Then and Now

Last night, as I was going around turning off lights and checking to see that everyone was tucked neatly into their little beds... on the floor at the bottom of the stairs I nearly tripped over three charging cell phones, an Ipod Touch, 2 little Ipods, another Ipod on an Ipod dock, a laptop and at least 6 PS3 controllers.

My first thought was these naughty children have WAAAAAYYY too many toys and my second thought was "my how this world has changed since I was a teenager."

I was 16 years old 24 years ago. (Go ahead... do the math) Anyway back then in good ole 1987 things were so different. 1. I drove a 1972 Volkswagon Bug with a broken gas gauge. Every time (at least once a week) that I ran out of gas... I just had to sit on the side of the road waiting for either my mom or my dad to realize that I wasn't where I was supposed to be and come and rescue me.

Then:
A. I didn't have a phone to call them
B. And so I just sat there by myself listening to my brand new and totally
rad Depeche Mode TAPE until one of them showed up.

Now:
A. My children text me in the middle of English class and tell me to bring them McDonalds for lunch
B. I never ever would ever consider leaving my home without my phone just incase one of my little darlings needs me to drop everything and take them somewhere
C. We always know exactly where each of us are and n'ery an hour goes by that I don't hear from one or all of them.2. I had the coolest Ghetto Blaster of all of my friends. It was huge. It had a tape deck and I could even tape songs off of the radio. My very first recorded song was Billie Jean by Michael Jackson.

Then:
A. If I wanted to hear a song over and over again, I had to rewind it which was cool if it was the first song on the tape, but if it was in the middle of the tape I had to try and time it perfectly to get to the beginning of the song
B. If we liked a song, we had to buy the entire tape. There was no other option.
C. Sometimes the tape would get twisted and you'd have to unwind it by sticking a pencil in the holes and spin the pencil for days to get the twist out. And many times the tape would break and then you'd just have to throw it away.

Now:
A. You buy songs for .99 on the internet one at a time
B. Put them on the little gadget with headphones
C. Filled with multiple songs by multiple artists
D. And you can get to the exact song you want in mere seconds

3. Which brings me to my next point. The only computers in existence were ENORMOUS (like they took up entire rooms) the screens on the monstrous monitors were black with green block lettering. And the internet???? Oh my gosh. We couldn't have imagined such a luxury.

Then:
A. If we needed info for a paper or something, we chugged on over to the library and hunkered down near the encyclopedia section and copied word for word onto a piece of paper all of the coveted information
B. If we had a paper due... we broke out the heavy type writer and heaven forbid we typed
an incorrect letter because then we'd have to break out the white out and then cover up the mistake, blow on the white out and retype the letter or word and turn in your mess and pray for a C+ .
C. My first computer was a Mac Classic II with a 6" black and white screen. I was a
Junior at BYU and thought I'd died and gone to heaven because I didn't have to spend
hours and hours in the typing lab anymore. Internet came some years later AFTER
graduation.
D. A lap top??? Are you kidding me?

Now:
A. My 8 year old can download 2 pages worth of information on Ancient Egypt and write a perfectly perfect paper in under 30 minutes
B. That same child also just had to help me place an order because I am too lame

4. I would RUN over to my friend, Wendy's house right after school to watch MTV. I remember very clearly watching the debut of INXS' "Listen Like Theives" video and thinking "oh my gosh, this group is going to rock my world."

Then:
A. I recorded Duran Duran's "Reflex" video on my VCR and then I would watch it and
rewind it and watch it again, over and over... screaming, pausing it on John Taylor's face
and praying that some day I could be a groupie.
B. I learned the entire dance to Thriller in one night
C. And there was just straight up dang good music all day long

Now:
A. We have 16 and pregnant. And girls trying to become pregnant so they can be on
the show.
B. I haven't seen a music video in years
C. And we know exactly what kind of losers are going to bless the future of our nation

5. My parents bought us a Ninetendo 6400. The greatest of all gaming systems at the time. There were 6 games you could play on it. Pong (which isn't worth discussing), Frogger, Centipede, Space Invaders, and my favorite PacMan. We would battle it out on that system for a good 15 to 20 minutes every other day or so, because it just wasn't that fun.

Then:
A. The prophets weren't talking about it in conference as being a waste of time
B. Parents weren't worried about their teenagers not getting their homework done

Now:
A. We have killing games, M rated games and combating with your pals who live across
town, not to mention in other states.
B. Nerds everywhere are hanging out in basements killing zombies with sickles
C. Our children have perpetual migraines and constantly dilated pupils from being in the dark and looking at a screen all day


6. We cooked our meals in ovens.

Then:
A. Dinner was a very big deal because Mom really worked hard on it.
B. If we had to eat left overs the next day, we had to reheat it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees
C. Our first microwave was as big as our kitchen, weighed 1900 pounds and cost somewhere around $700.00

Now:
A. We zap dinner in 30 seconds
B. My baby can cook her own meal
C. We may all have radiation poisoning, but we don't really care

Back then:
7. We read actual books.
8. We wrote letters on paper through the mail to communicate with friends not in our town
9. We wore our pants really high.
10. We had to stay in one place when we talked on the phone. (usually in the kitchen)
11. We used cash for everything

We hadn't heard of chargers, couldn't have imagined Facebook, we bullied kids right to their faces, no attacking them with wimpy text on a phone that you could take with you wherever you went.

And now:
My how things have changed. How convenient life is now. How lazy we've become. How dependent on these things we've become.

Do I long for the good ole days??? No way. It was a simpler and much more innocent time for sure, but we can do so much more now and are so much smarter. And quite frankly, cooler.

I do miss that John Taylor and his eyeliner though, he's super old now and nowhere near HOT...and I never got to be a groupie... so sad. And that Justin Bieber is a little cutie certainly, but he aint got nothin' on the boys from the good ole 80's.