There I was, sitting at the computer having a video conference across Skype with a guy in Nicaragua. He’s the designer on the college magazine I edit, a former college professor who picked up and moved to Central America because the surfing’s good and it gets him farther away from me.
We Skype a lot. If you don’t know, Skype isn’t a kind of fish, but a program that lets two people video chat across the Internet. It’s almost as good as being in the same room, only I can’t reach across the desk, grab his shirt and scream, “Where are my pages?” (I miss that part.)
So there we were, chatting it up like I’ve done dozens of times before when the grandest of revelations occurred to me: “Holy time machines, I’m in the future!”
My childhood dream had come true … and I was only now realizing it.
The dream of every kid growing up in the 80s (OK, one of the dreams … the main one being Cindy Crawford showing up at your house in a red Ferrari with a six-pack of Yoo-hoo) was a phone that allowed you to see the person on the other end.
It was the stuff of science fiction movies for me — something revolutionary and space-age; tantalizing, but out-of-reach. There was no such thing — just clunky handsets tethered to the base by long curly Q chords that looked like a mountain lion had mauled them.
But how I wanted a videophone! Just the thought of all the wonderful and amazing things I could do sent me into a spell — like pretending to pick my nose while talking to friends. It never had the same effect on a regular phone.
There were so many cool “future” technologies to dream about. There were the personal communicators on “Star Trek” — those handy little flip-top doohickeys that allowed you to tell friends what you were having for dinner while running from bad guys and phony looking aliens. Do you know how many times a 10-year-old boy is on the run from bad guys and phony looking aliens? I could have used a crate of those things.
Our “communicators” were all lung-powered, and most of the time they were used by our mothers calling us home for dinner or yelling at us not to get hit by cars in our brand new jeans.
“Well, if I change my jeans then can I get run over?” would have been wonderful to say through a communicator.
Why couldn’t life have been more like the movies and TV? Why couldn’t all the things we dreamed about, saw our heroes with … why couldn’t they be possible for us? The future — with all its technological goodies — always seemed so far-fetched and so far away. Like it would never come.
My neighborhood was made up of roving packs of little boys who spent every waking moment squared off in mortal combat. One day it was full-contact eye-gouging in the Ferlita’s yard — people passing by pondered whether to call the police on the growing fracas — and another day it was grapefruit wars using only the most rank and vile of rotting fruit. If it didn’t fall apart in your hand, it wasn’t worth throwing.
How we could have used all that sci-fi technology to run our wars. “I need you to flank them and rain dog poop on them from sector 3,” can’t be yelled across a battlefield. But a secret coded text message!
And now it’s all here. Flip-top phones, in fact, are already past their prime. We talk to people in far-off lands across computers like it’s old hat. We’re wireless and mobile and virtual and hold unfathomable computing power in the palms of our hands.
The daggone future is here, but I’m too grown-up to appreciate it. Not like I would have as a kid. I take it for granted, and have never once orchestrated a moldy orange fight.
Technology has become so utilitarian. So expected and accepted and commonplace. It’s no longer revolutionary. It’s not all that exciting, honestly. The other day I called my designer on Skype, but didn’t bother turning on the video function. It was just voices … like an old-school phone.
I got a kick in the shins from that little kid in me. A lecture about not trampling on dreams and appreciating what I used to long for. How dare I! Maybe he’s right.
So in honor of that little guy, I’m going to enjoy my technology a little more … and I’m gonna’ finally get that fake nose-pick on a video chat. It’s about time.