Look . . . I love my grandmother.
The woman taught me to read at a very early age, and made everything else in my life possible because of that. When I think of my grandmother, I think of Culture. She is, for me, the symbol of Culture made explicit, the Thing Itself that allows homo sapiens to grow as a species over time, the thing that allows us to throw off the shackles of biology, and that holds out hope we might be a species of discovery.
And she is also the person who wakes me with the demand that I "make her phone work."
The phone says that its "Charge is Complete," and she doesn't know why it won't work for her. I have to tell her that she needs to turn the phone on.
And then, I think, "She votes."
And we don't, because then we wouldn't be arch.