If you ever need to be reminded about how much you've aged, just try going to a Best Buy with your adult son.

On a recent visit to this big-box store, we were looking at computers, printers, cell phones and sets of four phones with a message machine to replace an old one.

All at once. My head still hurts.

I don't know what MEGA optical image stabilization is, or Intel Pentium or PIXMA MP160. They just don't come up in conversation.

All that technology packaged and on display for the consumer. This is foreign territory for me.

He thinks I need much more than I want -- or can pronounce -- or will acknowledge. He wants me to keep up with changing times.

So many things make our lives easier. And yet, so many things I can live without, until I am told I shouldn't have to or shouldn't want to.

I have never connected the ice-maker in my new refrigerator (well, it was new eight years ago.) I don't mind filling trays and making my own. I don't have crushed ice; I just have regular cubes. I'm OK with that. Leave me alone!

Once I have a dishwasher I will wonder how I lived without one. So I don't have one and never missed having one.

Of course I was perfectly happy with my 19-inch TV screen until my son gave me one with a 27-inch screen last Christmas.

Now I'm spoiled. That's what happens. We are so spoiled. We don't miss what we don't have. Then we get it. We're hooked.

Still, I can't think of any place I can compare to a Best Buy or Circuit City or any other massive big-box store where everything has a zillion parts and vocabulary of a zillion words and numbers. Everything beeps or blinks or zooms or whistles.

And I've never understood the word software. It sounds like it should be in the bedding department, next to comforters.

Laptop or desktop? I settled for the latter, although the plus side of the former computer is it can be used on your desk as well as your lap -- and at Starbucks next to your latte.

I never go to Starbucks, so why should that matter? I got the desktop.

Today's younger parents are keeping up with their children to a great extent because many are still in the working world, and they need to know about phones and text messages and whatever else is coming from the world of technology these days.

My son was so at home at Best Buy with all its shiny, colorful "things." Thank goodness. To survive, he must be. For me, I'm aiming for my comfort zone -- and to please him for caring about just what that might be.

I have worked on office computers for some years now, but to shop for one and know what it is I want or need? Especially as so much has changed since I added one to my home office?

They don't even resemble the bulky screen/speakers/tower machine, all-in-one, which I have had sitting on my desk. But the major word here was "update." I must update.

Now screens, like televisions, have been put on a diet. They are skinny. Nothing seems to be all-in-one. Everything is extra.

What really got to me was an article in Parade Magazine ("What Kids Really Need," Aug. 19).

"Essentials" (its word, not mine) needed for a back-to-school computer were at least 1 GB RAM, a 120 GB hard drive, an external hard drive and security software, "crucial to protect against viruses and nasty cybertricks."

Illustrating the article was a smiling girl probably 6 years old.

In today's world, all of the above is "essential" and not just cool stuff. I think I recognize that.

I just remember when it wasn't essential and we "needed" far less. Our children don't.