As far as I’m concerned, the ability to tape TV programs with a VCR was the single greatest technological development of the last 30 years. This is mainly because – obvious advantages aside – I could actually work the darned thing. In fact, for a time I was the only one in the house who could, a veritable VCR virtuoso. Ah, the satisfaction! You can’t imagine what a source of pride it was for a woman who regards machines as magical and beyond mortal understanding.

Those were golden days for me. It was the end of an era in which, though I might be in awe of the devices that surrounded me, I could nonetheless operate them. It was all downhill from there.

Now there are iPods and Wii systems and Bluetooths and flash drives and TiVo, and I don’t even try anymore. My new-skill acquisition has reached a need-to-know basis, and it turns out there’s not that much I need to know. Besides, I’m afraid if I try to cram into my brain all those features, functions and applications, something else will have to go, like the phone number for Papa Murphy’s or my boys’ middle names. Sadly, it’s never the stuff you wish you could lose – the lyrics to Copacabana, for instance.

I’m able to make and receive calls from my cell phone (the same one I’ve had for the past four years), and I can even take a picture or send a text message in a pinch, but what’s with all these other functions? Why do I need games and tunes? All I want is to be able to call home from the grocery store to ask if we’re running low on milk. I don’t need to launch small nuclear devices.

So you can imagine my panic when I finally admitted to myself I could no longer put off building a Web site of my own. Coming from a family of rugged individualists, there was never a question of hiring a professional to design my site; no, it would be up to me. Just me and hours and hours of tech support.

Getting ready to get started was the hardest part. So many choices! Web site or blog? Which web host? How much bandwidth? What about domain registration? Of course, my first hours were spent studying the terms “blog,” “web host,” “bandwidth,” and “domain.” At last a friend recommended a reasonably priced host with do-it-yourself software, good phone support, and a 30-day trial. So I shut my eyes and clicked “I accept.”

A week later, I was on my third attempt (the first two having disappeared into the void after agonizing hours of labor) when I realized I’d hopelessly scrambled the buttons on the navigation menu. So, nearly in tears, I called tech support yet again. In the past I’d chatted with affable Michael and easy-going Sean. But this time the luck of the draw landed me with black leather and attitude. This time I got Jennifer, the domain-atrix.

After informing me that they are not called “buttons,” nor will they ever be as long as she has something to say about it, Jennifer proceeded to crack the whip, take no nonsense, and grind my ineptness to dust beneath her sharp and shiny stiletto heel for nearly two hours. She bullied my navigation menu into submission, and we began anew. But this time it worked. Between my growing competence, and Jennifer’s tough-love tech support, I at last conquered the brave new world of links, elements, toolbars, and HTML code. Congratulations: it’s a Web site.

Alas, no sooner had I caught on when the job was done. Even now I can feel my site-building skills seeping from my neural net. Oh, well. It’s probably for the best. At this rate I might be able to remember my children’s names by spring.

Wendy lives in Kingston – though not in a cave as you might suppose. Judge her efforts for yourself at www.wendytweten.com.