Confessions of a Dial-Up User

(Let's give a warm TDL welcome to Carolyn. She'll be sharing her adventures and misadventures as she becomes a Mac owner for the first time.)

 I feel I am the only individual left on Earth who can relate to The Slowsky’s especially since I share first name with the reptilian wife, Karolyn. When you check your mail in the morning, how long does it take? Five minutes? Six? Any longer and you'd be calling your local Internet provider in a fury. When I check my mail I could brew a pot of coffee, pour my cereal, make my bed and still make it back in time before the infamous "You've got mail!" greeting! (Yes, I still use AOL!)

My friends have finally accepted me as a dial-up abuser. I've officially been blacklisted from being sent funny YouTube links. I'm the prank caller at the Chinese take-out place, my name and number scribbled in Sharpie on the side of the freezer: DO NOT ANSWER! DO NOT SEND FUNNY VIDEOS TO THE DIAL-UP USER! HER COMPUTER WILL EXPLODE! I go to friend’s houses not for their friendships but for their high-speed connections! While everyone watches Jon & Kate’s relationship unravel on the TV, I sniff out the computer and catch up on all the high bandwidth videos I’ve had to skip. I’ve said about every curse word in the book when it comes to my dial-up. I’ll admit, I cried like a baby the 3rd time I had to restart my computer while uploading pictures (three at a time!) to Facebook.

But despite my tears and wasted minutes I am in some ways grateful for my delayed arrival to the fast lane. In a world where “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” proves true, (Daft Punk not Kanye!) I think it would benefit us all to take a step back, slow down and remember we survived centuries without Twitter updates in our inbox. We picked up the phone not knowing who sat on the other end. We played games outside with people, not through a headset in our parent’s basement. Our ancestors actually traveled the Oregon Trail! Technology is great, really, I’m totally psyched about joining, but please, remember us slow folks. We’re not all lame turtles. We’re actually pretty cool people.