My computer was really slow earlier and being a pain in the butt so I had to reboot it because I have things to do on here and I don't have all day since my Memorial Day cookout is today instead of tomorrow. Isn't it strange how we can't live with it but also can't live without it?
It is an odd thing of which I have become aware, how dependent my life, my ability to function in society, is on all manner of modern technology; that I am old enough to remember not having, and not even knowing it was going to come.
I cannot imagine being able to adequately take care of my dietary needs without a microwave oven. The microwave oven was invented in the 1940s, but didn't become common until some time in the 1970s. I can remember a time when we did not have them, and did not know that we ever would. And now, I cannot imagine trying to live without one.
Cell phones are another example. I was aware of
“car telephones” back in the 1980s, possibly 1970s. Only very wealthy people had them, and back then, the equipment filled up the trunk of a luxury car. I first knew someone, personally, who had a cell phone, some time in the 1990s. By this point, it was down to the size of a lunchbox, and still very expensive to buy, and very expensive to subscribe to the service to support it. He was fairly wealthy. I was aware of cell phones getting smaller, and more sophisticated, and becoming more common, but still thought of them as a toy for wealthy people. I was astounded, at some point in 2004, at a particularly low point in my career, to take notice that some of my then-colleagues through a day-labor service, many of whom were homeless or perhaps a bare step above that, had cell phones, and I still thought of them as something that only wealthy people had. I somehow missed the point in time, when cell phones became common among those in the middle class and lower standards of living. I finally got a cell phone, myself, not long after that. Of course, these days, you really have to have a cell phone just to function in modern society.
