Apparently unlike many family IT guys here, I come from a family of reasonably intelligent human beings, and I thank my lucky stars for this fact every day. Even my Grandfather knows some C. Now, my Mother has a habit of beating up her electronics quite badly (and is always very apologetic about it, but for her new cell phone, I went all out with a tempered glass screen protector and a case that had to be screwed on). This is the tale of a 7-inch tablet from 2013.

Mom: Um... I've been having some problems with my tablet...

Internal me: What did you do this time?

Me: What's going on?

Mom: Uhh... It caught fire.

Me: Wat.

Mom: Well, you see.. It was charging last night and you know how the USB port gets...

(Note: this particular tablet did have issues with a low-quality micro-USB charging port)

Mom: ... and... it caught fire a little bit. Maybe you could take a look at it?

Internal me: He's dead, Jim.

Me: sigh I guess I'll take a look...

So I open it up, and while the USB port on the thing is toast (literally), the rest of it looks fine. Fortuneately, this tablet had the USB port and headphone jack on a seperate I/O board. So I got a replacement (paid for by my mother), and installed it.

Me: Well, what do you know. It actually worked.

Mom: ohmygodthankyousomuchohmygodthankyousomuchohmygodthankyousomuch (etc...)

So, a couple months go by without any issues. Then this happens:

Mom: My tablet died again. Thank it's fixable?

Internal me: Not again with this.

Me: What di you do this time?

Mom: I kinda dropped it.

Me: Alright. hand it over, and I'll see what I can do.

Diagnostics complete, and motherboard is dead. Time to deliver the bad news.

Me: It's a goner, Mom. The motherboard died.

Mom: Can't you swap it out with a new one?

Me: In theory. However, everything on the device would be lost.

Mom: Go right ahead. I had nothing important on it anyway.

Once again, I locate a replacement (yay eBay!) and swap it in.

Me: You're lucky I managed to get this working. Be careful with it this time.

Mom: ohmygodthankyousomuchohmygodthankyousomuchohmygodthankyousomuch (etc...)

Guess what? The next thing to go was the screen.

Me: Yeah, it's a goner. Nothing I want can do to save it anymore.

Mom: Oh well. I guess I'll just use your grandma's old Flame

Internal me: Poor Flame

Me: So... I've been thinking... Say you have a boat. And one by one, you replace each plank in the boat until none of the original planks remain. Is it still the same boat?

Mom: I would say so, yes.

Me: Now take this concept and apply it to a tablet...

Mom: glares at me

Me: quietly chuckles