Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and I certainly do not obtain any economic benefit out of them.
A Crash Course on Tweeting
"The other day Barrow was telling me about something… this... 'Tweet'… that someone or another made," Charles said taking a sip of his wine. "Do you happen to know anything about it?" he asked, looking at Elsie who was typing away on her laptop, in expectation of an answer.
"Oh it's like a post on Twitter," Elsie replied, her focus entirely on the screen of her laptop, the bright glare of the screen on her face and reflected on her glasses. She pushed back her glasses that slid down her nose and turned to the book by her side to get a reference and resumed her typing. Charles eyed her fingers that moved swiftly across the keyboard.
"Elaborate please?" Charles requested, now more confused than ever.
Elsie sighed and closed the Excel document she was working on. Placing a bookmark on the page of her book, she shut it with a thump knowing fully well that this was going to take a while. Turning in her chair to face Charles, she looked at him over her glasses, a habit that she had never been able to break.
"You're giving me that look again," Charles remarked grumpily. A distinct scowl on his face. His relationship with technology was not a smooth one sometimes he despised how it was forced into his life due to Elsie's ease of working with it.
"What look?" Elsie narrowed her eyes. She knew how Charles always ended up grumpy with the rest of the world when he was at a disadvantage with technology.
"That look that you are giving me… you know… as if you're looking at a stupid child or something," he frowned and took a gulp of his wine. His eyebrows knitted together in a frown.
"You are not stupid Charles. Just unwilling to evolve. That's it," Elsie chuckled and pushed her glasses back again while making a mental note to drop in at the optician's and check if the frame was sound. She knew how Charles often used her pair of glasses when he couldn't find his own pair or was too lazy to go looking for it. No matter how many times she scolded him, he never gave the habit up and over the years Elsie learned to just live with it instead of arguing. The effort was absolutely useless.
"Oh thank you very much for that!" he said loudly and huffed. "I am making an effort, asking you questions. That shows my willingness but you, you just make it a moment to mock me!"
"Charles you are only asking questions. You don't make an effort to actually learn!" Elsie sighed and swiftly removed her glasses, exasperated both by his technological questions and her loose fitting pair of glasses. "I don't understand how you cope up in an audit firm."
"Back in my day, one didn't have to know how to use a computer to get into the business let alone the rest of the paraphernalia. As you well know!" he countered, thoroughly annoyed.
"Yes but times have changed and you have to move on! Don't forget I work in the same field as you do! And this is the 21st century after all," Elsie reasoned.
"Here we go," he muttered beneath his breath and twisted around in his armchair to keep his rising frustration at bay.
"I heard that Charlie!" Elsie added. She let out an annoyed grunt and plonked her glasses down on the table with a loud clattering noise.
"I should have gone and asked Mary, instead of my own wife who has made it part of her routine to bully me," he tried to get up but Elsie leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee to stop.
"You don't have to bring the blessed Lady Mary into the picture and I am not bulling you. I'm just stating facts and I know very well how you hate facing facts. I have to push it down your throat like bitter medicine," she frowned.
"At least she would have given me the answer with minimum teasing."
"It's not 'minimum teasing' Charles, the girl just can't do any wrong in your eyes," Elsie rolled her eyes at him. While she didn't warm up to the eldest daughter of the CEO of their company, Mary was Charles' favourite. Ever since she had known the man, he was utterly besotted by the haughty and proud young girl. She resembled too much of her grandmother, to Elsie's distaste. Her favourite was the youngest daughter, Sybil, with her cheerful smile and down to earth qualities. She was even fond of the young man that Sybil chose to marry, Tom, formerly a chauffeur to the Crawleys, now a journalist. A fact that caused many a disagreement between herself and Charles.
"Are you going to help me or shall I add it to the long list of technological gibberish that I don't understand?" he asked, clearly annoyed now and not bothering to hide it. He finished his glass of wine and twisted the empty wine glass by its stem on the arm of the armchair.
"Alright, alright. Calm down. You get so worked up about a small thing," Elsie remarked leaning back and biting her bottom lip.
"And whose fault is that?" Charles raised an eyebrow accusingly.
Elsie shook her head and smile. She would not have tolerated his accusation but she knew that when in this foul mood, he would go on arguing pointlessly for as long as he wanted to. And that was not what she wanted for a quiet Sunday afternoon. "Twitter is a mobile app…"
"An app?" Charles questioned, cutting Elsie short pronouncing the last word with ample disgust, as he would most recent technological jargon.
"You know an 'application' on a mobile phone?" Elsie emphasized. She took a deep breath, knowing fully well that she needed all the patience she had to explain anything technological from the 21st century to Charles.
"Okay… I'm not very clear about that but by all means but carry on," Charles eyed Elsie suspiciously. He could very well sense that this was already deeper water than he could manage.
Elsie grunted and pursed her lips, wracking her brains on how to explain an 'app' to Charles. "In a computer, you know, you have Microsoft Office or Paint. An app is something like that but instead on a mobile phone."
"Much clearer now. Go on," Charles replied, relieved that at least part of the fog was now lifting.
"So Twitter is an app like that. And a post, something that you type and publish on your profile is a Tweet."
"Profile?"
"It's like an account. A Twitter account."
"Mmmhmm…" Charles hummed in reply trying to connect the dots in his mind.
"So when you make a post and in Twitter terms… Charlie are you following?" Elsie inquired noticing the mildly confused expression on his face. A sign of either that he is giving up or that he is about to get angry with both himself and her.
"Yeah, yeah. Go on," he nodded, urging her to continue.
Elsie studied him for a moment looking for signs of a potential outburst and began when she was satisfied that they weren't all present, "Publishing a post on Twitter is called also called tweet, or tweeting."
"You're telling me that tweeting is a verb? An actual verb separate from what birds do?" On Charles' face was a look of horror. What was the English language coming to?
"Yes… I suppose so," Elsie answered unable to process the reasons for Charles' surprise at the matter. Then realisation hit her, Charles was entirely ignorant about the existence of the mobile app let alone its signature icon. "The Twitter icon is a bird so I suppose that has something to do with it."
"Alright," Charles sighed. There were things in the modern world that he'd rather not try to understand, for the sake of his own sanity. "So… what does one do with a… 'Tweet'?" he asked with a hint of disgust at the word Tweet and Elsie couldn't help but giggle at his tone and the horrified expression that adorned his face. He certainly was overly dramatic when he wanted to.
Stifling her bout of giggles with Herculean effort she answered, "Well… you can 'like' someone's Tweet. Press on the heart icon below the Tweet and the person who wrote the Tweet would know that you've liked it…"
"Bizarre!" Charles added in a low voice, interrupting Elsie's explanation.
Elsie laughed softly, his outlook on the modern world was sometimes rather adorable and she couldn't deny that. But she'd never mention it to him for he'd be even more horrified. "And you can comment on the Tweet as well."
"As in? Give one's own opinion about what's written?"
"Exactly. And you can share the Tweet as well, it's called re-tweet."
"What do you mean sharing and what the hell is re-tweet?" Charles questioned. He felt that was digging himself a deeper hole.
"Well, it means you can send the Tweet using another platform like email or you can choose to display that Tweet on your profile with the name of the original writer with it as well. That's a re-tweet. It's not only written stuff but photos and short videos as well," Elsie answered hoping fervently that Charles got it.
"Oh… so that one may read them on a later date?"
"Not quite…" Elsie replied knowing fully well that the rest of it would shock Charles, but grateful that he's forgotten about the sharing part. She'd die of exhaustion if she had to explain hyperlinks to him. "But more for your followers to read."
"Followers?" he stared at her, aghast.
"You did know that Twitter was a social media app, didn't you?" Elsie chuckled. She was surprised that she was rather enjoying this now.
"A social media? No, I bloody well did not!" he scowled, crossing his hands in front of him while holding on to his wine glass.
"Careful or you'll snap the glass in half," Elsie laughed, now well and truly amused by her husband.
"Why did I even bother trying to understand that nonsense?!" he grunted and pouted.
"You are rather adorable when you are annoyed with yourself Charlie," Elsie commented, tilting her head to a side and smiled. An angry huff was the only response she received from Charles and it made her determined to tease him a bit more. "You remember that massive confusion you got over Uber?"
"Don't," Charles tilted the empty wine glass in her direction. "Don't even think about mentioning it. Forget this entire conversation even happened. Ridiculous!"
"Oh I most certainly won't, my darling," Elsie chuckled and pointed at her head. "I have all your silly inquiries stored up in here. And you know it's highly unlikely that I would forget."
"Women," Charles sighed and shook his head.
"Oh but you love me for it," Elsie retaliated putting on an elaborate seductive look.
"I love you Elsie. A lot. But not that dirty talent of yours to remember utter rubbish," Charles replied trying to stop the chuckle that was brewing in his throat and maintaining the most stern face that he could manage. "And your ability to resurface those at the most inopportune moments."
"Oh don't you now?" Elsie raised an eyebrow at him, on her lips, a smirk.
"Yes, he said and added on afterthought, "And your ability to take the most embarrassing photographs."
"Oh but those are all skills that all women must learn," Elsie smiled triumphantly.
"Quite the plotter you are. Scheming Scottish minx," he muttered with a wide smile.
"I know you are glad that I'm your Scottish minx!"
"I'm grateful for the entire universe for that!" he beamed.
THE END.
I hope that all of you are safe and doing well. And thank you so much for all your lovely reviews on the previous stories. Hope you enjoyed this one as well! I would be very grateful if you could let me know your thoughts on this story in the reviews. Thanks again! See you soon! And in the meantime stay safe everyone!