Things I Don’t Understand

If you don’t know what you don’t know, spend some time with your adult kids.

I recently spent some time out of state with my son and his family. I seemed to immediately have brain fog; for example, I don’t think I dried their laundry right. I left wondering if all of their clothes shrunk leaving the family shivering and nearly naked.

Steve and I brought up four kids and did their laundry religiously; rarely did I shrink anything.

I do take comfort, however, knowing things they’ll never know. Like what? you may ask. Like I know what is a jewel case – those cases that used to house a compact disc (CD). In fact, I remember compact discs. I remember the debates that raged over the sound quality of music on a CD versus on vinyl – aka a “record.” (I really didn’t – and don’t – have an opinion regarding music quality.) 

Of course, like many other phrases, the meaning behind CD has changed. Today CD can mean cross-dresser. So be careful if you say you like CDs – it might mean something you weren’t intending.

And like the secret In-N-Out menu, did you know emojis have a secret meaning? Most are sexual in nature so I won’t share them with you but apparently the eggplant emoji doesn’t always mean a vegetable. Oy.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am envious of people who use most if not all of their fingers when typing on a (tiny) phone keyboard. And so fast! I’m a tapper; I basically use one finger to feed in the letters of any message I want to send. But I do remember the days when flip phones were the rage. To send a text on a flip phone, you had to first select the messaging app, choose to create a new message, and then enter the recipient’s number or contact info. The keyboard was reflective of a traditional phone keyboard; you had to tap three times on the number 1 (for example) to get the letter C. What a pain! I laugh though when reading how puzzled people are when they see flip phones on TV and wonder how people texted each other … or (gasp!) did they actually have to call each other? Oh, the horror!

I’m not on social media all that much but occasionally I find (and watch) the Holderness Family. They’re content creators – they create parodies, skits and videos – many of them mirroring the changes I have experienced, whether it’s an outdated hair part, keeping those things we really should throw out and viewing life when I was 20 versus when I was 40 (not to mention 60!).

Ah, the times – they are changing(and have changed).