Flashback

Katylynn and I went for a walk every day last week but Wednesday. It's quickly becoming a tradition or ritual.

On Friday afternnon, we walked past a certain house and I had a flashback.

Winter, 1992...
I was a Sophomore at NorthWood. My friend's parents' minivan had this crazy cool contraption in it. It actually had a telephone. You plugged the chord into the battery charger.
My friend said it was only to be used for emergencies because it cost something like $1 a minute to use.
At the time, there was a girl who lived in town that I was interested in. One night, while out for a drive in my friend's minivan, I came up with a brilliant idea to woo this girl. We drove and parked outside her house. We then picked up the $1 a minute car phone and gave her a call.

When she answered the conversation went something like this...

Girl: Hello
Me: Hey (girl)? It's Derry.
Girl: Hey, what's up?
Me: Guess where I'm at?
Girl: I don't know, where are you?
Me: Guess.
Girl: I don't know, at your house?
Me: No I'm sitting right outside your house?
PAUSE, thinking back on it, that last line is a great line to a horror movie.
Girl: No way!
(girl walks to window and waves, we wave back)
Girl (clearly impressed with my Romeo-like gesture): That's amazing!

I handed my friend $3 to give to his parents... best $3 I had invested in my life, my hormonal mind thought.

Ah, memories! I was an idiot.

Today, I'm thinking about our recent IMPACT Mexico Team retreat, where I asked our students to refrain from using their cell phones except in the evening and mornings when we were pretty much in free time. One guy probably sent his girlfriend a total of 70 text messages during that time.
If there had been text messaging in 1992, his bill at the end of the weekend would have been $2500.