After finishing her morning coffee and chores, the old woman sat down at her computer.  “What’s this?” she wondered, surprised.  “Oh yes, someone sent me an email.  Let me see…how do I…?  Ah yes, here we go.”  Counting “one-two” in her head, she clicked the mouse and opened the email.

She read,

“Dear Grandma,

It’s Pete.  I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, but I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.  Happy Birthday!

Pete”

“Oh how nice!  Of course, I’ll read it Pete.  After all, I’ve been emailing since 2005,” she thought to herself.

“Now how do I reply?  Let’s see…  What was it Pete told me?  Ah yes, ‘to reply, find and click the left arrow.’   He always was a sharp boy.  There’s the arrow, one-two and I’m off,” she said with a certain feeling of accomplishment.

“Now where’s that darn SHIFT button?” she asked looking down at the keyboard.  As she held the SHIFT key down with her left index finger, she pressed the key marked “D” with her right.  Thus it began.

Slowly and painstakingly, taking great joy in the fact that no matter how much she wrote the cost was the same, she responded to her grandson.

“Dear Pete,

Thank you.

Grandma”

Losing confidence for a moment, she closed in on the screen and searched for the SEND button.  Relieved, she whispered, “And…send.  (One-two).”

She couldn’t put a finger on why, but emailing always gave her a thrill.  “I wonder,” she thought, “when he’ll receive it?”