Your time was sad
Tonight I walked my 11-year-old daughter and her friend down to an 80’s party. My daughter had spent hours with my wife going through her collection of 80’s clothing, which still looks so very right to my eyes, but most of which my daughter steadfastly refused to wear because it looked “weird.” After the party, and after I dropped her friend off home, she told me how much fun she’d had at this party, where they played great songs that she hoped I’d heard of, like “We Got the Beat” by the Go-Go’s. Yes, I assured her, I know that one. Then we got into the time-honored discussion of “did they have this when you were young?”
“Did they have TV when you were young?”
“Yes. But we didn’t have gaming systems.”
This caught the attention of my seven-year-old son: “You mean, no (Nintendo) DS?” He sounded stricken.
“No DS, no Xbox, nothing.”
He was incredulous. “Not even a Playstation?”
“Nope. And no cable, and no DVDs, and no VHS.”
“What’s ‘VHS?'” my daughter wanted to know.
“‘VHS’ tapes. Videotapes. And no internet.”
Her voice grew hushed. “Your time was sad.”
I looked at her in the rearview mirror, my iPhone feeding songs to the car’s stereo while it scanned for email. “Somehow,” I said, “we managed.”
May 9th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Isn’t that the same thing we said when we were kids?
It seems strange not to have a cell phone or iPod or the internet available. I think at times we might be overloaded with access to information and the demand to talk to people at any time.
May 10th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I love your kids…, I haven’t decided whether it is Emma or Dietrich that amuses me more. I am still not over Dietrich and his plan for dealing with Emma’s “devious ways”……
May 10th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Please refresh my memory — what was his plan? (While I’ve forgotten it, I’m sure he hasn’t.)
May 12th, 2010 at 11:53 am
There wasn’t a specific plan it was just that he had one-It had to do with the fact that Emma was unable to explain why, to Dietrich’s satisfaction, a certain vampire character was able to be outside during daylight hours.