2: Start out slow

Not to sound like a one-act stand-up comedian, but people over 50 tend to have the outlook on life that dictates that any technology created after their birth is the devil's own handiwork, and it was only made to corrupt their soul and send them on a one way trip to Hell. This is going to take some time to deprogram.

Think of a woman over 50 as a brainwashed cultist when it comes to modern technology. They were taught one way, and one way only, how to do things -- such as finding directions and maps, writing out bills, finding hard-core pornography, and keeping in touch with family -- and they will be DAMNED if you try to tell them that there are easier, faster, cheaper and less lame ways of doing any of that.

First things first. Tie or duct tape the woman over 50 who you are trying to teach to a chair in front of a computer. Even if they are eager to learn they will still need to have their movements restricted just to avoid future annoyances. After your pupil is secured you will have to show her (no less than 10 times) where the power button is, and how to "push it in" in order to "wake up the little demon inside the plastic computers box." Your first lesson may take all afternoon -- bring a snack for yourself, but give nothing for your pupil yet. Hunger pains in a woman over 50 may accelerate her learning ability. Also make it clear that until she can turn on the computer by herself there will be "no Murder, She Wrote" for her. Ever.

Once she realizes that the computer is not a magical device sent by evil remote-control-stealing fairies solely to torture her, and is indeed an inanimate object for which she will actually have to work with in order to operate, you may move on to step 3. Give her a shortbread cookie as a reward too. But no tea. She's still strapped to that chair and if she has to go to the bathroom she'll use that as an excuse to make a break for it.

Step 3: Basic Programs

Break out the Advil. Mee-Maw is going to test the limits of your patience and your rational mental health. If she doesn't understand the science behind the computer "mouse," this could very well take up the rest of your weekend. Show her how by moving the mouse you can make the arrow on the screen move. With this you can click in order to open up folders or start-up progra--.... Shit, you lost her already, didn't you. She's fast asleep, filling her depends with what must be partially rotted lima bean souffle. Okay, try this: glue granny's hand to the mouse. Tell her that she has 5 minutes to figure out how to use it in order to open up Microsoft Word (which you have previously made a shortcut icon ON THE FRICKIN' DESKTOP, and you pointed out that that big, blue "W" is what she has to click on), or else you will pour a pot full of liquid magma on her head. WARNING: Don't REALLY get any magma anywhere near an old lady. That might be a giant lawsuit even if the woman over 50 who you are teaching how to use a computer is related to you... Real magma might cause you to be ejected from her will.

Instead, make it a can of half-melted frozen orange juice or something. You just want the old lady to actually take you seriously. You might also use a baseball bat to smash against the table or the walls in order to incite a drive to learn in your pupil. NEVER strike your pupil though. Not unless she reeeeeally asks for it. Once again, you may be left out of a will, or if you work with the lady you're teaching she may threaten you with "sexual harassment" or something... And those Anti-Sexual Harassment Training sessions that you'll be forced to attend are such a fucking bore (yes, I KNOW you're not supposed to grab a woman's ass in the office, unless you get actual, written approval to do so... and she's hot). If your pupil threatens you with something like this be prepared to finish the job off with the bat. Make sure that the cunt's face, fingerprints or teeth cannot be recognized and lead any investigations into her dumpster-found body back to her true identity. Then use her office email account (her password is the name of her dog, "Pookie"), that she's probably never used herself, to write to her boss saying "My teacher of computers, *your name*, was so good that I now know everything and do not need this job anymore. Therefore I quit and am moving to Fiji to become an intarwebs tycoon, and you will never see me again. Goodbye."

Okay, if the woman was able to successfully open up Word within your time limit (and if she couldn't, you should have a bottle of sleeping pills ready to put yourself out of your own misery seeing as it is only going to get even more "dick slammed in the toilet seat" painful from here on out), just show her that typing a letter in Word is just as easy, if not easier, than using an old-fashioned typewriter, like the kind she used back when she was FDR's secretary and gave him sloppy BJs in between memos to his butch wife. It's that easy. Don't linger on it, just close it up and give her another cookie assuring her that she's a good little useless piece of wrinkled ass, and that she already mastered the Microsoft Word! Huzzah! Throw some ticker-tape if you have any. Old women like the colors and designs of falling ticker-tape. It'll also distract her from all the other shortcuts on the desktop (like Visio, Access, Photoshop and iTunes) which she may ask about. Do NOT let her ask about them.

Step 4: E-mail

Shit. This is a difficult one. There is more than one step to it, but if your pupil retained the knowledge of how to "open up a program" from step 3 then you might have a chance of not having to kill either her or yourself.

Once again, take the time to make a shortcut to the email program that your pupil will be using. Set her account up for her (it may take you all of 5 minutes, but you just saved yourself 15 days of unmitigated, absolute anguish and frustration). Repeat step 3 again (but make sure she understands that she needs to aim for the "Thunderbird" icon this time and not the blue "W" (this may take a few threats or "violent shakes to the chair that she is taped to in order for it to sink in). When she gets the e-mail program open you have to show her what the.... Oh fuck it. This is just unfuckinglygoddam impos-- ....... Okay, hold on... *Deep breath* Okay, I think I can continue now...

Your woman over 50 WILL BE confused by what has appeared on the monitor. Do not be discouraged. You can make it through this. Very slowly point out that the "In Box" is like what she has on her desk, where her ugly boss puts his requests to sodomize her, while bending her over his pleather chair like a bitch in heat, every afternoon. The "In Box" is "incoming messages" and lots of free advertisements for penis pumps and generic Viagra. And porn sites. But assure her that those ads and sites are a rip off. Tell her that anything she could possibly ever want is already online and FREE on that intarwebs. Point out the "delete" button at the top of the e-mail window. Show her how you "select" a piece of mail and then click on the delete button in order to remove it from.... She deleted her entire "In Box" just now, didn't she. Christ...

Okay, now show your pupil (by forcibly grabbing her leathery hand still glued to the mouse) how to click on the "write" button (and emphasize that this is in order to "write" an electronic letter to somebody else). Tell her, no, she cannot simply type "Aunt Rose" into the "to" field. Nor can she type in "President Asshole" and be sure that her email is going to make it to the Harry Truman in the Oval Office. Let her know that e-mail addresses are just like REAL world addresses. If she was writing to Aunt Rose in a real, tangible, stamped, envelope letter she would have to write "Aunt Rose, 1337 Petunia Path Road, Suck-My-Balls, Missouri, 10045". But e-mail letters actually have a shorter address and can be much more fun. Inform her that somebody can actually have the e-mail address of "largecockandballs@wetpussy.net", or "suckmytitties@gerbil-up-my-arse.org". She will be amazed at the possibilities.

After she types out her message with just her forefingers, tell her that in order to send the message she must hit the "Send" button. If she asks where she pays for the stamp on the letter, just hold out your hand and tell her that you'll make sure that the stamp gets paid. Insist that e-mail stamps are a dollar each.

Step 5: Intarwebs

This may actually be one of the easiest parts to teach your woman over 50. If she's already acquired the skills of pointing and clicking, and can open up a program on her desktop, you may have a chance of opening up her mind to the World Wide Web. If she still cannot even open up a program from her desktop, it doesn't mean that you have failed as a teacher, it just means that for some reason Darwinism has not mastered its ability to remove the completely useless from society and nature. Leave her tied to the chair, and go to Vegas to unwind for a few weeks. All of your problems concerning your pupil will be over by the time you return. Then just find an out-of-the-way place to dig an unmarked grave, and viola!

If your pupil CAN indeed open up a program now, instruct her to now click on the "Firefox" icon. Make sure that Google is the homepage before she does this. Google is the simplest, hardest to fuck-up search engine on the entire webs. Do NOT use Yahoo as all the text and images will confuse your pupil and make her start asking questions to which your replies and answers will simply be ignored or too much for her old old brain to understand ("How does my computars know that Iran is still causing trouble? How does it know that the temperature is 76 degrees outside when it is inside? How does it know that mortgage rates are low?!?" You will not be able to deal with this after making it this far. Avoid Yahoo for all you're worth).

Once on Google, just tell her to type in whatever information she wants to learn about. Anything. Tell her she can type in "dogs," or "tea party," or even "tapioca enema" and she'll get thousands, if not MILLIONS of possible web pages that have information on any topic she requested. If she starts to ask "How does it?..." cut her off quickly and answer, "Science!"

Now that she's tried her first search, show her how to choose one of the sites that her request brought back. If the woman over 50 is related to you, try to explain how the first 100 or so sites are always pornographic pages, and any real information is about 5-10 Google pages in. If your pupil is just a brain damaged coworker, tell her that "every search ever performed has the best page ever appear as the very top choice. Always." Make sure that none of her search filters are on, and that her Google-ing is open to every adult page ever posted online. Once you eventually let her go and she goes back to her cubicle to start surfing the webs, let her boss know that she's looking up nasty pictures about dogs raping women at tea parties in tubs of tapioca pudding.

Step 6: Advanced Programs

Are you abso-fucking-lutely out of your gourd?! If you made it this far and your brain hasn't hemorrhaged you to death you should count yourself lucky. Do NOT push your good fortune. Take the time now to thank your God(s) for watching out for you, and begin planning for the next day, when YOU'LL HAVE TO TEACH THE OLD BAG THE SAME EXACT SHIT YOU JUST LEARNED HER TODAY. She will forget it all the minute that the first murder occurs under Jessica Fletcher's watch on the repeat of Murder, She Wrote tonight (un-fun fact: the murdered to survivor population ratio of the small town in Murder, She Wrote after over 250 episodes is the equivalent of the survivors of Nagasaki at the end of August in 1945).

(Bonus Hints) Here are just a few more hints on how to teach computers to old womens.

• Problem: Your head is constantly throbbing, scanners-like, due to your extended conversations with a woman over 50 about computers.
  
  
  • Solution: An ice pick will solve that problem. Choose whose head you will jam it into, but be prepared for legal interference in your life if you chose hers.
    
    
• Problem: You made your Grandmother cry by spitting in her face when she tried to white-out a spelling mistake on the computer monitor.
  
  
  • Solution: Shit, you're never gonna live this one down. Hard candies and DVD sets of Murder, She Wrote or Golden Girls are the only way to make up for a mistake like that. You will have to watch them all with her too because she can't figure out the DVD player.
    
    
• Problem: An over 50 female coworker thinks that you bashing in her kneecaps is not a proper way to teach her how to use a computer, and she reports you to your boss/the police.
  
  
  • Solution: Lie. Lie your goddamn ass off. "Sir, I think it's obvious that Marge is making this stuff up in an effort to destabilize the unity of the office so that she can take over your job. She even let slip that she 'knows where you live' and where your kids go to school... I don't know if that was a threat, but then she hurt me... She... She touched me, sir, and told me to keep it to myself... But I just couldn't let her do that to you, sir! I already placed a bomb in her car... If you'd like to push the button when she leaves today, sir, I would understand."

Now go out there and do teach an old woman some new tricks!