Things my child will never know

My brother, David, gave Andrew and me a little table today (that was number 86 on our list of things to do). It has a wood frame with a glass top and is much smaller than our current table, so Andrew and the baby compatibly be in the same room: Andrew doing homework and the baby doing tummy time. There really isn't much room in our living room for a big homework table, all the baby stuff, and my sanity...so we had to downsize. I have this thing about floor space. I like it.

Andrew though, had a little harder time adjusting to the idea of this new table. I couldn't see what was wrong with the table so I asked him to enlighten me.

"It's big enough," he said, "but it's glass topped and painted ugly white. So, the glass top could cause problems."

I wasn't really sure what being painted ugly white had to do with the glass top causing problems. Besides, the table was free, so what's wrong with ugly white? I decided to ignore everything else and focus on what I thought he was seeing as the real issue here. I posed a very succinct question (some might say pithy, others trite--either way, we all get along):

"Why?"
Not to be outdone by my conciseness, Andrew answered,

"Mouse."

And I, not wanting to be caught with too many words, responded aphoristically,

"Pad."

Andrew's excitement then got the better of him and he exclaimed verbosely,

"Oh, yeah - mouse pads! I forgot about those!"

We then reminisced about when, instead of optical sensors, mouses had balls and needed mouse pads. Today mouse pads are rather superfluous. You simply don't need one to function properly anymore.

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That's not the only thing my child is going to think is strange when she finds it lying around the house. How about the cassette tapes that I still have, or my CD/tape player. Or my disc man. Or film negatives?

Yes, my dear child, your parents grew up in an age of:

• Chalk boards
  
• Overhead projectors
• Filmstrip
• Cassette tapes
• Worrying about having enough film in your camera
• Mouse pads
• VHS tapes and VCRs
• Lap belts in the back window seats of cars
  
• Many other archaic things

Sadly, there are a few things that I bet will be totally outdated before our daughter even gets to be a teenager. I'll bet you CDs will be replaced with something new. The iPod will be so improved that my little Shuffle will look like a t-rex. And I'm sure our child will laugh at the idea of the "mini DV," considering we already have great digital film (it's just a little more expensive at the moment). White boards will probably be on their way out by the time Rachel gets into school. It will all be PowerPoint (only a more advanced, less lame version or something along those lines). She'll probably think our printer is slow, too.

I remember getting an ink jet when I was in grade six. My dad helped me print off some pictures for some assignments. I'm pretty sure it took at least 5 minutes a page (to do a picture--text would obviously be faster). Our printer is much faster than that.

Come to think of it, Rachel...you're making me feel old. Go ask your grandparents what was around in their day (records! BETA! reel-to-reel! Ha!). And if you can't believe all that, ask them how much gas cost when they were young.

Oh, wait...cars probably won't run on gas by the time you ask, so you won't understand that, either. And, no, grandpa did not have to walk to school--uphill both ways--in a snowstorm.