You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Face Time.
You know the grainy, picture in picture, camera phone that makes the person on the other end look like an avatar with attitude.
I don’t use facetime often. In fact, I probably have only used it once before.
It’s awkward, staring at your phone, holding it up before your face.
It’s like an electronic looking-glass. A two way selfie.
“You wanna facetime?” I ask the kids.
“No thanks,” they say like I’m from another dimension.
My kids are the snap chat generation.
Facetime?
To my kids, face time makes as much sense as water skiing in the desert, as skunk juggling, as voting red in a blue state.
To me, the facetime button is like the elusive button in the Wonka glass elevator.
“What’s this one do?” Charlies asks.
“I’ve pressed every button but this one. I don’t know what it does, Charlie,” Willy Wonka retorts. “Let’s find out.”
And of course he pushes the button and it flies into the sky.
That’s my iphone. The glass wonka-vator of communications.
So I figured I’d never use this feature.
Well, figure again.
My flip phone father has entered the new millennium.
I call him and say “Hey, Happy holiday, how’s it going?”
“Hang up and I’ll facetime you,” he says.
“You’ll Facetime me?” I say perplexed.
“Yeah, hang up and I’ll face time you.”
The words are foreign to my ears like a Korean 4th of July parade.
Facetime to my dad is like a bikini model with underarm hair.
It’s not pretty.
My dad was born in the 1930’s.
TV’s have not yet been invented. America is recovering from the great depression. WWII is still a glimmer in history’s eye.
Facetime?
My dad is happy to have a Cell phone.
My dad is the guy who brags about his flip phone, a phone that literally does nothing.
“My phone calls people,” He once told me. “That’s what my phone does.”
I stare at him perplexed.
“That’s great Alexander Graham Bell,” I say.
Way to dip your big toe into the deep end of technology.
“Hang up and I’ll Facetime you.”
I hang up and wonder if that was really my dad or did I accidentally butt dial Steve Jobs.
My dad knows how to facetime like Iron Sides knows how to break dance.
“Hang up and I’ll Facetime you.”
Those 6 words coming out of my dad’s mouth are a new millennium sign of the Apocalypse.
So I hang up and wonder how this is going to work.
I’m with my two sons at a pizza restaurant.
“Your grandfather says he wants to Facetime us. What do you want to do?”
“Well it’s going to be awkward,” my youngest son says.
The snap chat generation thinks talking to a octogenarian on facetime will be awkward.
Is that because we are in a restaurant or because it might last more than 7 seconds?
We get up and walk into the parking lot.
The brisk November air slaps us in the face.
We move out of the shade of the building and into the sun.
It warms things up and we gather shoulder to shoulder.
“Hello,” I say as people stare at us exiting the pizza restaurant.
“Hello,” my dad screams.
I see his humpty dumpty avatar head in the small iphone screen.
I see a small square that represents me and my 2 sons behind me.
“Hey there, dad,” I say.
It’s an episode of the Jetsons coming to life in a strip mall parking lot.
Only thing I’m missing is a dog named Astro and a robot named Rosie.
I stare at the screen. I see the face of my 80-year-old dad. And he’s Face Timing.
Hilarious. Technologically sophisticated. Family oriented.
And so the conversation begins. I hold up my iphone with my 2 sons standing behind me. The sun is in my face and I see Gammi and OP on the screen.
They talk and we talk at the same time. I stop talking and they stop talking. There’s a time delay like a live shot from Afghanistan, but all in all it’s fun.
The grandparents begin commenting on how tall the boys look and how nice their haircuts are.
I suddenly realize, Facetime is a pretty good way to talk to people, especially grandparents who want to see what their grand kids look like.
I suddenly wonder why I’ve been waiting so long to Facetime with Mr. Flip Phone?
Maybe because you can see who you are talking to and they can see you.
With Facetime, the days of phone calls wearing no pants are over.
You want to talk business sitting on the john? You’ll never make that deal.
So the boys talk about school and birthdays. And the grandparents talk about Thanksgiving day and school grades.
It’s all very nice. Very new millennium.
It’s not better than a flip phone, but it is different from a flip phone.
With a picture you don’t have to use as many words to describe what you are doing, what’s going on around you, what you are wearing.
Maybe it’s better. Maybe it’s just different.
Face time with Mr. Flip Phone.
It’s all good.
Life’s Crazy™