Last weekend I had an unsettling afternoon visit with my usually delightful Auntie E. I introduced her to you a while back (THE GRACIOUSNESS OF “NO”). She turned 94 this spring, and it is with real sadness that I must admit she is slipping. We were having afternoon tea on the front screened-in, when suddenly, she came out with this:
“You know Dear, your generation didn’t invent everything. We had phone-for-sex back in the 30s. But we had to use code because we were on a party line, with half the concession listening in. So it would be something like, “Would you like to come over and help daddy poll the herefords?” ”
“Auntie, it’s actually called phone sex or sexting. Just on the phone. People send pictures back and forth on their phones.”
“Dear Lord—that doesn’t sound like much fun. Pictures of what? Oh… never mind. That’s just playing with yourself—doesn’t seem real, does it?”
“I don’t think anyone of my generation does it, but 20 and 30-year-olds do. So I’m told.”
“Yes, well, would you mind Dear, taking your hand phone off the side table?”
“Sure. Let’s talk about something else Auntie. Have you gone on Facebook yet? I left you all the information for that two visits ago. You’ve been using a computer to run the family business for decades now, so the technology shouldn’t be an issue for you. It’s the most important community in the marketing world and in society. Don’t you want to be part of that?”
“We already have a community centre in the village here, where people get together every week, face-to-face. That seems more real to me, like our phone-for-sex compared to your sexting-thing.”
“Auntie, there are almost a billion people on Facebook around the world now. And it’s nothing like sexting.”
“If it is, it could definitely be the cure for global over-population. So that’s good. But if it’s anything like sexting-thingy, why is it that you think people would be interested in the ads along the side?”
“Are you feeling okay, Auntie?”
“It may be the vapours. Maybe I should go lie down.”
Anyway, I’ll be taking her to her annual check-up next month, and maybe, we can bring her back to some sort of normalcy. Here’s to hoping. She’s still amazing, really, for her age.
