Small Child: Mom… I want a webcam.
Mom: What do you want a webcam for babe?
Small Child: So I can talk to you through the computer.
Mom: Honey… your PC is in the next room… I don’t think you need a webcam 😐
It is usually around Christmas time each year that I start assessing the ‘stuff’ that the Small Child has been accruing over the year and I hate to admit it, but he’s kinda spoiled rotten (though perhaps not quite so indulged as his Dad would have him, seeing that I’ve refused to let a Wii into the house 🙂 He has a small TV and a DVD player/mini stereo system in his room, a not totally crap PC with a 19″ LCD monitor (in my defense it was cheaper than the 17″ one I set out to buy), there’s also a Nintendo Game Cube in the house with about 20 games and he has access to a DVD collection consisting of approximately 97 Disney cartoons and family movies. He also has his Dad’s hand me down iPod mini (battery is a little unreliable) several remote control toys, a couple of push bikes, an overflowing toybox and more books than you can poke a stick at.
Anyway… the webcam request came after a recent request for an Eee PC like Mom’s and I also recall a tentative enquiry about getting his own mobile phone!!! Oh what unrealistic expectations the Small Child does have! He’s already amassed more toys than I had throughout my entire childhood. So I sat him down and started to tell him about all the great things he has that I never had when I was a kid….. and I sounded like my fucking grandmother!!!
I told him when I was little that we had no computers.
When I was little we had no internet.
When I was little we had no video games.
When I was little we had no DVDs or even CDs.
We also had no mobile phones.
We had no remote control toys.
We had no iPods, webcams, laptops or even colour TV for crying out loud!
We didn’t get a colour TV until I was about 8 I think and only had a teeny black and white thing up until that. We got a VCR when I was about 12 and it may well have been the first one on our block. Hell… we didn’t even have a telephone in my house until I was 6 or 7! I shared my bedroom with my elder sister, BigSal, until I was about 14, which meant we had to share all our toys and often clothes too. And most sophisticated thing I’d ever owned (up until I bought myself a $300 Sony CD Walkman at 19) was a hand held Nintendo game of Snoopy Tennis that I got for Christmas when I was 15!
* Just for the record – I can’t play Star Wars Lego for shit on the GameCube, but I totally rocked at Snoopy Tennis!! I was the Snoopy Tennis Queen! Things were so much simpler then…. Oh good Lord I sound sooooo fucking old!!!!!! I guess in some way it’s just the same…. Angel is wanting all the cool stuff he sees around him and I did too I guess. I remember envying kids from school who had one of those fancy Simon Says games… oh yeah – how I wanted one of those…. they were the ducks nuts! That and a Speak and Spell!
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