While waiting for my computer to connect to our wireless internet the other day, I reminisced about how long it took to successfully dialup on AOL -- err -- America Online, back in 1996. The sound of the dialing, the waiting, the screechy tones followed by static, then {quite often} failure. Then you try a different number, giddy when you finally hear the familiar "WELCOME!" and off you go to inform everyone in a super cool chatroom that you are 12/f/ma
I'm sure that Carina and Aurelia will spend their fair share of time online in the {far far away} future, but they will never experience the joy of the lightning spreading across the screen as AOL connects or the pain of having their connection interrupted by the neighbor calling the land line. Ha, $10 says they won't even know what a land line is...
I weep that they will also never get to enjoy:
- Watching and rewinding a VHS tape over and over to the point where even the tracking won't fix that messed up picture
- Talking on the phone in the kitchen in front of the whole family because the cord won't reach into the other room
- Sitting in the way back seat of a station wagon, watching and harassing the cars behind them
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| But that trunk seat sounds like fun, Mom! |
- Selling Girl Scout cookies door to door. I wish they still did this for my sake, too. Momma needs 4 boxes of Samoas STAT.
- Running around the neighborhood mostly unsupervised all day long...exploring the woods and biking to friends' houses without a care in the world.
- The old McDonald's Playland. The Grimace shaky thing rocked my world. Plastic ball pits just don't measure up.
Lament away. What joys of growing up will your kids never experience?
