delayed development

Last week I learned that my father purchased an iphone. This from the man who still owns the very first computer he purchased, circa 1996. We're talking you had to type in MS-DOS commands to get to Windows 95.

My mom and dad live out in the farmlands, not too far from civilization, but far enough away that high speed internet is still something of science fiction. They were still using dial-up when I was in college. And that was just a few years ago.

I guess what happened was my parents were over at the neighbor's house and happened to ask them what they used for internet. Mr. Smykowski said something about "tethering my laptop to my iphone." Of course my dad was all over this. He went out and bought an iphone, and the internet speed is apparently a lot better. His old internet connection was like a 90 year old grandpa out for a walk with his cane, but his new internet is like a 30 something father out for a run.

I guess the first few days with this new internet connection were inconsistent, due to the pushing of the wrong button and not knowing how to go back to fix it. But thanks to my cousin Scott, I think my parents have been trained. At any rate, they've never called me concerning their technical woes.

Instead I got my very first e-mail from my mother earlier this week. Mark it on your calendars, it happened in 2011. She actually e-mailed me information she could have told me over the phone. You know this is progress, when it is easier for her to e-mail than to call. And never mind that I fully tutored her for like, four weeks, on how to turn on her laptop, navigate Firefox, check and reply to gmail, and visit websites by typing their addresses in the correct spot.

Mom sending e-mails and Dad having an iphone is just so out of the norm for me. They are definitely making technological gains. I remember the very first cell phone my mom had. It was the size of a brick, had a nonretractable antennae, and it was turned off at all times except when a call needed to be made to someone's landline from the car.

I didn't get my first cell phone until I was a senior in high school, so whenever I went to football games or basketball games or whatever my freshman, sophomore, and junior years, I had to take the brick cell phone with me so I could call home when it was pick up time. You have no idea. I actually carried a purse with me not because I needed it to stash an ID card and cash, but because I needed it to conceal the gargantuan phone. Quite a few high schoolers had phones, but it was not the norm quite yet. However, it definitely was not the norm to carry around a 1990 relic. Most people borrowed their parents' cell phones on Friday nights--phones which were not yet a decade old.

This is exactly like the phone I am talking about.*

My freshman year, I actually used the pay phone located outside of the high school doors. But since both my parents and I are cheap, I would call collect. When it gave you that four second space to tell who was calling, I would say "Gym door" in reference to my location. We had a plan so that when my mom received these calls, she would deny the collect call and know it was time to come pick me up. My dad actually answered one time, because he thought someone named Jim Door was calling. This little mistake cost 50 cents and my dignity, because after that it was suggested that I just take the cell phone with me. Why don't you just dress me in overalls and turtlenecks while your at it, Mom?**

There was no need to carry a can of mace for protection against muggers, because that phone was so heavy that I could just conk someone on the head with it. The rechargeable battery itself weighed two pounds.

Yes, my family has always been a bit slow keeping up with the cutting edge technology of the 21st century. In fact, I think my mom may still buy VHS tapes when she sees them for sale at Goodwill. And neither I nor my mother have CD players in our cars. We still rock the cassette tape players. However, we fully have ipod adapters that we can use when we want to listen to music that was released after 1998.

*If you are interested in looking at pictures of cell phones from 1990 to 2011, you might like this.

**Okay, so my freshman year I fully wore overalls at least once a week to school, out of my own choosing. But hey, they were Calvin Klein.