Ten things my kids will never have or do

1. Listen to everyone's messages on the family answering machine. Remember when the whole family would gather around the ol' answering machine after an evening out? You would hear your Mom's friend asking her to call her about something, Grandma prattling on for several minutes about her doctor's report, and your parents would know which friend was calling to you to hang out that weekend. Yeah, that will never happen again thanks to individual cell phones. Kind of sad.

2. Browse Tower Records for hours looking for a CD. They will never know the awesomeness of standing at those stations with headphones on previewing the music on the CD. Shameful. My husband has informed me that he never did this, but rather he would just buy the CD. Well, good for him. I, for one, loved spending a whole Saturday sitting on a stool and listening to the entire soundtrack of a Broadway CD. But that is probably an indictment on my cool factor as a youth, so let's just move on.

3.  Listen to the radio with their fingers waiting to push down on the record button so they can add their favorite song to their mixed tape. Anyone remember that? I would listen to the top 40 just waiting and waiting so I could get that one special song on my mixed tape. I would run to the bathroom during station breaks and I would be so annoyed when the DJ's would talk over the intro therefore ensuring I would hear their grating voices every time I popped that awesome tape into the deck of my car.

4. Watch commercials. Thanks DVR's. Now the only time I have to watch these things is when watching a show on Hulu. And by the time my kids are old enough to read this blog, that will probably be a thing of the past as well.

5. Develop film. Remember waiting for 2 days to get those awesome 24 pictures (or 36 if you were cool) back from your vacation? Remember having to load up on film before your trip? And remember when everyone would get together for ONE picture? Not take a pic, have everyone look at it, wait for one of the girls to inevitably point out that she looks awful, and then try again until everyone is satisfied? Yeah, those were the days.

6. Payphones. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that one anymore. Always keeping change on you, standing in those gross germ filled booths praying that they person you need is home. No further explanation needed.

7. Yellow pages. Those huge books that were found on your doorstep are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Too bad. They were fabulous for stacking and using as doorstops.

8. Encyclopedias. My kids will never know a world where any small bit of information they need is not right at their fingertips. They will never know what it was like to need information on a subject and then only have two paragraphs available to you. Two paragraphs! Laughable, I tell ya.

9. Try to look cool while holding a CD player in your lap (or worse, in your pocket) and huge earphones on your head. I will say ipods trump Discmans any day.

10. Keeping an atlas in your car. Sorry, Rand McNally, but it looks like Mr. Garmin has officially put you out of business. My first job out of college was one where I spent a whole year traveling all over the country. I won't admit to how many hours I spent looking at maps and trying to figure out which routes and roads and interstates would be the best bet for our trip. Now, you just type in ( or say aloud) the address of your destination, lean back, and let the good times roll.

So, what am I forgetting? Pagers? Thought about that but those were only cool for a brief window of time unless you are a drug dealer or a doctor of which I am neither. Any others?