I have an embarrassing confession to make.
I provide tech support to bloggers for a living.
Before that, my career was building WordPress blogs for clients.
But this is my first blog.
I don’t count the bare-bones, default-header-bedecked site that mainly consists of beginner WordPress resources, nor will we speak of the single-subject and now inactive, anonymously penned site on some other blogging platform that shall remain nameless.
This is my first blog.
The milestone has made me reflect on all the other technology I’ve embraced kicking and screaming much later than most.
In rough chronological order:
photo courtesy of Clemson via Flickr
- Touch-tone phone
- Cordless phone
- Voice mail
- Cell phone
- Laptop
- iPhone
- Microwave
No, wait, I still don’t have a microwave.
I’ve…
…been giggled at by store employees (“You want a… phone with a cord connecting the handset to the base? Do they still make those?”)…
…been glanced at surreptitiously with a mixture of pity and disbelief (my heavy white Macbook at a company-wide meetup where I was the only person with a computer over a couple of years old)….
…been addressed like I was completely insane, or perhaps just senile (Bell Canada: “Madam, are you quite sure you don’t have a touch-tone phone? We would be willing to take the $2.55 charge off your monthly bill but I highly doubt you are not using it.”)…
…had my tape-answering-machine beeper stared in bafflement (a piece of technology so outdated and apparently un-memorialized – not even qualifying as hipster-retro, like the venerable cassette tape – I cannot find a single image of it on the interwebs)…
…had my little retractable-antenna-topped Nokia and later my scratched-up iPhone 3 stared at and outright mocked (with affection, since these were my friends we’re talking about).
I wore it all with a badge of stubborn pride and irony.
But now, with the new blog, and the arrival of an iPad mini in the household this week, I feel a small sense of loss and sadness. Now I’m just like everyone else, you see.
Except for the microwave. There’ll always be the microwave.
Kathryn Presner 
14 replies on “Late Adopter”
My children saw a rotary phone in a movie the other night and I had to explain what it was. The looks on their faces… priceless. Also a bit sad.
The horror.
My first blog was in 2005 and at a diary place that shall not be named and it was and is a private blog. I still can’t let it go and I can’t let my old phone go either. I have a land line phone with a 15 foot long traveling cord. I had to give up the rotary one and the one before it too. That one was a wall mounted one I had when I first moved here (35 years ago) and my number was 2 short 1 long. Back then we had only party lines. In those days we said a few words as possible on phones and only shared confidences face-to-face. We’ve come a long way baby for sure but and where we are going next is anyone’s guess — hope it’s not implants, ya know?
Party lines – now that’s a blast from the past! What a strange concept if you think about it, eh? Imagine trying to explain *that* to a young person.
That reminds me of one of my favourite YouTube clips:
The video made me laugh. I think the party line idea would be a hilarious skit that the teens I mentor might want to take on.
Um… I think maybe you forgot air conditioner in your list of late acquisitions!
But love the blog! More, more I say!
I knew I’d forget something – air conditioner, for sure!
Audio CDs also, although those quickly became obsolete too.
[…] that it’s never too late to start blogging, Happiness Engineer Kathryn Presner has finally taken the plunge and started her first blog — after years of helping others build […]
What a strange order. Cultural differences I suppose. I’ve never had touch tone or cordless but I had the next three back in the 80s (!),FB reluctantly – been and gone, and on the third iPhone now (just because I like Mac although our other phones are Nokia). No microwave though. As does Time Thief, I often write about consumerism and the need/urge to have the latest newest whatever. But I’m still hanging onto my vinyl LPs and singles and stereo record player.
Kudos for hanging onto the record player. 🙂
Girl, I am amazed…no microwave?! I would ask, “How do you manage?” Ah, but then again, I have THAT vision…the one where I thought that I was the very last one to own a microwave. You impress me with your fortitude. 😉
Welcome to the Blogosphere!
Thanks for the warm welcome! You know, the only time I think wistfully about microwaves is probably when I’m heating up a lot of leftovers. Three little pots of Indian curries on the stove, a frying pan to reheat rice and the toaster oven to crisp up nan does seem a little excessive. 😉
Kathryn, I hiked over to Best Buy to buy a corded phone a few months ago so that I can have ONE stable comms system in my house. Since our previous phone line was tied to our Verizon FIOS, it’s digital and thus will go down whenever we have an electricity outage, which is frequent enough during tornado and storm season. Also, digital transmission quality can be iffy, and it was embarrassing to have crappy phone calls when I was, say, in the middle of a press interview or had a prospective client call.
In fact, when I called Verizon, they said that they don’t offer copper line phone service anymore. I had to call AT&T – Ma Bell herself – who apparently is the only one left that offers that service in North Texas. I was so happy I didn’t even blink at the $75/month plan. (I’ve since cancelled the service.)
There was exactly ONE corded phone at Best Buy, and it was a Slimline. Remember those? It looks like a slightly more modern version of the Princess phone. And it works beautifully!
Ah, good times.
Love this story! I still have a wired phone attached to my kitchen wall for the same power-failure reasons, although now that I think of it since we switched to cable phone service it is probably quite useless in a power failure. 😉 Oh, how we must evolve, whether we like it or not sometimes!