Every night before she falls asleep, my daughter asks me to tell her a story about what my life was like when I was a little girl. There’s one account that’s guaranteed to make her giggle.
“When I was 7,” I say, “we didn’t have a remote control. I had to get off the couch and walk over to the television to change the channel.”
Snuggled next to me under her duvet, my second-grader gasps in horror.
I go on to explain about network television, life before cable, and the endless wait for something good to be on. “Saturday mornings were golden because they meant guaranteed cartoons, but there were still commercials to endure. It wasn’t just life without Netflix; it was the olden days. Our upstairs television was even black and white.”
My daughter giggles. “I asked for a bedtime story, not a nightmare.”
But was it a nightmare? Enduring commercials built frustration tolerance. Waiting for shows to air promoted delayed gratification. I practiced rudimentary tech-support skills every time I blew into the bottom of the Nintendo Super Mario Brother’s 2 cartridge when the game glitched. Getting my butt off the couch to turn on “She-Ra: Princess of Power” burned calories.
Look at me, reminiscing about the olden days like they were the good ole days. The next thing you know, I’ll buy a record player off of eBay.
Actually, a record player isn’t a bad idea. Since it’s not connected to the internet, it’s distraction-free music. Nobody messages you on Facebook or sends you a group text. Record players also promote mindfulness, because halfway through you have to flip the record.
Some of my earliest memories are of crawling into the back of the coat closet and pawing through a box of old records. The Bee Gees come to mind. My kids, on the other hand, scan my iPod library with a swipe of their fingertips. It’s not the same experience at all.
OK, one more story from the olden days: I remember for my birthday, renting a VCR so that my friends and I could watch “Splash” with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks at my slumber party. A rented VCR meant that I was hot stuff.
Just wait, kids. Some day my future grandchildren will make fun of your iPods and it will be glorious.
In the meantime, I’m typing this column on my brand new (used) toy. It’s called an Alphasmart Neo and they no longer make them. The Alphasmart looks like a keyboard with a tiny screen. It doesn’t know what the cloud is or ask for my Wi-Fi password. It’s a word processor that dumps rough drafts into Microsoft Word when I connect it to my computer. That’s it. Distraction-free writing at its best.
Unless the batteries run out. Then I’ll need another solution. Darn it! I know I have paper and a pen around here somewhere.
Jennifer Bardsley is author of the books “Genesis Girl” and “Damaged Goods.”
Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, on Twitter @jennbardsley or on Facebook as The YA Gal.
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