Rebecca now rues ever insisting that her Mother install a computer in her home. Mom was initially against having one. Despite Rebecca's glowing picture of how her Mom could communicate with her daily by e-mail, and buy things off the Internet without leaving home, Mom saw the PC as "a new way for you to try and control me."

Rebecca ignored Mom's misgivings, and bought her a home computer any way. And all went well at first; until Mom became mesmerized by the PC, and began spending long hours surfing strange Internet sites. And this slavery to an electronic appliance began to affect Mom physically.

Rebecca noticed her Mom looking thinner; more fit and, well, younger! When asked how she accomplished her younger look, Mom credited it to visits to an AR site. "AR? What does AR mean?" Rebecca asked. But Mom only chuckled.

And then the problems began. "We arrested your daughter engaged in underage drinking. Tried to pass off a drivers' license for a 57-year-old woman as her own," a police officer said over the phone. When Rebecca went to bail out her Mom, Mom looked no older than 18. Rebecca uneasily credited this look with Mom's "fitness advice" from that AR site.

But the next call was for the arrest of "a girl peeping into the boy's locker room" at the high school. In bailing out Mom, Rebecca uneasily noticed that Mom now looked no older than 15. She also was now shorter. She again dropped Mom off at home, only to get a third call on Mom being arrested for acting rowdy at the mall. And Mom now looked at most 11-years-old.

"This has to stop," Rebecca told her obviously younger Mom. "I'm checking out that Web site that's changing you, and see if we can't reverse this. The last thing I need is a mother going to grade school." But Mom grumped. "I'm sick of you trying to control my life!" she said. And once the two entered Mom's home, Mom ran into the room containing the computer, and locked the door. She ignored Rebecca's calls to come out.

By the time Rebecca got a locksmith got the door open, Rebecca was shocked at what she saw. Sitting on the chair before the computer was at most a 6-month-old infant, who was way too small to reach the mouse. Checking the PC, Rebecca found all memory of sites visited had been erased. "Mom?" Rebecca asked of the baby, which only giggled back.

Rebecca now spends long hours before the computer, searching for the site that so severely youthened her Mother. And all the while, Mom lays on a pillow at Rebecca's feet, babbling, wiggling and kicking her feet, and apparently laughing at her daughter's failure to control her life. In fact, the baby seems often smug in her realization that she now exercises a measure of control over Rebecca, who is reduced to reacting to her cries for feedings and diaper changes.


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