How times change!
I was thinking about a little incident that happened a few years back today, and considering how modern technology would have changed things.
See, back in the 80s, my wife told me that she was going to be doing something else, and her sister would meet me at the train station after work and drive me home. I shrugged, and said okay.
So at about 6:30, I got off the train and went outside where I usually met my wife when she picked me up. I looked around. No sister. Well, she would be along. So I settled in to wait.
After a while, I began to worry. Maybe she had parked around the corner? I walked around and looked. No sister. Hum...
I actually did try calling on the public phone there. But after ringing a while, I hung up. Apparently there was no one home.
After an hour of waiting, I finally gave up and walked home. Not a big problem, but I wondered what had happened to the sister.
Later that evening, we called to ask. She was upset!
"I got there 20 minutes early. And waited 10 minutes, but you didn't come! So I left. Where were you?"
I still remember being puzzled. "Wait. You got there early, so you left early? But I was coming from work, I can't get there early."
For quite a while afterwards, she was upset because I hadn't gotten there early. Of course, I was just confused, because I couldn't figure out why her getting there early meant I would get there early. How dare I be on time? Didn't I know she was waiting for me?
But ignore that. The real trick here is that first, at that time, the home phones didn't have answering machines, so I couldn't leave a message. Second, of course, neither one of us had a cell phone, so I couldn't just call her and ask, "Where are you?"
Nowadays, I think she'd probably still be upset with me for getting there late. But she might try calling me, and I could explain that I was still in the train, please wait. And avoid the mysterious disappearance, and her getting quite so upset about me being too late to meet her.
Even if I was on time.
Answering machines and cell phones. Making relatives happy.
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