You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
New Millennium birthday calls.
The phone rings. I look at the screen. It’s my best buddy in San Diego.
The iphone says “accept facetime”
Interesting. It sounds like a query from a Japanese Call girl.
I decide it’s worth the risk.
I push the button and the screen illuminates.
Suddenly I am looking at a bunch of guys who just came off the links.
“Happy Birthday” they scream.
The clarity is surprisingly good. I can see their faces clearly. I can see them so well, I can tell by their disheveled hair and red eyes that the drink girl successfully navigated to them more than once.
The moment is technologically absurd. It’s crazy. They are passing the phone around like a skunk weed joint back in the dorms.
They are cracking jokes and wishing me happy birthday.
I’m getting ready to head out to dinner and I am wearing a shirt and tie.
“Why do you look so good?” they bark into the phone. “You going to church?”
We all laugh.
“How was the golf?” I ask.
“Rainy they shout,” holding the phone up near the window.
I walk outside and show them the snow on the ground.
“It snowed here.”
The San Diego boys shriek like little girls.
Some of them are coming here in 5 days.
“Guess I won’t be wearing shorts,” one bemoans.
“Nope.”
This phone conversation is really amazing. Not because of what we are saying, but how we are saying it.
It’s transcendent. It is technologically over the top. It’s not your daddy’s phone call.
It’s the stuff of science fiction. I push a button and suddenly I’m staring at the face of a friend I have known for 36 years.
I halfway expect Gene Roddenberry and Steve Jobs to be standing in the corner applauding.
Wouldn’t your great grandmother marvel at this technology. The days of a phone on the wall connected by a cord are long gone.
Now it’s a full sensory experience.
I can see how they look. They can see how I look. I can see what they are talking about. Thank God nobody has just come out of the shower.
They show me the Irish Car Bombs (Guinness and baileys) they are shooting in my honor. I watch it. I wait for them to consume it. I wait for them to slam their mugs down. I wait for them to burp.
“For you brother!,” they shout.
It’s amazing.
It’s as if I am there. I didn’t have to imagine how frothy the toast was. I could almost taste it.
Face Time love you long time.
And that’s crazy.