Friday, November 12, 2010

Let's not get specific

After a few months of not blogging I could either give you specifics about the craziness that has kept me away from my blog or I could just write as if no time has gone by...Yes. Yes, let's do that. Let us just say that after many emails from distraught fans threatening to shave their heads and other desperate measures, I've decided to take up the blog again for the good of the people.

I will start by marveling at the fact that it is 2010 and I have just learned how to laminate something. How long has the lamination process been around? Since some time around the invention of penicillin? When you consider that technology becomes obsolete within weeks of hitting the shelves and is changing at a constant rate, I am about 500 years behind the times. My cell phone just rings. That's right. It flips open, which apparently no one's does anymore, and it rings. It does not access the internet, answer my email, Tweet, pay my bills or impersonate me on Facebook. It just rings. And I swear, the shameful look on my children's faces every time I flip my phone open would just bring you to tears. In their eyes, it's like I'm flipping off the world. It's as if I'm saying, "No, I have not upgraded my phone because I don't love my children and I want their peers to think that we are less poor than people who live under a bridge because even those guys can update Twitter from Facebook."

But here's the bigger problem - I don't care. And I'm not sure how many people really do. Eventually I will upgrade my phone because I care about what people think, and that's really it. Personally, I could care less if my phone even knew how to do the one thing it does half the time.

Oh! It also sends and receives text messages. There. My phone has the essential survival equivalent of a house with plumbing and electricity. Can humans live without plumbing and electricity? Well, yes. Technically. But to go without it when I don't need to is the same as deciding not to socialize with the rest of the world anymore. I would be "that lady" down the street who uses candles, an outhouse, and a well. But dude, that wouldn't even be the crazy part. My phone would flip open! Children would ride their bikes past my house and text their friends, "Ridin past ole Flippy again," and they would text him back, "PEDAL FASTER!" or something in a text abbreviated language that I'm not hip to.

And because I worry to nail-biting capacity about what teenagers, their friends, and family think I will eventually upgrade my phone. And then I will be one of those people who stares at her new phone as it rings and has no idea how to answer it because it is also Tweeting, looking up movie times, doing my taxes, and making ice all at the same time. I'll hand it to one of my more technology savvy friends and say, "Um, can you answer this for me?"
They'll say, "You push that button."
And I'll tell them, "No, that's the soda dispenser."
"Oh, right. Then you slide your finger across the screen like this..." She demonstrates by sweeping her index finger across the screen and a Swiss army knife/fork and spoon pops out the side.
She strokes her chin. "What does this button do?"
She pushes it and accidently hacks into the Pentagon. The ringing stops.
"Well," she says looking at me. "If it's really important they'll call back, right?"
"I guess," I say.
It makes a dinging sound.
"Oh!" my friend pipes up. "Popcorn's done!"

Let us hope now that I've learned how to laminate things for the office, that lamination technology doesn't suddenly take off and reach a level that I can't wrap my English major mind around. The day my boss tells me to fax something, and send out work-related email using the our new, souped-up (with blue tooth!) laminator I'm going to run screaming from the office.

4 comments:

Embee Breedlove said...

If you laminate the new phone, none of the gadgets can come poking out unexpectedly.

Just saying.

Libby! said...

When did time change such that my motto went from, "parents just don't understand" to "children just don't understand?"

Also, we're glad to have you back

Genevieve said...

Mel - this is TRUE! And now I wield the power to do so!

Libby - It's good to be back, dude. Thanks.

Jenn said...

So since I'm even more behind the times and possess a flip phone which (gasp) does not allow texting, is that the equivalent of living without a toilet, or a refrigerator? Cause lemme tell you, dude, I'd be hard pressed to choose between the two.

slov, J