Webchat: Naughty at Forty

Naughty at forty
by Poonam Khaira Sidhu

MY son Bilawal is a millennium kid. He’s nine going on nineteen. He’s the acknowledged computer whiz in the family. Even his father, a sometime engineer now a bureaucrat, asks for his assistance. With an uncle inside Intel and another in an Internet start-up, he gets regular updates on hardware and software. The relative merits of Pentium versus Itanium or Xeon processors are kid stuff. Little Sehaj Bir, his younger sibling, who is also very computer savvy acknowledges big brother’s ability to break through the codes in game CDs. The Internet is not the final frontier. It’s his turf, where he’s completely at home.

But millennium kids need the excitement of new challenges all the time. Also the Net has spawned its own culture and language through the virtual chatrooms. Bilawal was not allowed to chat because his old-fashioned mom thought they were dens of virtual vice. But mom was also not immune to Bilawal at his best behaviour and when he pleaded “You know all my friends are into chatrooms on the net. Can I chat too, please, under supervision only”. Well, I reckoned no harm done if he’s supervised. So come Sunday and my nine year old, seven year old and their father were all ready to enter a chatroom.

It was a crowded chatroom, one of scores on the net. There were about 18 regulars, with their names in the name-age-location sex (ALS) specification. So there was cupid 16, blonde 21, hunk20, Adonis 24, and belle15. Not one had a sensible name, or was over the age of 25 and certainly no one as young as Billy. So how are you going to sign on we asked him? “As Billy9 of course”, he said. “No you can’t give your real identity away”, we reasoned. So he signed in as action boy albeit with his real age. This is how the action went.

Actionboy 9: Hi!! I’m happy to be in this room.

There’s sudden consternation in the chat room.

Cupid16: Hey Actionboy!! are you really 9?

Actionboy: is happy to get a response.

Hunk20: You really shouldn’t be here kid.

Belle15: Clear off kid!! Go find someone your age.

And, they’re back to chatting with each other.

Blondie21: Hey hunk!! Do your muscles match your IQ?

Hunk20: Try me Blondie. I will surprise you!

Adonis24: Say Belle, are you as pretty as your name means and what do you do? —————-and so the cyberflirtations continued.

My son couldn’t quite figure out the ongoing chatroom conversations. He asked quite plaintively: Why don’t they talk about hobbies or science or game-CDs or chest codes?” We the supervising adults really had no answer to that one. Not one to give up, he tried again.

Actionboy9: Isn’t there any one who will talk to me? Please!

Blonde21: Hey kid, clear off!! Learn to take good advice, OK?

Hunk21: (Taking pity) OK kid talk, but after this you leave.

Actionboy9: What’s your favourite game CD?

Hunk21: Doom, I guess, but my college assignments don’t leave much time to play.

Actionboy9: Do you like science and do you know what a Supernova is?

Hunk21: Hey kid! This is getting a bit too techie. Go to bed!! Bye!!

Actionboy9 a.k.a Bilawal, my nine year old, saddened and disappointed, signed off.

Dad, dangerously close to 40, when men get naughty, was, however, hooked.

It had been another one of those days in office. I was tired, and stressed. So, after an early dinner and putting the kids to sleep, I hit the bed and within minutes I was in slumberland. When I awakened, it was dark. A look at my wristwatch set the time at 3 AM. I glanced over at the sleeping kids and discovered my husband was missing.

I was up like a shot. Hey!! Where was my better half? I jumped out of bed and rushed out into the living room. No signs of him! Where could he be, it was hardly a civilised hour. I had visions of him running away with a secret girlfriend or a neighbourhood siren. I sat down on the sofa, trying to compose myself and sent up some silent prayers. It was then that I heard the tap-tap of the keyboard from the study. I gingerly climbed upstairs and peeped in.

My husband of 10 years sat glued to the monitor. He was much to my horror in the midst of a conversation with 21 year old sirens in a chatroom on the Internet. The old adage, “Men get naughty at four- O, forty”, is true. My sober, almost 40-year-old is now a confirmed net chatroom junkie. He’s up at unearthly hours surfing the net and chatting away in any chatroom he can find. What did I say about kids filter? Please ladies, use the husband filter too. Don’t allow your husbands unsupervised access to chatrooms!!