Not just useless, obsolete

My son and I were looking at an old car the other day. He pointed at the window crank and asked, "What's that thing?" I explained to him that you had to crank that to roll down the window. "Oh," he said, "that's why you say 'roll' down the window. I always wondered about that." He's never been in a car that didn't have power windows.

 

How about the lever that you had to snap up to pump gas?

Or the credit card machine where you put the card on the metal back, ran the roller over the top onto the copy paper and then signed the carbon?

 

I still get those in taxis. It's like, really? Still?

 

In addition to phone books, I read somewhere that cell phones and PDAs are also rendering wristwatches and calendars obsolete.

 

I still use a phone book, too. Maybe I'm still living in the '90s.

 

I still use the phonebook, calendar and a wristwatch. Still haven't got around to getting a cell phone yet.

 

Called a zip-zap machine. It's still used for backup, but even those days are numbered. Visa has an unembossed card out now.

 

You don't have a cell phone, BigSleeper? Well, I guess that makes sense, what with your non-stop touring and reckless lifestyle. Just keep taking that insulin.

 

My mother-in-law gave me one of those prepaid cell phones and I keep it in the car. Used it twice in a year. Now Virgin Mobile keeps calling me to put more money on it or lose the service. Started with $100 balance. It's $98.13 now. So be it.

If I can't be reached at work or at home, I probably don't want to be bothered.

 

Tell us another story, grampa!

 

“We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like that time I took the ferry over to Shelbyville; I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have any white onions, because of the war; the only thing you can get was those big yellow ones."

 

BigSleeper will be dead in the cold, cold ground before he recognizes Missourah!