our parents never faced this kind of vexation as youths

Skype+Parents must yeild equal parts hilarity and abject frustration. Like I love how we were troubleshooting with John's parents, on their maiden skype voyage trying to get audio and video to occur and they typed into their mood bubble thinking it was the chat window. John got them the webcam for mothers' day '09. When we log on to skype to this very day, the bubble next to his parents name says "You bought the damn thing!"

But this isn't mycrazynocalinlaws.blogspot.com

One day my mom gets a new Dell laptop with a built in webcam, which I'm excited about because I figure it means that my days of playing IT to my mom's skype are finished. So I call her and say let's skype. She turns on her computer and I see her log in to skype. I call, she answers and lo! My mom on the video! For a split second only, though, and then she is replaced by a very worried looking white Scottish-fold kitten with green eyes and human teeth.
I stare at my screen in bemused amusement. Then, this kitten begins to move: the head tilts back and forth, its eyes look this way and that, its mouth moving without any words audible. Clearly this thing is trying to communicate with me. I call my mom on the phone and try to talk her through getting rid of the cat. But now I can hear her voice matched up with the motions of this worried cat and it's freaking HILARIOUS and I can barely focus on anything. But as amazing as this kitten-mom is, I need to try and fix the problem, which is hard because my mom doesn't know what she did plus her skype is in Japanese and I have no idea what any options might even be called. So I google 'turn off cat video skype' and what I learn is: this cat thing is called an avatar; it is specific to Dell computers; and that there are many forums where people are trying to find out how to turn off the cat avatar from their parents' skype.

I guess solidarity means something: my mom is no longer alone in this world and, just as importantly, neither am I.