Say What?

Oh boy! I have heard a couple of pretty funny things the last few days. Allow me to share...

I am still in the midst of unpacking. It is taking a long time because, well, three little ones can be difficult to wrangle, especially when the youngest still wants to be held and the other two use our apartment to practice their WWF moves on each other. Despite this, I finally got iLyn down the other day and was able to get some suitcases and boxes unpacked. I folded quite a few clothes and had them on the girls' bed to put them away, when I went to make some room in their closet. I turned around and noticed that the girls had taken all of the clothes I had folded and proceeded to dump them on the floor. Least to say, I was quite upset. All of my hard work dumped upon the floor (it shouldn't surprise me. I clean and the house stays that way for, well, it never actually reaches the peak of clean unless my kids, and husband bless his heart, are asleep). I started talking like the dad on The Christmas Story (not really) and yelled, "I am so angry I could spit fire!" To which our oldest replied, "Mommy, you don't have fire." Too true, too true! I, of course, started laughing. Tensions are high for me when the house is a mess. I start to lose my mind and, even though the clothes were not that big of a deal, it became a mountain. Thankfully my child was there for a little comic relief. How could I be mad after that?

Today I decided to take the girls to the mall since it is basically across the street. My bro-in-law Aaron told me there was a little play area so, to beat the heat, I decided to go over and let them run around. I wanted to see what stores they have so we walked around a bit first. As I was standing in front of a toy store, a young man struck up a conversation with me. This is how it went down:

YM: Excuse me, who is your cell phone service provider?

OL (Old Lady... aka me): I don't have one.

YM: You don't have a cell phone?

OL: No.

YM: Well, who is your husband's cell phone provider?

OL: He doesn't have a cell phone either.

YM: He doesn't have a cell phone??? (jaw dropped to floor, mass confusion)

OL: No.

(This is where it gets good)

YM: How do you communicate? (This was a very serious question)

Now there were so many things I could have said to this young man. One of them included telling him that I use complete sentences and I don't use phrases such as, "IDK my BFF Jill," "CU," UR GR8," and other such texting/license plate language. Another was, "I open my mouth and we talk to each other's face." I seriously was internally laughing and slightly frightened. This 18 young man has not known a world without cell phones. He has probably never written a real letter in his life and he definitely would not know what Morse code is or what an operator does. Moments like this make me feel old. (I don't mean to offend anyone who is young and knows how to do all of these things. Caiti you are null and void from this description. You are the best! :) This is how I responded:

OOLATP (old, old lady at this point): I call him at work from our phone from home (it's called a land line, ever heard of it? It plugs into the wall and not to charge it up. We used to have rotary telephone when I grew up. Ever heard of an 8-track? Record player? Cassette Player? Speak & Spell? Didn't think so. To cut the kid some slack, we actually do have a cell phone. Nona got it for us a year and a half ago. It is roaming down here so we can use it to make long distance phone calls on the weekends. It's fantastic! Thank you Nona!!! I actually did have the cell phone with me at the time, but since we can't use it during the day, I just used it as a way to tell time. It's a glorified watch! Does that make me a liar?? I hope not!)

At this point I think I had boggled his mind enough and we kind of just parted ways. He looked at me with utter disgust and disbelief while muttering something under his breath. And although I have nothing against cell phones and cannot believe people lived without them for so long, it is a testament of how life changes over the years and how we can never truly appreciate how the "pioneers" in our lives lived for so many years without the technology and ease we have today. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to not have a washing machine. I know that is something I would never be able to live without. Wringing out the clothes almost killed my hands when I was traveling through England many years ago (thank you Bethany for being the tough one. I owe you!). Or my iPod since nursing can be very boring sometimes. Or having 200+ channels to choose from on our televisions (well, we don't really have that. We have about ten and four of those are in Spanish so...). Of course, I am sure my grandmothers would fall over backwards if they were to ever see many of the shows on those 200+ channels. Maybe they did have it better. I guess I will never know, but I do notice the change before me. David's sweet grandma is in her 80s and I cannot begin to imagine what she has seen. She traveled up to Alaska by herself with two little ones while dressed in her best outfit and had to stand on the plane when she was just in her young 20s. It took her days to get there. Now we complain if we have a two hour layover in the airport and got stuck with an aisle seat. My girls won't ever be able to relate to my childhood and how I grew up. Different times, different experiences. And, in the immortal words of one Peabo Bryson, "A whole new world."

For those of you who don't know what I was talking about...

Rotary phone

8-track (I had Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas album. It was fabulous!)

Record player (a pretty dope one at that)

Cassette Player (I am pretty sure I had this one at some point)

Speak & Spell (I personally never owned one (MOM), but my friends did and they were great. Maybe that is how I can spell so well in front of my children. Thank you Texas Instruments!!!)