My wife continues to amaze me.  When we met several years ago I would not have defined her as a luddite, but she certainly wasn’t playing on a digital field.  Slowly, but surely, she has immigrated over the digital divide and, last year, she purchased her very own MacBook, which she treasures immensely.

A case in point.  Last night I was packing to get ready to head to Winnipeg, where I’ll spend the next week as the Umpire-in-Chief of the Canadian U-14 Girls Softball Championships.  Like most men (sorry if I offend some of the more capable types) I don’t worry a whole lot about clothes, especially when it comes to ironing and folding.  I was busy trying to stuff my clothes together and using my own unique method of folding shirts, which infuriates my wife.

Suddenly she said…”can I show you how to do that right?”…figuring it would take longer that I wanted to spend but not wanting to ittitate her I, of course, said “sure”…

Grabbing the shirt I had she laid it flat and, in two swift moves, folded the shirt – correctly!  I was flabbergasted.  It was like I had been let in on some secret that only mambers of the more beautiful gender were supposed to know.  Was this something that only mothers taught their daughters?  Some secret right of initiation to womanhood?

I quickly caught on (folding will never be the same!), but then came the crucial moment.  I joked to my wife that she was lucky her mom taught her all that stuff….she laughed.  Perplexed, I asked why….she said she hadn’t learned that from her mom.  In fact, she had found this only recently…on the Internet!

She quickly showed me one day how, frustrated at the lack of efficiency in her own efforts, she googled “folding clothes”. The second or third item linked to a video on YouTube with Chines subtitles that showed this quick and precise method.

In this case, my wife’s “teacher” was an unknown Chinese woman (who probably didn’t even speak English)  who, through the connection of the Internet, offered her experience to someone half a world away.  My wife, using the asynchronous beauty of the web, was able to “teach herself”.

Isn’t this a model for the new flat world?

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