One hour. What can be done in one hour?
a. Watch an HBO television program
b. Make fajitas
c. Drive to Rockford Illinois
d. Drive around Old Town looking for a parking spot within a one mile radius during their annual street fest all the while dodging drunken idiots with sweet dream catchers and rageful cabs with not-so-sweet car fresheners.
A: All of the above. I missed the Second City show I was supposed to see with a friend because I couldn’t find parking. Thank god I had text. “Traffic sucks. I’m going home.” She understood. I went home and drank whiskey. Saturday night plans – canceled. But what if I didn’t have modern technology? What would the scene look like?
Drive around Old Town looking for a parking spot. Force myself to drive down to Cabrini where there are plenty of spots on North Ave and Halsted, risk getting hijaked, if not having my car tagged, to walk back to Second City’s theatre to meet my friend. Because I know if I didn’t show, she would think:
a. I got into a car accident
b. We are in a fight that she doesn’t know about, thus rethinking our last 3 interactions and analyzing her comments to see if any of them would have been insulting in anyway.
c. Not only did my car get tagged in Cabrini but so did my purse and my sense of safety… and my street cred.
A: All of the above. But since I now have modern technology I was able to communicate immediately my inability to make it. But has our access to smart phones, texting, email, twitter, facebook and gchat allowed us the opportunity to flake-out on our plans?
Granted, I was in a fit of rage from my parking spot pilgrimage, but what about normal plans? If you made plans to meet up with someone in 1970, you would honor them because you would have no other way of canceling. There weren’t even answering machines. Only unreliable family members who couldn’t take a message to save their lives because the phone cord didn’t reach the pen drawer and when you hung up the phone you got distracted by the latest update from Walter Cronkite.
Does this thing have SMS?
Now, you can be in the middle of conference call, jumping off of a webinar and send an instant message to your virtual friend saying, “Hey, can’t hang out tonight afterall.” I know because I’ve found it too easy to do myself. If we didn’t have text, im, fb, twitter or email, would we be more opt to keep our plans?
Mom's text says she's not showing up to my game... again.
I’m not sure. But it’s 10:30 p.m., I’ve been going non-stop all day and can’t think very clearly. I didn’t have time to cancel anything. Must be my lack of technology. Does this mean I should:
a. Get a smart phone
b. Manage my schedule better
c. Write posts when I’m not exhausted
d. Get a puppy
Do you know what the answer is? Text me later about it… when we find we can’t meet up cause we have other plans.
