Not Your Average Damsel

I AM FLUENT IN GANKING AND AM PERIMENOPAUSILY AGGRO. DON’T TEST ME.

The ShopRite mobile scan app has all the connection reliability of two cans and a length of bakery string. Nevertheless, I am at an age where it is assumed that, when technology fails, what has gone wrong is inevitably me- and my old lady technological ineptitude. If my transaction is holding up the line, it must be that I don’t know what I am doing.

This morning for example, on cue: enter young Gen Alpha savior, with one underage, nail-nubbed finger rising to point at my screen. “Um, Ma’am, you have to be on our WIFI-” It took all that I had not to audibly shush him and put my same pointing finger to his lips. “No . . .”, I interrupted, [Sweet Christ, is this really what his nametag says?] “No, Atticus, I have already been on the WIFI for an hour. That’s how I scanned all these lovely groceries in my cart. The connection drops constantly while you shop, and just for an extra inconvenience, usually doesn’t pick up until after you stand here at the register for 3-5 minutes.” He retreated then, seeming miffed at my audacity to actually know what I was doing here at the checkout. When the app’s connection was finally restored, I tapped my card, with my phone held sideways, as I always do. After months of trial and error, I discovered that sideways is the only way my phone will tap. Had Atticus still been standing there when I did it, I am sure that sweaty, teenage hand would have tried to grab my phone from me, with a ‘Let me help you.’ of condescension. I may not have resisted the urge to shush him that time, and smack his hand away.

Why are they all so convinced that, if there is a screen involved, that we don’t know what we are doing? I am a GEN X: the Analog/Digital Daywalkers. We are the parents and parent-aged mentors that raised these children on this very technology! I remember the birth of Goooooooooogle. I wrote papers based on research scavenged through a dial-up connection on a hulking tower of a desktop that I built. When I was Atticus’ age, I had had more sex on AOL Instant Messenger and in white-screened, html chat rooms than I had had actual sex. I spent entire planetary rotations in front of MMORPGs, breaking only for caffeine, shits and pringles. Don’t play with me young man, and stop trying to touch my phone.

When I put ShopRite in my rear view, a healthy dose of Bill Withers’ Lovely Day was all I needed to swipe away Atticus’ tech slight. But, it also helped me realize that Sirius XM’s Yacht Rock Soul (my newest obsession) does not do much to make me feel any less like a fossil. That station is so right — and so very fucking old of me. The soundtrack of my late 40s has a reoccurring reprise of Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione on the track listing. Vacation? Mangione. Cocktails on the porch? Mangione. Summer night drives? MAN-GI-ONE. If you haven’t heard it in a while, or ever, you should listen. Trust me, it sets the vibe- and the vibe feels so good, man. Yes, this is what happy looks like and this is what peace looks like, and what a sprinkling of well-earned indulgence looks like too. Yes. But, it is also what an AARP card looks like- you know what I mean?

Feeling this old and feeling the need to defend my tech savvy have converged this morning to hog call some memories. In my world, regular 90’s-00’s Gen X memories are braided together with the memories of nerds playing rogues and spell-casters, wielding character sheets, keyboards or both.

Make no mistake, I am the star of these memories. I am said nerd. I gamed for decades with collectible cards and little glass gems, reading source books and rolling polyhedral dice, and hot-keying combat and downloading expansion packs. I can still remember my first kill in realm vs. realm. I was so nervous, you would have thought I was physically wearing the armor and brandishing a sword and coming in for a stealth stab-stab. She was a blonde Norse Flammen Vakten and, with her stupid cloaked back to me, unguarded, she never even saw me coming. I floated on that kill’s resulting bloodlust-high for days, boy. Days.

At that time in my life, I would only log out to go to class or work then come right home to finish HW and end the night on a guild raid. I miss online gaming like that. All those days and nights spent role-playing? Though I bucked against it with DH Large and complained that my marriage was suffering for it– overall, I tell you, they were damn good times. And, of course, these called-up gaming memories always hammer in how much I miss DHLarge playing alongside me.

Hey J- until we meet again in whatever the afterlife holds, remember: feels like cat, jump for crack and stick me. And thank you, forever, for handing me a piece of my personality to shape and cherish.

/damsel