The Most ND Thing My Daughter Has Said Yet

My daughter, desiring more moose, makes a shadow of one.

This year, my eleven year-old daughter accompanied me to Shmoocon (her first Shmoocon, and her first “hacker” con in general).

There’s a lot more I want to write about how amazing this experience was for us both, and I will soon. However, upon reflecting over the events of what was for many reasons an incredible weekend, there’s one particular event that stands out.

I feel it captures the essence of our experience through the eyes of my eleven-year old daughter, and that’s the story I wanted to share first.

Being eleven, my daughter does not yet have a mobile phone for daily/regular use.

However, she had reasonably requested one of my older phones so that she could take some pictures during our trip.

I figured I would just reset the iPhone that I use for my bike computer since it really wasn’t “older”, has a decent camera, and it’s about 10 minutes to set it up again for my bike come spring. Time constraints and technical difficulties necessitated I do this during our trip, though, so I gave it to her Saturday afternoon.

My wonderfully precocious child wasted zero time installing and configuring whatever apps she was able, getting things setup to her liking, and was generally having a grand old time, until it was time to head out for the evening.

We had a couple of time dependant side quests we wanted to do while we were in DC, one of which was Dopamine Land. (No, that’s not how I refer to Shmoocon, though one could understand the confusion!)

As an aside, Dopamine Land was a lot of fun for both of us! If you’re in the DC area I definitely recommend checking this place out!

Naturally being super excited about the new (to her) piece of tech in her hands, she was sure— before we even had our seat belts on — to tell our Uber driver Emilio all about it. (Like any urban conveyor of humanity worth his salt, Emilio took this in stride.)

We were in the Uber maybe three minutes, however when my suddenly visibly irritated daughter says to herself, though loudly:

“This is so annoying! How do I turn off notifications?!?”

Emilio and I got a quite a kick out of that.

It may be a cliche that kids say the darnedest things, but that does not mean it isn’t true.

Somewhere on the drive home from DC the next night, while using memories of the weekend to keep me awake for the journey (my travel companion getting some much needed rest in the seat beside me), an interesting thought occurred to me.

As Emilio and I shared a laugh with my daughter’s loud exclamation from the backseat, we were witnessing a quirky kind of poetry in how these tech mishaps unfold. Here we were, en-route from one tech haven to another (of sorts), getting a live demo of the classic tech-user struggle.

It was a reminder, bracketed in something of a giggle, that amidst all the apps, alerts, devices and digital domains, it’s these perfectly imperfect moments that really connect us.

Who knew a complaint about notifications could be such a bonding experience?

So, here’s to the tech hiccups that keep things interesting — and to remembering to enjoy the detours they bring into our real lives.

Do you have any cute, funny, or charmingly neurodivergent moments from your kids which brought an unexpected chuckle?

Vaya con dios.

Celebrating after winning a Jenga tournament at Shmoocon 24. (Mask loaned by a generous Lobbycon attendee.)