this past week have shocked me about just how old I really am.
For the first time ever I was able to remember an event that happened twenty years ago. I heard on the news that it was the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 earthquakes this passed week. I was only in the fifth grade when that occurred, but I have very clear memories of that time.
And that was twenty years ago.Two. Zero.
The other thing that made me feel really old happened when I went to go return a video that we had rented. I pulled up in front of the store to find that it was vacant; the only thing that I could see inside were empty racks. Rows and rows of empty racks.
So I hopped out to read the note on the door stating that this location had been closed and listed some other stores that were still open "for my convenience".
Across town.
With a Target, a scrapbooking store, and a Michael's between me and it.
I'm not so sure Steve would like how long that trip would take (or how much it would wind up costing for that matter).
But I digress.
Seeing my closed movie store was a realization that most movie stores aren't going to last very much longer. With keyosk rentals and online subscriptions, not to mention pay-per-view the days of the local movie rental store are numbered.
I guess it's not really that bad if you think about it. I could sign up and pay what, a third of what I normally pay and get a slew of movies delivered one at a time with my other non-interesting mail? That sounds good to me.
Why does this change make me feel old you may ask?
My first real job (meaning I got a check with my name printed on it and half of my earnings started going to some distant relative named Sam) was at a movie rental store.
So now when my kids are interested in my early days and ask, "Mom what was your first job?"
My response will be "a cashier at a movie rental store", and they will say "you mean a movie theatre?"
"No, a movie rental store. A store you would drive to, pick out a movie, pay to borrow it, bring it home, watch it, and take it back. A movie rental store."
Inevitably the response will be, "People used to do all that just to watch a movie!?! Wow. You really are old, Mom."
Don't even ask what my pay was.
That will make matters even worse.
4 comments:
that's awesome! i was thinking about this movie store thing the other day, too, and almost stressing because, well, because change and newness just sometimes scares the gajibbies out of me!
LOL, I'll send you a free trial of Netflix. It's all going to be OK! One of these days we will be laughing about how we used to hand write out checks to pay our bills and then pay money to send them though the mail instead of just point and clicking.
;)
Too funny! My cousins both worked at a video store that closed a long time ago, I think it was called Video Zone. You can always borrow from our collection. We seem to be addicted to buying movies on Amazon. Too easy, plus the thrill of making a purchase.
Before we know it, we will have known each other for 20 years. Gosh... that does make us sound old...
Honestly, I think that time jumps into a compression tube when you have kids: its super intense, and over all too quickly.
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