Back in the Day: Remembering the Cellular Phone

When getting a new phone meant great leaps in technology and more room in your pockets.

I had the wee one in the car with me and we had to go pick it up. After pickup, I told my phone “Hey Google - Text Mommy that I’m on the way home” and then pressed send.

The child asked “how the heck does that even work?:

She’s right to ask. I was just communicating as we have become used to by talking to my phone and have it send a message and she’s like: Bro, what the heck just happened?

So, I tried to explain how cellular networks work. Basically, very basically and on the way home I pointed to a big cell tower on the side of the road and explained that my message got sent to that tower that would send it to another tower and then to the tower down the street from the house and eventually mommy’s phone would go “bing”.

This explains cellular networks much better than I can.

Then we got talking about back in the day when there were no cell phones and how if you wanted to make or take a call you had to be at home or work. Or maybe a phone booth.

You guys, I learned that it’s really hard to describe a phone booth to this current generation. You try to explain how you go into a booth and close a door and then toss a quarter into a phone and dial an number and wait for the other person to answer.

Once the phone booths got sorted (I think) we moved on to the actual hardware of back in the day:

My first cell phone looked something like this:

then I graduated to this:

and I had a phone that fit in my pocket! *thank goodness for relaxed jeans in the 90’s and then when I got the Motorola Startac I thought I was living in my future as this thing could fit in the palm of my hand:

This phone was the future.

And more and more phones passed through my hands as the years flew by. I dabbled with the blackberry for a bit and had more than one of the more modern Nokia’s that were shaped like a snickers

Then came the iPhone and now the one in my pocket looks exactly like the one in yours - It’s a piece of glass with a computer and battery tacked to the back.

Now we don’t even pick up our phones and can communicate with them entirely hands-free and have them make calls and send text messages and even create images with AI - all hands free. Amazing.

The future is here again - just like I thought it was when I had that super-cool Motorola StarTac.

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We Have That at Home

Tonight’s WHTAH is children sized toothbrushes. Prices are about 8 bucks for 8.

One would think that having eight toothbrushes would be more than enough for years, yes? Not in this house. I swear we just bought 8 of them and they are all missing.

At first, if we lost one it wasn’t that big of a deal because we have 7 more of them but now we are down to toothbrush zero for her. This means that she has lost 8 toothbrushes in a matter of months.

She’s been away with mom a few weeks back so let’s assume one got left behind. Then assume one is inside/went through the dog. That still leaves us with six unaccounted for toothbrushes.

Even if one more got thrown out because I picked it up off the floor and it was mixed with crusty old toothpaste chunks and dog slobber and it was too gross to repair or clean - that still leaves us with five.

Wanted: Five missing toothbrushes. I’m open to suggestions if you have any ideas on where they might have gone.