Reflections of a Hick
Y'know, there ain't nothing like a trip outside into the modern, metropolitan world to remind you just how friggin' backward you have allowed yourself to become.
My recent trip to the Left Coast had me with mixed emotions. On one hand I felt so out of my element, lost, befuddled, gobsmacked by all the advancements that all these dorks in the city took for granted. I had a huge "Slack-jaw Hick" stamp on my forehead and was very self-concious. Like an Amish going to Disneyland-it was that disconcerting.
On the other hand, it just reinforced my decision I had made some 20 years ago to flee the city was,indeed, the right one all along. Time stopped for me, in a sense, in 1986.
Shoot, when I first moved here you could easily purchase 8 track tapes, still, in the stores! My stock one liner to my remaining urbanite pals was that here in my part of the world we were just now converting from 8 track to cassettes when asked if I had got the latest CD by some artist. CD players??! Hell's Bells-what are you talking about, man?
What the hell are those??! You might as well be talking about nuclear fission, it was that foreign and futuristic a concept.
The house I currently live in finally got wired for electricity as recently as 1962-ish-when power finally got to this region.
You get the idea.
With the arrival of satellite TV in this area about 8 years ago, my knowledge of the outside world and all the advancements in technology was brought up to speed, but even still knowing about such things and actually seeing them in use is still a little freaky. Like those friggin' Bluetooth thingies. I saw plenty of those in the airports in use by business guys trying to look like they're important and somebody. To me, it made them look like some sort of derelect mentally ill bum...suddenly, spontaneously jabbering away outloud at some unseen person. At least with a cell phone, you have a visual clue that person next to you is talking to someone and you can ignore (or try to ignore) the conversation. With those damn things, you don't know what the heck is going on. I got caught, unaware, much to my embaressment many times by some guy sitting near or next to me in the airport who just suddenly would blurt out "Hi! How are you?"
"OK." I would politely reply just as I realized he wasn't talking to me. My "Slack- jaw Hick" stamp would begin to glow on my forehead.
Nothing humbles you more when you can't even figure out how to work a gas pump.I had offer to go fill up my brother's heap while out there and drove over to the corner Mom&Pop in the neighborhood. Everything was just ducky, got the gas cap off and turned to grab the hose and then....uhhhhhhhhhh. Oh crap. OK...I can do this. Uhhhh.
I'm sure it was only a couple of minutes, but it felt like 20. I froze, confused. How do I start this? What the heck do I do? Finally the exasperated clerk came on the speaker and walked me through it so all the others there could hear what an ig'nert dumbass I was. My forehead was burning...again.
By the time my trip was over I had a raging technological induced headache.
Never had I been so happy to see that buckshot riddled green and white highway sign that proclaimed that I was now back in Ozark County, the land that time forgot. Thank ya, Jeeezuz!
And the scars on my forehead should fade within the week.
My recent trip to the Left Coast had me with mixed emotions. On one hand I felt so out of my element, lost, befuddled, gobsmacked by all the advancements that all these dorks in the city took for granted. I had a huge "Slack-jaw Hick" stamp on my forehead and was very self-concious. Like an Amish going to Disneyland-it was that disconcerting.
On the other hand, it just reinforced my decision I had made some 20 years ago to flee the city was,indeed, the right one all along. Time stopped for me, in a sense, in 1986.
Shoot, when I first moved here you could easily purchase 8 track tapes, still, in the stores! My stock one liner to my remaining urbanite pals was that here in my part of the world we were just now converting from 8 track to cassettes when asked if I had got the latest CD by some artist. CD players??! Hell's Bells-what are you talking about, man?
What the hell are those??! You might as well be talking about nuclear fission, it was that foreign and futuristic a concept.
The house I currently live in finally got wired for electricity as recently as 1962-ish-when power finally got to this region.
You get the idea.
With the arrival of satellite TV in this area about 8 years ago, my knowledge of the outside world and all the advancements in technology was brought up to speed, but even still knowing about such things and actually seeing them in use is still a little freaky. Like those friggin' Bluetooth thingies. I saw plenty of those in the airports in use by business guys trying to look like they're important and somebody. To me, it made them look like some sort of derelect mentally ill bum...suddenly, spontaneously jabbering away outloud at some unseen person. At least with a cell phone, you have a visual clue that person next to you is talking to someone and you can ignore (or try to ignore) the conversation. With those damn things, you don't know what the heck is going on. I got caught, unaware, much to my embaressment many times by some guy sitting near or next to me in the airport who just suddenly would blurt out "Hi! How are you?"
"OK." I would politely reply just as I realized he wasn't talking to me. My "Slack- jaw Hick" stamp would begin to glow on my forehead.
Nothing humbles you more when you can't even figure out how to work a gas pump.I had offer to go fill up my brother's heap while out there and drove over to the corner Mom&Pop in the neighborhood. Everything was just ducky, got the gas cap off and turned to grab the hose and then....uhhhhhhhhhh. Oh crap. OK...I can do this. Uhhhh.
I'm sure it was only a couple of minutes, but it felt like 20. I froze, confused. How do I start this? What the heck do I do? Finally the exasperated clerk came on the speaker and walked me through it so all the others there could hear what an ig'nert dumbass I was. My forehead was burning...again.
By the time my trip was over I had a raging technological induced headache.
Never had I been so happy to see that buckshot riddled green and white highway sign that proclaimed that I was now back in Ozark County, the land that time forgot. Thank ya, Jeeezuz!
And the scars on my forehead should fade within the week.
posted by white trash republican at Friday, March 03, 2006
2 Comments:
I've never heard of a "bluetooth" and I can't wait to hear about those gas pumps!
Just imagine those city folk working the pump at the Y-Store. Now, don't you feel superior?
Yes...I can feel smug knowing that I have skills they can't even begin to fathom!
As for the pump...it was a newfangled "tap n go" model. Credit cards only and different from the slide the card in type that I'm finally getting the hang of.
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