Non-Incriminating Evidence

Katie and I when we were dating. 

Sometimes when I really want to freak out the youth at church I tell them about when Sister Craig and I were dating, back in 1995. I weave tales about how I would sometimes, unannounced, just pop in at her apartment. And how sometimes…she wouldn't be there! AND I WOULD HAVE NO IDEA WHERE SHE WAS OR WHEN SHE WAS COMING BACK! So I would have to do something crazy like LEAVE A HANDWRITTEN NOTE, TELLING HER TO CALL ME LATER!  And then sometime, later that day, she’d hopefully get that note and call me. And MAYBE I would be at my apartment to answer my land-line phone, and MAYBE I WOULDN'T! Maybe I’d be out, and I actually wouldn't have any communication with her that entire afternoon or even that day! No communication! Like we were animals! And can you even stand the suspense of when we would see each other again?! I know!

Seriously, I sound ancient to these youth when I tell stories of living before every soul had a cell phone with texting or Find a Friend capabilities. And you know what? I totally feel archaic, too! I find my own self sitting there in a daze wondering how we lived so crippled by our lack of technology. I swear in 1995 it was like we had evolved one measly step from chimps playing with sticks. “And then to show Sister Craig I was interested in her romantically, I thumped my chest and handed her a branch that was on fire. She prayed about it, and we got married.”

Doesn't it feel as if society has so quickly adapted to all of us being absolutely accessible at all times, we can’t fathom a time when it wasn't that way? You may even find yourself thinking back on moments when you would have saved time, resources, and emotional anguish if we were all using Smart Phones and texting and apps. I've done that.

But the upside is this, my ancient friend, you also lived out your pubescent years at a time when the entire world didn't have video camera/phones on their person 24 hours a day; and then a medium to immediately distribute that video to the public. How can I know how awesome anything I did was if it wasn't immediately broadcasted and validated by the public! I know, we were animals!

But for those of us who are products from the 70s, 80s, or 90s…I think we are actually grateful for that. I know I am. My family bought a home video camera in 1984. I was 13. THIRTEEN! The only wise decision I ever made in my adolescent awkwardness (besides keeping my crush on Olivia Newton-John a secret) was to completely avoid being on camera. Sure, it was a fascinating new technology, but I knew better. In fact, the only two documented video sightings of me as a teenager is one of me yelling at my cousin to stop videotaping me, and  the other  is of me at age 16, at a ward Roadshow practice. And people, believe me, it is obnoxious! Probably because I was obnoxious at 16! I am on stage chewing a piece of gum like I’m doing it a favor and supplying more eye rolls than is legally allowed by the FCC.

Think on your own teen years, but imagine being surrounded by friends who are constantly prepared to video whatever foolishness you are prone to! Here’s a list of what you and I were spared by me being a teen of the 80s and as a result, no rogue video floating around:

*I played water polo. Nobody needs to see what that looked like. (This was before the “hip,” less-offensive Speedos you see in the Summer Olympics now.)

*Once during my sophomore year of high school I had to go up to the board to diagram a sentence in my English class. My pants caught on a broken part of a desk as I walked to the front and ripped a hole on the area of my jeans covering my bum. Not cool.  It was a YouTube moment waiting to happen…but mercifully, there was no YouTube!

*My first kiss was at a Youth Conference, on a bus, in front of millions of people. Whew, dodged a bullet there.

*My freshman year I played the clarinet. In the marching band. At football games. Nobody beat me up or gave me a wedgie. But they should have. And that would have been on Facebook for sure. (There wasn't the anti-bullying movement that you see nowadays. I guess it was an era when people figured if you were in the marching band then you had it coming. And it’s hard to argue with that logic.)

When a Stranger Texts

I like to think I’m a pretty rational fellow. I don’t believe everything I read, I have never purchased a can of Spam or the more health-conscious Spam Lite, and despite his recent resurgence in popularity, I remain creeped out by movie star and poster boy for herpes: Mickey Rourke.

My point (and I have one here, somewhere in my wallet): I’m a pretty calm fellow. I don’t panic easy. But sometimes…when it comes to my children…even Hollywood cliché-sounding dialogue throws me into an irrational state of alarm.

Picture with me, if you will, that you are about to head out with your family to a wonderful night at the theater. Everybody is giddy with the anticipation of Broadway songs that will stick in your mind for days to come so that later that weekend, when you are about to go out with your wife to a party and she asks how she looks, you inexplicably blurt out in song, “You’re never fully dressed without a smiiiiiile!”

I digress.

Anywhich, we were all about to head out, when Connor, my 8 year-old snuggles up on the couch and admits that he’s feeling crummy. I check the temperature of his forehead and get an accurate reading with the back of my hand: Definitely Hot. He’s buried under blankets, slightly delusional, and says he just wants to stay home. He’s 8. He’s a responsible kid, and we’ve left him before. But not this late and not with this much distance between us. But I can tell he feels yucky and doesn’t want to leave the comfort of a blanket, hunkered down on the couch and, for the first time in his young life, fully and totally in control of the Disney movie selection for the evening.

He reassures Katie and I that he’s fine. She leaves her cell phone with him and we explain that he can call or text any time. And we roll out.

The show was sold out, and so not all of our seats were next to each other. I sat on one side of the theater with half the kids, Katie on the other with the other half. We were told to turn off our cell phones as the play started, but last I checked it is STILL a free country, and I had an 8 year old at home that needed to be able to reach me. So up yours, Summerlin Library. If that is your real name!

We were in the final act of the play, and if memory serves, despite a Hard-Knock Life (I think because of the close-minded 1933 prejudice towards red-heads) a young girl was being adopted by a prematurely bald Daddy Warbucks, and all looked to be wrapping up pretty well.

When I began a text messaging exchange with Connor that will chill you to the bone. Please read at your own discretion. This is not for the faint-hearted.

CONNOR: Dad, can I eat some toast?

ME: Sure, bud. How you feeling?

CONNOR: Bad. I feel like I am not alone.

ME: (A shot of fear to my heart.) You feel like you are NOT alone? Or you feel like you ARE alone and lonely?

CONNOR: NOT alone.

ME: (Remaining calm, despite a trepidation crawling up my spine as I picture my son sitting alone for his first time in a large, empty, dark house with a silence he isn’t used to as he’s never alone…and irrationally worrying there could be a 2% chance he isn’t alone. “The text is coming from inside the house!”) You are ok, bud. We locked all the doors before we left. You are safe. We’ll be home soon.

CONNOR: I hear footsteps.

ME: (Swearing to hunt down and kill anybody that ever hurts my son.) You aren’t used to the house being so quiet, so you might think you hear something upstairs.

CONNOR: No. I hear them right behind me. But I can’t look.

ME: (Grabbing everything and heading for the door.) We are leaving right now. But I promise it’s your imagination. Everything is okay. Nobody else was there when we left, and we locked all the doors so nobody else could have come in. You are safe!

CONNOR: I don’t know.

ME: (Feeling like I am bordering on melodramatic) I DO! I promise son. You are ok and you will be ok until we get home! Say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help you feel safe and calm.

CONNOR: Ok.

And man, we split! We ran to the car, threw kids in, and talked to Connor on the phone almost the entire ride home to reassure him that we would never let anything happen to him – EVER.

He has since recovered and has shown no signs of any long-term affects. Could have been the quiet of the house. Could have been the raging fever. Could have been his overactive imagination. But one thing is for sure: It wasn’t the result of watching Mickey Rourke movies while eating Spam. Because that kind of fear will not enter this house – not on my watch!

UR TXTNG 2 MUCH

In case you weren’t sure where I stood on such key principles, I’m really not one of those dads who feel that his kids watching a DVD on a road trip is ruining “Family Time.” Today’s world offers such amenities, and that’s fine. Of course, this isn’t the same world that I grew up in. If it were, my kids would be unbuckled, lying down in the back of the Family Van, going to wherever, sharing the space with six siblings, listening to Unforgettable Fire on their WalkMan while they “rewound” their Listen Like Thieves cassette tape by sticking a pen in the spokes of the tape and whirling it around in order to rewind it by hand, thus saving the batteries in the WalkMan for strictly playing cassette tapes, rather than rewinding them. (And yes, in the next life, when the pioneers try to tell me how rough they had it, I am planning on bringing up this hardship in my defense.)

So I’m not your middle-aged fuddy-duddy neighbor who poo-poos all technological advances and thinks they are the demise of our children’s’ character. On the whole, I actually embrace such advances. However, I do have my limits.

Recently I had the unanticipated opportunity to put my head in my hands, angry and appalled, and weep at the thought of our future world leaders.  It began innocently enough; I was summoned to listen to a co-worker weave a tale of her daughter’s first date with this “super-cute” boy. (I cannot emphasize those quotation marks enough.)

“So,” the female co-worker begins, “they were sitting in the movie, and about 10 minutes into the movie he texts her!”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Were they sitting next to each other?”

“Yes!” she said, not detecting my disdain, “and do you know what he texted? He texted, ‘Can I hold your hand?’”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOHHHHHHHH!” cooed all the women in the office.

I stood there, stone-faced. I did not coo. I did not cheer. But I had the restraint to not say what I wanted to say, which was, “THAT IS TOTALLY CHEATING!”

I’m sorry, but that is not how the game is played. I understand how the power of texting provides a false sense of bravado and you can say (or ask) things you would never in a ba-jillion years do otherwise. And I can see the allure of going that route. I mean, I’ve wanted to quit jobs, inform somebody their fly was down, and tell-off my waitress all through the power of texting, rather than the more direct and traditional manner of talking face-to-face.

But brother, you are not doing yourself any favors by skipping the entire dance that is hand-holding. You are missing the joy and satisfaction of one of life’s greatest accomplishments. The patience, the reading of body language, the nuances and subtleties of movements, the wishing, the hoping, the fear, the anxiety, the pit in your stomach, the palm-sweats, the glances, the skin brushing. And when those fingers finally lock, it has all been worth it.  You can almost hear angels singing.

As an authority on the art of hand-holding, with mucho know-how and enough experience to write a book brief pamphlet on the subject, allow me to walk you through what the experience would have been, won’t you?

Where were we, 10 minutes into the movie? That’s not when you text to see if you can hold the girl’s hand; that is when you are wondering if she is going to be appalled at the amount of popcorn you can eat in one sitting.

15 Minutes: You observe the boundaries. What are the physical obstacles between you and her? A bucket of popcorn? Sodas? Her purse? A wall of anticipation so thick you have to poke it to measure the density?

30 Minutes: You lean towards her, possibly brushing shoulders. First contact. You realize you are paying very little attention to anything going on in the movie at this point.

45 Minutes: You casually place your arm on the armrest of the chair, and slyly look out of the side of your eye to see if she has done likewise. You leave it there for 20 minutes to give her ample opportunity to A) notice it, B) appreciate the opportunity to eat some of the popcorn that you are no longer inhaling, and C) casually move her own arm in that direction. Hands now in the same proximity.

60 Minutes: What the WHAT?! Your hands were so close, and now she has just as casually put her hands in her lap! You do the same, not wanting to appear desperate.

70 Minutes: Hands are inconspicuously back in proximity of each other. You’ve observed and retained about 15 minutes of the entire movie so far, completely preoccupied now by how dangerously close you are to lightly brushing up against her hand with yours – just to see what kind of reflex you get from her. Then you make the move – hand sweeps past hers, lightly touching. Does her hand move? Does it begin to take the direction of opening, fingers prepared to go inter-digitary with yours? Does it completely sit still? Does it actually recoil, going back into her lap, with her saying, “Oh, sorry,” assuming you accidentally bumped her? You both retreat, hands back to yourselves.

75 Minutes: The side of your pinky is now flat up against hers on the armrests. There’s contact, and nobody is withdrawing. You lift your pinky slightly, and her hand begins to slide into your now-shared space. It’s happening! Your hand slides over the top of her hand, she slides under yours, and your hands both turn and CLASP!

Euphoria!

Somewhere, the Hallelujah chorus is being belted out. To the on-looking movie goers, nothing has really changed, but internally, you are a volcano of emotions! You go deaf and can’t hear anything going on in the movie, your heart is visibly pounding in your chest, and your hand immediately begins to sweat, but you don’t dare break away and wipe it on your jeans. It might break the spell!

In fact, you consciously avoid any movement of your entire appendage whatsoever. You don’t want to draw too much attention to your date that you are, in fact, holding hands and probably going to get married some day. You are now a team as you watch this movie. You laugh at the same parts, even making comments to each other (which up to this point had been taboo).

90 Minutes. You remember nothing of the movie – other than it was your favorite movie EVER because you got to hold hands with your date!

Give all that up for the ease of a text message? I think not. Don’t surrender life’s delightful nuances to the crassness of technology. Please, join me in being a responsible tech-user.

(However, that being said; if my fly is down, as an act of goodwill, please consider texting me about it, rather than discussing it. That’s the kind of awkwardness we can all sidestep with the appropriate use of technology.)

Another eHarmony Success Story

I was recently the recipient of a most intriguing text. It was 10:18 in the P.M. when my cell phone vibrated in my right, front pants’ pocket. Instinctively, I demanded everyone stop talking or moving around or carrying on with any frivolity and shenanigans, so I could give the proper respect and attention to my incoming text.

But I was suddenly perplexed by what I read:

Hi Ally. Just wanted to say hi. I hope it’s not too late. Justin.

Now, for those of you keeping score at home, my name is not Ally. Never has been. Not even to my most intimate friends. And the only Justin I know who would text me is my brother. And he rarely calls me ‘Ally.’ And he knows I keep late hours, so unless he was texting to ask me if it was too late to apologize for breaking into my locked trunk while I was out of the country for two years and subsequently losing not one but TWO mix tapes I had made before leaving, then I couldn’t see why he would be asking me if it was “too late.” (And no, Justin, it’s not late to apologize for that. I forgive you. Whew – I’ve been waiting for that one! Thank goodness that’s over. Water under the bridge, brother. Water. Under. The Bridge.)

Anyway, I immediately surmised that this fellow had the wrong number. So as a common courtesy, I simply typed:

Of course it’s not too late. Come on over. And giggled to myself at the thought of Justin showing up to Ally’s residence, unannounced and late in the evening. But then I thought, “This Justin character (if that is his real name) has my cell phone number. He could really make things annoying for me. Best I just leave him alone.” So I deleted my original message and went with the safer:

Justin who?

From eHarmony, he clarified.

Wrong number. I answered back. I’m not Ally.

Wow, he texted a final time. She gave me a wrong number. Don’t I feel like an [Bible swear word].

Oh, hold me. This poor sap. He actually trusted that this woman had given him her real number. Now, I’ve never been on eHarmony; however, I have to assume that of all the millions of phone numbers exchanged over that site, 98% to 112% of them are fakes.

I thought of sparing his feelings and helping him to feel like maybe he was dodging a bullet with Ally. Something like: Just kidding, Justin. This is Ally. I’m sorry, but it IS too late. I’ve gone back to my boyfriend. He has been there for me every time I’ve gotten out of rehab. Also, we love the same Hilary Duff movies! And even when I pistol-whipped him one time for making that comment about Oprah, he forgave me so quickly. So, sorry Justin, but maybe in a different life.

But again, he had my cell phone number. Plus that would have taken too much time to text. Plus I am exceptionally busy as of late, trying to recreate two awesomely assembled mix tapes, circa 1990, that my brother may or may not have lost and/or stolen. (For which I totally forgive him.)