Talking to my 15-year-old niece, Laura, is like being in a time warp. She said, incredulously, “Aunt Lizz, did you know that when I was born, cellphones did not exist?”
Yeah, well, how about this for one-upmanship: when I was a teenager, I didn’t have an iPod. If I wanted to hear Monster Mash, I had to slap a 45 on my record player and try not to scratch the vinyl. If I wanted to hear the song again, there was no back button. I had to pick up the needle arm and carefully set it down at the beginning of the record. As a grandpa would say: And we liiiiiked it that way.
Laura laughed, “When I get to be your age, I’m probably going to tell my daughters, ‘When I was a kid, we didn’t have hover cars. Everybody drove on the street.’”
But Laura was very impressed that I use a BlackBerry. Apparently, this device is on her wish list for a Christmas present. I scored some technology points with her. But I didn’t tell her what happened yesterday. I was driving along when I received an e-mail. Shame on me, but I looked at the message. OK, I was at a stoplight, so that should make you feel better.
I quickly typed a response and, as the light changed to green, clicked “send.” The first thought I had was how nice it would be if I could just TALK to my BlackBerry and it would automatically translate my voice into an e-mail. No, wait, I already have that. It’s called a cellphone! Doh.
I am tied to technology to such an extent that when my husband and I took a week off this summer to go hiking through our Redwood national forests, we felt forced to haul a number of gadgets and gizmos with us.
We brought both of our laptops, his a Mac, mine a PC, plus our charger plugs. My camera batteries always give out before my vacations are over, so I packed my camera charger dock as well. I also needed the adapter which would let me run my PC through my BlackBerry, just in case we stayed at a hotel without wireless internet, the horrors. Fortunately, I remembered to bring my BlackBerry charger, too, or I’d be totally up a creek if my cellphone died.
Then, there was the charger for my GPS and an adapter that plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter for power while driving. The GPS came in handy when we were returning to our hotel after a long day’s hike. It was too late to catch the dinner bell. I pressed “food” on my GPS, and it led us by voice prompts to an out-of-the-way steak house overlooking the Klamath River.
Checking in at the Requa Inn Bed & Breakfast, I discovered my cellphone was out of cell tower range. I was not connected. I panicked. How would my real estate clients call me? We had to jump back in the car and drive for 20 miles, just so I could change my voice mail message warning callers that I wouldn’t be able to receive messages any other way than by e-mail. I didn’t want any of my pending home sales to blow up because I couldn’t get messages.
Ah, back to nature. The birds, wildflowers, ocean breezes, and redwood trees so big you can drive a car through them. And, much to my husband’s dismay, the lovely sound of a ringtone playing a reggae tune on my cellphone . . .
You know what? Cellphones weren’t around when I was born, either. It astonishes me how fast we become assimilated into technology today that we can forget this. However, I can’t wait for the hover cars.
(Photo credit: Big Stock Photo)
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