This Is How Old I Am
A list without commentary
- I can remember arranging in advance to meet a certain person at a certain time and sticking to the plan and just waiting for them for a while if they didn’t turn up.
- I spent hours and hours and hours in my teens writing letters.
- I had an Amstrad PCW 8256 which I got as a hand-me-down from my rich uncle’s company and it was the height of sophistication.
- I didn’t get an email address till I went to university and I was baffled by the whole thing and so overwhelmed I almost cried.
- At college, we hung pieces of paper on our bedroom doors and that’s where we left each other messages — or in each other’s pigeon holes (which is what Brits or least Brits at my university call mail slots).
- Getting landlines installed in our university rooms was the height of coolness.
- I had a green phone from Argos which cost £9.99 and I was so proud of it I remember my voicemail was something like “this is Claire on her new green phone!”.
- I waited for buses for ages with no earthly idea what time it was actually going to turn up.
- When I got on my buses somewhere new, I had to follow the route on an A-Z (i.e. a paper map) so that I’d have some idea where I was going.
- I changed my name to my middle name, Amy, when I went to high school and it was fine because no one was like “but you’re Claire on social media!”
- I remember ICQ — and kind of feel nostalgic for it sometimes. Is that weird?
