El Guapo in DC

I am El Guapo. The most Guapo man in all of DC. Mucho Amor

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Old to some

I was hanging out with my baby cousin the other day.

“El Guapo, have you had the same cell phone number since you were a little kid?”

I looked at him and mentally calculated how far out the window he could be tossed.

I tried explaining to him that I didn’t have a cell phone when I was a little kid.

“Why El Guapo? Were you really poor?”

I figure if I spin him around a couple of times I could probably get him about 15 feet or so out the window..

No, well yes, but cell phones were very expensive when I was a kid. The only kid that had a cell phone was Zac Morris. He sometimes let his Mexican friend use it.

“Who is Zac Morris?”

Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’ve had several phone numbers because I kept on changing companies before they let you keep the same number?

“Why did you change companies? Was it because you didn’t like their text message plan?”

You’re five. How the hell do you know about text messages? Anyway, no, back then I there were no text messages. There were no color phones, no camera phones, no ring tones, no voting for American Idol.

“How did you vote then?”

There was no American Idol back then.

The kid sits down on the floor and I can see his little brain computing the black and white world of my yesteryear. I’m 27…

“So, what did you watch when there wasn’t any American Idol?”

Well, actually, back when I was your age, we didn’t even have cable.

“Shut up.”

En serio. We didn’t even have UPN or the Spanish channel. There were only four channels. They were all free.

“Geez. That would get boring to flip the remote to only four channels. You’d have to pick a channel quickly or TIVO everything.”

I’m 27 f-ing years old and I can’t believe I’m about to tell him that when I was a kid we didn’t even have a remote control much less a TIVO. I remember playing in the yard with my He-Man toys and GI Joes. The games would take weeks and would sometimes involve freezing the toy men in a glasses of water, tying them to string and throwing them out the car window and, if we were lucky, throw them into a pool.

This kid will likely never experience this because he can have a machine record 17 shows at one time for him to watch whenever he wants. So, I did what I remember enjoying when I was a kid.

I ran up to my room and found my uncle’s first cell phone that he had given me years ago. It was one of those 5 pound ones with the large, six-inch antenna. I think they only came in off-white and black. He, of course, had the off-white. So tacky… Anyway, I showed him the cell phone and explained how with technology they were able to make things smaller and smaller.

Then, I showed him how to take the phone apart and went over (what I knew) all the little pieces that make it work.

“Do you mean that everything has little pieces like this that make it work?”

You bet. Every machine can be taken apart and put back together. Just make sure that the machine is never plugged in and that I’m around when you’re doing it. I don’t care if you take apart your dad’s stuff, but he might.

Thank God I didn’t have to tell him that we didn’t have a remote. I couldn’t stand explaining how old I was….

Mucho Amor,

El Guapo

10 Comments:

At 10:58 PM, Blogger Diamond said...

LOL - try being 48 and explaining to your grandchildren what you didn't have when you were a kid!!

 
At 9:30 AM, Blogger LiLaCs said...

Smart kid..But you really..YOu didnt have a remote?!?!?!?! ;)

 
At 10:27 AM, Blogger Guy said...

I still remember when the VCR had a remote control that had to plug into the machine, and I'm not even 27 yet.

I remember trying to explain to my little brother (who's about 13) why shows on TV nowadays are CRAP and why shows back when I was his age (or younger) weren't. Needless to say I couldn't convince him.

 
At 10:58 AM, Blogger Phil said...

I remember my first cell phone plan: 40 minutes/month peak, 40 mins/month off-peak free, $0.35/min after that, $40/month.

AirTouch. (now Verizon)

 
At 11:21 AM, Blogger jali said...

I was my dad's remote. "Get up and change to channel 4".

 
At 2:25 PM, Blogger The Rev said...

I'm older than you?

Cut it out1 I thought you were older than I was. You are so much wiser than I.

I remember the first bag phones that you could wear around your shoulder, and they called them "car phones". It looked like a phone in a manpurse.

 
At 5:20 PM, Blogger Raincouver said...

I like Jali's comment! Jali, are we related?

When I was 5, I moved to Mexico to study Spanish. Every summer I'd go back to Canada, where I was born. My grandpa would say... vete por esto, vete por el otro... until one day I lost the money and they finally cut it out. Then he discovered "Supermarket" and they entered the 20th century. Moved back to canada when I was 12.. then went back at 15.. back in Vancouver at 17... got my first cell phone at 18, though. I think I had Phil's plan.

Now the company pays. Anyone need to call thailand?

 
At 7:25 PM, Blogger El Guapo in DC said...

Si, we must have all been in the same family... Mi madre would tell us that she had kids so that she didn't have to do the dishes.

 
At 7:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

El Guapo -

Why does your profile say you are 28 if you are in fact 27? Not that a year would make that much difference! I still remember those bag phones! Hahaha! Those were the good 'ol days! ;)

 
At 9:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Back in the "olden" days, I worked a deal with a car dealer where I traded in my old Honda Civic and threw in an Osborne "portable" computer (think Singer sewing machine style and weight) to make the deal work in my favor. Two thoughts about that: 1) I wish I had that Osborne now so I could donate it to a museum and take the tax write-off. 2) No one younger than me knows what an Osborne computer was.

Best, The Gal

 

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