Showing my age

While chatting with a pal of mine online today, I came to reflect on how different life is for my children than it was for me and my generation. They have had hot-and-cold running internet ever since they could read. Music and movies come on discs and in mp3 files, not sequential tape media. "Be kind, rewind" isn't in their vocabulary. They send Daddy links to the things they want me to buy online and fear point-of-sale transactions and actually telephoning shops to make inquiries. They have never used a rotary phone or a pay phone.

I grabbed an old LP out of the closet (why we have them, don't ask me - we don't have a player anymore) and showed it to my little one.

"#2, do you know what this is?"

"That's a VINYL RECORD!" she says, as though identifying an archaeopteryx fossil.

"How does it work?"

"You put it on a 'record player,' then you lower the 'needle' and it turns and makes music." The quotation marks were visible in the air around her head as she prounounced the less-than-familiar words.

I asked her if she knew what an 8-track tape is, and if she could describe it. She nodded, rolled her eyes at me, and then made thumb-and-forefinger L shapes to frame out something the size of a cassette tape.

I feel old.

And now for an unrelated touch of techie humor that simply must be shared.