delayed gratification

I'm not that old.

Really, I'm not!  In spite of what my kids think and say.  Case in point:  Anna finding a turkey feather and asking me if that's what I used to write with (i.e. a quill) back when I was a kid.

No, darling, they actually did have pencils and pens back in the '80s, but thanks for the reminder to color my roots and pluck my chin hairs and cover my age spots.

I'm not that old.  But with technology being what it is these days, by crikey, the world is a whole new place.

I remember cameras.  They came with a roll of 24 exposure film.  You had to keep all 24 of the pictures you shot, didn't matter if you accidentally took a picture of the ceiling or your mom's behind or your own finger.  Then you had to either take it in to a place to develop the film or mail it in somewhere and then wait forever for them to get back to you.  Then you'd keep the negatives for approximately the rest of your life in case you wanted to order a duplicate, and all the photos would go into one of those old fashioned things, called a photo album.  Now they get lost in the depths of my computer where I wait anxiously for the day when I realize they've disappeared for all eternity, and no one can go through them in an album on my coffee table.  Nowadays, we take pictures on our phones or our digital cameras and send them through cyberspace at the speed of light (which isn't quick enough).  I miss winding those rolls of film through the little square pegs and getting it all lined up exactly right and then slamming shut the lid quick before the light hit and ruined the whole roll.

I didn't get my first computer until I was married, so computers are still crazy amazing to me.  When I started blogging, Mike freaked.  I barely knew how to turn a computer on, much less navigate the internet so he completely panicked.  I said, "Hey, honey, I started one of those blog thingamajigs!  Wanna see?" and he bowled me over in his attempt to get to his computer, threw himself prostrate on it, and crooned, "Baby, are you OK?  She didn't hurt you, did she?  Speak to me!  Say something!"  He still gets nervous when I'm on the computer and anytime something goes wrong everyone comes looking for me to demand just what I did to ruin the technology world now.  Rude.

Caller I.D. has completely ruined phones.  I remember when you had to answer just to find out who was calling you.  Imagine.  The first couple people I knew who got caller I.D. creeped everyone out because they'd answer the phone with a cheery and mysterious "Hello, So-And-So!" and be met with shocked silence at the other end.  The only boyfriend I ever had besides Mike had it and I didn't know and when I realized he knew exactly how many times I had tried to call him in one day, I just about died of embarrassment.  Now we know precisely who's calling and can decide whether or not to answer; no waiting till the third ring to seem cooler and crossing our fingers for a particular voice, only to be met with some solicitor wanting to sell us aluminum siding.  We also used to have a party line for a while when I was a kid and that was fun.  You'd have to break into someone else's conversation if you wanted to use the phone.  Oh, and of course nothing was cordless so you were attached to the wall when you wanted to talk.  Nowadays we don't bother talking at all, because we're too busy texting.  I resisted texting for a while.  Tawni was the first person to send me a text and ten minutes later when I figured out what my cell was doing and could read it I CALLED her back and chewed her out for acting like a teenager when we were mature 20-somethings.  Now I annoy the heck out of her and anyone else unlucky enough to be in my phone book with my texting.  Hobbes say I text more than anyone else on the planet, which I think is a dumb opinion and one he wouldn't know anyway because he never looks up from the computer keyboard where he is I.M.ing every blasted person he's ever met in all his 17 years, so how the heck would he even know if I'm texting or not?  Yeah.  And I have to stay close to the phone these days, because my morbidly obese sister is 'bout to pop out a small human any second now.  I'm very concerned that I'm going to miss the birth because I'm arriving in Idaho on the night of her exact due date, and she's one of those particularly ornery women who actually give birth ON TIME OR THEREABOUTS.  She doesn't get to that point at ten and a half months pregnant where her face splits open to reveal a fiery skull when some innocent bystander asks 'haven't you had that baby yet?' like I do.  This memory is what my loving husband calls 'birth control.'  Anyway, with her other two smallfry, I got to be there and got to be the one to tell what gender they were (they were both girls).  But I asked very politely, and really I don't think it's too much to ask, that if she were to accidentally have that kid in spite of crossing her legs, avoiding bumpy roads and sneezing, could she please wrap it up in swaddling clothes just like baby Jesus and not peek until I get there?  Then I can unwrap the little smurf and yell,

'It's a _______!!!!!'  And then I can hug it and kiss it and refuse to let it's mommy hold it and name it George.  Or Georgette.  Or Melyssa Jr.

Speaking of child birth, even that has gotten faster!  I don't think this is a good thing, but that's my personal opinion.  As I have said before in my disclaimer, I am not a medical doctor, I just play one on blogger.com.  But I PERSONALLY think this nutty business of inducing labor or scheduling it is just redonkulous.  Babies are darn stubborn and they don't appreciate being told when to make an appearance.  I do appreciate however, medical doctors and the unbelievable things they can do these days though.  Case in point, my Facebook friend, blog follower, and fellow homeschool mom who gave birth to twins at 26 weeks.  You can see the flat out insane (insane as in insanely beautiful) photos and stories here on her blog.

I'm sure there are other things that have gotten faster in recent years, the speed of Cheezits making it to my hips being one of many.  DVDs are probably faster than VHS tapes, but I really miss the tapes.  I hate, more than life itself, the stoopid menus on the beginning of DVDs.  Seriously, I want to eat someones face when the manufacturer somehow makes it so that you are not allowed under any circumstances (I have to pee, I have seen this particular DVD 436.234 times and therefore DO NOT NEED TO SEE THE COMMERCIALS ONE MORE BLEEPIN TIME, etc) to fast forward.  And the menus with those loooooooooong lead in times?  It's like an entire animated short movie just before you can click enter on the ever lovin' Play icon.  Pop a VHS tape in and voila!  Like magic, it starts immediately and you can walk away and go pee or whatever it is you're going to go do when the television babysits your offspring little darlings watch an educational documentary.  Like magic, I tells you!  Why did we ever change over to those blasted round discs that get scratched and then don't play correctly?  Do you, oh muckity mucks of the entertainment industry, have toddlers?  Do they start yelling frantically at you,  'Mommmmmmmy, my movie is going UH-UH-Uh-UH!!!!!!!!'  which in toddler-speak is the sound a skipping DVD makes?  And yes, I know you have to rewind the old fashioned tapes, but actually if you just let them play until they hit the end, it stops all by itself and rewinds.  By itself.  Like magic. 

I miss tapes.

Not cassette tapes though.  Those were a pain. 

OK, I might miss my old Bryan Adams Waking Up the Neighbors but that's it. 

What do you miss now that the world has gotten faster?