“Place the gateway into bridge mode.”

“Forward ports to the Nintendo Switch console.”

No, I’m not captaining a warship or playing an imagination game with my kids that involves the Nintendo Switch as a cruise ship destination. Either of those things would be way too fun.

I’m playing the role of IT Manager, a job I never wanted or asked for, a job I never seek to fill but in pandemic times, seems to be the job I am most frequently called upon to do. All day, every day, since this whole pandemic started, goes like this:

Everyone gets breakfast. As they are eating breakfast, I make something for myself. Before I sit down to eat it:

“Mom, the Kindle is broken again.” (it’s been broken for the past 5 weeks, usually a re-set works but now it’s completely frozen. I’ll be online all day trying to figure out how to do a hard reset if I can’t even get a screen to show up)

“Mom, the printer won’t print.” (that’s because it’s on a different Wi-Fi network, because I had to buy a repeater for our router/modem, because the one we started with here didn’t have enough speed & bandwidth to handle 3 videoconferences at a time)

“Mom, why doesn’t the teacher’s homework assignment match the instructions she gave us?” (the poor teacher is completely overwhelmed, overworked, anxious, exhausted, and never signed up for this job either). “I don’t know, sweet, let’s write her a nice letter to ask her if she can fix it.”

“Mom, the link takes me to a different video than the one I’m supposed to be watching.” (same reason as above, same answer as above)

“Mom, can you video me doing jumping jacks for 1 minute?” (WTF. Who is going to watch 120 2nd graders jump for 1 minute each? Who has 2 hours to do this???). “OK, after I fix Rowan’s video link issue.”

“Mom, the document says it’s located in Google Drive, but the App I’m supposed to use to create a book online can’t find the document in Google Drive.” “OK, honey, let’s check. Oh, it’s because you’re logged into my account, let’s switch you back over.”

“Mom, I can’t find my bass teacher’s Zoom number.” (that’s because it’s on a small green index card, that we carry throughout the house as we search for places to have a videoconference where someone is not already on a videoconference). “Did you check the bathroom?”

“Mom, can you please scan and upload pictures of my journal so I can turn in my homework?” (this one, admittedly not so bad, if it didn’t happen 7 different times throughout the day and add insane numbers of needless photo files to both my personal phone and to my used-to-be-pristine-and-clear-of-all-unnecessary-files-but-is-now-a-living-breathing-compost-pile-of-a-desktop computer)

And this is just a sample of the school stuff – not to mention the personal screen time that the kids get to try to make quarantining a little less daunting. For example, one of Rowan’s greatest joys has been to play Minecraft online with one of his best friends from home – it’s something he’s gotten to do nearly every day since this started. They set up a Zoom conference so they can see each other & talk while they build Minecraft worlds to their heart’s content. But for the last week, some kind of technical difficulty has been making someone’s console ‘lag’, whatever that means, and Rowan and his friend haven’t gotten to play much as a result – they spend their time together mostly waiting for the darn system to boot up. The poor kid was brought to tears by it last night, so this morning I resolved to try to figure it out.

Now in my mind, if Nintendo says you can “play a game online with your friends”, you should be able to turn the system on, click the game, maybe sign into an account, and off you go. If that doesn’t work, perhaps reboot the system. But no – here is what Nintendo says is the solve:

1. Place the gateway into bridge mode. (WTF is this. I don’t even know what any of these words mean)
2. Power cycle both your router and your gateway. (I know what the router is, it’s the little white box next to the TV with flashing lights that makes the internet go. Or is that a modem? But I don’t see a gateway to anything)
3. Place the Nintendo Switch console into a DMZ. (WTF again. The only acronym for DMZ I know is a Demilitarized Zone. Which I agree, could help with relationships in our house given our current situation)
4. Forward ports to the Nintendo Switch console. (I am so sorry for all the profanity, but there are no words that accurately describe both my confusion and my desire to rip the console out of the wall and run it over with my car. What. The. Fuck.)

So, what do you think I’m going to do? Tell my almost 11-year-old, playmate-less, school-less, playground-less, kid whose primary source of joy most days is a ride on his bike and this time with his old friend? No, I’m going to flipping find the bridge, navigate to the gateway, buy or build or create or click on a DMZ, and point all ports forward to the Switch console and pray to God that it works.

And then maybe, I’ll sit down and eat breakfast before my kids ask for a snack this afternoon.