I can only help she who helps herself

I've written much recently in these pages about how mom prefers to call me later than the time of evening that I feel like talking. It is perhaps my awareness of this preference that leads me to worry when she calls earlier. Or it's mom's tendency to take on a tone of urgency. Recall the conversation and series of messages that first inspired the mom blog, when I would return to my desk, retrieve my messages, and call her back hoping that in spite of her tone and plea to call her as soon as possible, no one was hurt. And thankfully, nobody was. She was just trying to set me up with someone she'd never met.

Today's 8am phone call, I'll admit, was not exactly frivolous. But it was still annoying.

A.: Hello?
Mom: Where are you?
A.: At work. Is everything okay?
Mom: Well... it's just that... you see... er...
A.: Yes??
Mom: There's this thing that keeps popping up on my computer.
A.: [sigh of relief, followed by a wave of annoyance]
A.: What thing?
Mom: Some antivirus thing.
A.: A pop-up? An error message?
Mom: It just keeps popping up.
A.: Is there no one nearby that can help you with this, because I have no idea what that is and there is not really anything I can do without seeing it.
Mom: Is there anyone you can ask?
A.: Send me the exact name of the program or whatever it is.


Over an hour later, we have the following exchange over e-mail:


Mom: AntiviresDoc What is it ?

A.: It's called "antivires" and not "antivirus"??

Mom: yes

***
We talked on the phone afterward and I reiterated that I would ask around but I didn't know what to tell her. I searched for it on AVG's website and nothing turned up. Then, I checked my e-mail, and more recently, she sent this:

AntivirusDoc and Antivirus Doc Removal Guide


Which made me a little livid. Less so, because in this situation, she is only hurting herself, but this is typical. When I send an e-mail, trying to help her, asking her to confirm that she had not made a typo, isn't double-checking that the least she can do? How am I supposed to help her when she sends me the wrong name? And yes, perhaps the reason I'm touchy about this is because her lack of attention to detail has been problematic for me in the past:

A few years ago:

A.: Mom, could you check the time of Julia's wedding? If it's earlier, I'll take the day off on Friday and come up then, but if it's later in the evening, I'll just come up on Saturday.
Mom: It's early, like noon or something.
A.: Okay.

It was at 8pm. I took the day off on Friday and spent the evening in our cousins' smoky apartment trying to tune out the blaring Russian channel. Because she couldn't be bothered to look.

With the virus thing, it's one thing to copy it down incorrectly in the first place, but to not check it-- I mean, the whole thing isn't ten letters-- when I've specifically written to ask about it-- is just, in mom's wording, outrageous.