So instead of using the pay phone to call home, I can whip out my cell phone---the same cell phone that can call US numbers---and talk any time I want. I no longer have to wait to find a (free) public phone to call my house or my husband at work, which depending on where I was on base, once meant I could possibly stand in line. Yes, just like in the 1970s. Also I don't have to spend about $20 for a single decent phone conversation with a friend or family member in the U.S. anymore.
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| a ball gown, a garden gnome, a diet Coke, and an honest-to-God functional phone booth |
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| Okay, mom, now that I figured out how to close the phone booth, how do I get out of this thing? |
I'm just waiting for someone to walk into the Windjammer Pool or step on a not-so-friendly iguana or into the Bay because they aren't paying attention. And I'm sure someone else will be there with a cell phone, filming it all and posting it on Youtube, which we can all now watch without waiting hours to buffer.
I used to consider myself a tech-saavy kinda gal, but four long years of technology draught has made me feel like a doofus. I am still not used to carrying a cell phone. I leave it at home. I leave it at work. I have people texting me, where are you? Do you ever answer your texts? And the answer: only if I remember my phone.
After 4 years of not using a cell phone, I forget to turn off the ringer at the most embarrassing moments. I don't ever check my voice mail. Even before trying to cut off my finger, I was awful at texting. And talking on it? I've always hated talking on the phone, so I'm bad about using it.
I was in my house last weekend and I heard a weird buzzing. It REALLY freaked me out.
I've had hummingbirds fly into my classroom more than once (the last time, a student calmly and patiently opened her hand, and when finally rewarded with a tiny hummingbird gently landing on her palm, she released it unharmed outside---true story). We have other insects and animals that make vibrating, buzzing noises, too. So I'm thinking, it's a bird. It's a weird beetle or huge moth. It's a snake. It's a weird tropical creature that probably carries an incurable tropical disease, and it's in my bedroom.
It was none of the above. It was my cell phone making that unusual ring tone/buzzing noise to indicate that someone is trying to do facebook chat.
And just like that, I'm talking to a friend in South Korea. It's awesome! But it's so strange, because I feel like I have been in a vortex of 1980s technology and missed out on 10 years instead of four.
Oh, what I've missed out on.
There's the world of Youtube.
Of course we had Youtube before higher speed internet, but between buffering and the internet just stopping (or never even working), I never, ever watched those videos everyone seems to post on socal media:
Cats scared of cucumbers.
Cats riding on Roombas.
Music videos. I didn't realize bands still make music videos.
Vine compilations.
Inspirational quotes set to music that are really, really, corny, but some days are exactly what I want to see.
Videos of people playing video games. And they get paid (a lot, evidently) for it. Seriously, W.T.H?
And there is THIS viral video that just happens to feature my GTMO buddy's granddaughter, Aurora.
Like my cell phone, I like to take my Youtube in moderation.
But then there is Netflix and Apple TV.
I had Netflix before moving here in 2012, but I find myself gobsmacked at what's out there and what I've missed in four years.
I really *really* feel like I'm getting nothing productive done because I have access to television on demand. I am really overdoing it.
Like watching an entire season of Nurse Jackie with a friend in one sitting. Or watching all seasons of Scandal (don't judge) or trying to catch all of Gilmore Girls (again, no judging) so I can catch the special over Thanksgiving weekend.
I had a friend who won't be named (and sometimes reads this) who grew up without a television in her home. When she bought her first house, she went out and bought a t.v. In a few days, she took it back. The store wanted to know what was wrong with it. Nothing, she said. I just watch it too much.
So this Brave New World, the one with cell phone calls (and facetime!) and television on demand (and youtube!) and viral videos, video chats, instagram, and facebook----I am a little overwhelmed. And I am underwhelmed. I do sort of miss working my way through a novel or a magazine in attempts to get to sleep. I miss stopping everything in my life so I didn't miss the one and only showing of Game of Thrones on HBO Sunday night (no on-demand here). It gave me a place to be and something to do consistently.
Instead, now I can become even more of a hermit and choose to spend all evening on the back porch, my bedroom, or most bizarrely, in the den, watching something with headphones, while my kids and husband are sitting a few feet away, doing the same thing.
I love being able to connect with more people in more places---it is SO hard to maintain friendships via messenger, because so much is missed in a text conversation---but I also feel like a true techno-sloth. In connecting with people outside the home, I feel cut off from what's around me.
So with that, forgive me if I don't return your texts or call back if you leave a voice mail. I probably have left my cell in the car or at work, or the sound is turned completely off. If you message me on facebook and it seems like I'm online but ignoring you, it's only because I can't figure out how to make it look like I'm not on 24 hours a day. If I don't answer your calls, it may be because I am not fast enough to slide that stupid bar on the phone. Or I had the sound turned off and now it's dead, so calling it doesn't do any good in trying to find it. Or it's locked and I can't unlock it fast enough, because my fingers are TOO DAMN SLOW.
And if I text you about my thong, it's actually supposed to be thing.
Trust me on this.
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