Yesterday it was my birthday, and I was 46. I don't think that is very old, but to a 13 and almost 11 year old, I am positively a battleaxe.
To help celebrate this occasion, Thing 1 and Thing 2 started one of their favorite conversations over dinner, "How Were Things Back In The Dark Ages When You Were Our Age?". This is one conversation that they never tire of, because either their father or myself will come out with all sorts of ridiculous information that is so horrifyingly primitive that it can scarcely be believed, or we will come up with some new, spectacularly fantastic tid-bit to add to the pile.
One thing my children never tire of is hearing about when we used to have to get up to change the tv channel (all 12 of them) and we only had one tv in the house. They were aghast, as if we said we had only one toothbrush in the house...."you mean everyone had to share?!?"
The lack of microwaves, computers, calculators, cordless phones, digital cameras, coffee makers and cell phones leave them speechless with indignation.
When we tell them that we used to have to wait for movies and specials to come on television to see them, they get very confused. A world without DVD players or PVRs is foreign to them, and they keep asking questions like, "so, if you wanted to see 'The Wizard of Oz' you had to wait for it to come on tv?" like it is a complicated concept that they have to unravel. Don't even bother telling them about watching a show when it actually comes on.....they don't get that either.
I've tried telling them about the first drive-through bank I ever saw, and that the transaction had to be done with the teller handing you the bits of paper back and forth through the window. Then Canada Trust came out with ATMs (called "Johnny Cash" machines, if you recall, complete with the Man in Black himself on the commercials.) and they put in drive through banks everywhere. The idea that you had to use the bank before it closed is just makes them shake their heads in disbelief. Also? Drive-through Tim Hortons or McDonald's are so much a part of their little lives that they cannot conceive of a world without them. (When Thing 1 was very little, like about 2, I pulled up to the drive-through bank nearby and a tiny, hopeful voice came out of the back seat of the car: "small fries?")
For some reason the thing that makes them hoot with laughter the most is that I can remember that you used to be able to buy colored toilet paper. It came in pretty pastels of mint green or lavender or pale blue or pink, and sometimes it was scented, too. You could also get it in printed rolls too. I'm not sure why they stopped making that, but it either has to do with environmental concerns, or the fact that all that dye and perfume in contact with your nether region gives you bum cancer or something.
Himself had the girls all a-gog when he told them about Space Food Sticks which were little foil wrapped cylinders of God knows what which apparently was what the astronauts went into space with to keep them in tip-top nutritional shape. The thing that fascinates the kids, and us, too, is the fact that anyone wanted to eat anything called a "food stick". They are astounded to hear that we had to go to a specialty store to get avocados, romaine lettuce and kiwis; the regular grocery stores didn't carry "gourmet" items like that.
As they marvelled at our ability to survive in such medieval times, I had to wonder what they will amaze their own children with. What their coloured toilet paper will be?
1 comment:
don't forget party lines. I actully thought my parents were making that one up. Oh, and that there was no 911. You had to call the operator or something if your house was burning down or you were bleeding to death.
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