We have a new computer in the house: an Apple IIc.

I’ll wait a moment while we all remember a time when there were no servers, and 64K was a ton of memory.

And now, because I know you’re wondering why we have this thing, here’s the story.

I was minding my own business, happily working away on my MacBook Pro with a bazillion K of memory, when Scout Son walks in to interrupt my workday.

“I found something weird in the garage.”

Since the “garage” is a 2,400 square foot barn, the possibilities are endless. I’m thinking snake, opossum or any one of the countless mice. “Um-hmm,” I say not looking up. Whatever it is, it can have the barn.

“There’s a box of games out there?”

Still not looking up. “What kind of games?” I’m thinking, there’s no Monopoly in the barn.

“I don’t know. But they say Electronic Arts on them.”

Still not looking up. Hey, don’t judge. I really wanted to get a scene in before it was derailed. “Oh. Those games. Those are from when I play-tested games for them and your grandmother worked there.”

“WHAT?!!?”

And there went the scene. It’s hard to write a love scene with a screeching thirteen year old boy in the background. “I’ve told you this.”

“No.”

“Yes. I have told you that the coffee cup in the kitchen with their logo and my name on it is from the beginning of Electronic Arts. I have told you your grandmother used to work there, and I used to play games for them.”

“But there are games in the garage. You’ve been holding out.”

“You’ve held that box in your hands before. I have not been holding out.”

“Can I play them?”

“You could try, if you had a machine that played them.”

It’s 2013. Only a teenage boy would take the time to find someone who had a IIc kicking around. Plugged in. Functional.

He’s upstairs now seeing which games survived twenty winters in the garage. And he’s happy. Sometimes I don’t understand my kids.