I'm trying to embrace the fact that I'll just be one of those crotchety old people who doesn't know an iPhone from a Fuji, or Gala. Or, more appropriately, a Granny Smith. When is the age that we stop keeping up with the Jones', and instead spend the bulk of our time trying to understand why the damn commercials are so loud?
A while back, a group of friends (more like classmates and other people I don't like, minus Kaylee, who sometimes I do like) were talking about Flo Rida. Not hearing the emphatic space between flo and rida (loss of hearing is also a sign of old age...) I misunderstood their entire conversation. Butting in, I said,
"Yeah, well, I've been there once. Orlando though, I only went to Disney World."
Kaylee looked at me with confusion, and then what I can only assume was pity.
"We're talking about Flo Rida. The rapper? You know, 'then shorty got low, low, low...' Not the state of Florida."
Was this just the first of many egregious errors I am to make as a person who is no longer as technically, or pop culturally savvy as I once was? Oh, the horror.
I was watching The View the other day, and was accosted by a segment about teens and Facebook. And texting. And MySpace. And whatever the hell else that's out there corrupting the young minds of today. They were throwing out acronyms like, PIR (parent in room), MTFBWY (may the force be with you... ha, ha, ha.) and TDTM (talk dirty to me)... which all made me want to say, WTF? When did I grow up, and how did I get so far out of the loop???
To get back in said loop, I recently created a Twitter account. And by recent, I mean today. About an hour ago. I created it mainly because my two roommates and I had no fucking clue what a "Twitter" was. I have to admit, I'm still a little bit foggy about the whole ordeal.
It seems to me that it's a site full of Facebook Minifeed updates.
So-and-so is watching the Grammy's, and thinks M.I.A. might give birth right in the middle of her swaggering.
Why the hell would anyone want to use a site like this? And who really cares?
We brought in the AIM, Facebook, and Tomagatchi generation, and now, we're being surpassed by the throngs of children who 'Tweet', who text rather than converse, and who use the word like as a noun, pronoun, verb and adjective, which is far trickier than it seems.
Standing in line behind a woman at Safeway the other day, I watched as she tried to use a coupon for her Prilosec OTC purchase. The cashier informed her that she had to go online to input some information to receive the discount. The woman handed back the coupon, as well as the acid reflux pills, and shook her head angrily.
"I don't have a computer. Nevermind," she said, gathering her purse as she left.
What?!? How does she check her e-mail? How does she peruse E-Bay for discount tea kettles and vintage sunglasses? How does she live??!!?
Then it came to me. She, like me, must have given up on technology sometime in her twenties. The roaring 50's took their toll, and she just couldn't fathom using electricity and driving a car without a crank lever...
Kidding aside, I feel her pain. It happens to the best of us. In her youth, Gertrude (as we will refer to her) was probably all a twitter (excuse the blatant pun) with the excitement of the hydrogen bomb and birth control, when the subsequent development credit cards and polio vaccine threw her for a loop. Too much, too soon...
My days of being up-and-coming on the tech scene, much like Gerty, are past. I'll forever show my age by using phrases like "Do you have cable?" or using the seldom heard proper terms, 'cellular phone' or 'text message'... or even asking the rarely uttered, "Can I write a check?".
Yep, my youth is gone.
Dag nabbit.
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