NOSTALGiA

Those familiar with the greatest show on television are, like me, probably thinking a lot about time travel lately. Can you change the past? To what extent? For just yourself or for others too? (Oh, the show is LOST by the way, but you already knew that.)

All of that high minded pseudo-science has got me to thinking about the age old adage, "If only I knew then what I know now."

Well, I haven't really learned much since I was a child so that line of thinking brought me nowhere. However, what I have done is spent the last year or so of my life with the greatest tech toy in the history of mankind. (Wow, I use a lot of hyperbole.) So the sentiment for me becomes, "If only I had then, what I have now." How would key moments of my life have turned out differently if I had had my iphone all along?

Pointless and unproductive says you? Pointless, unproductive, and a great way to make my childhood seem more impressive says I.

The very first memory I have is from my first day in kindergarten. It was dark outside when my Mom pulled up to the dilapidated elementery sidewalk (I don't recall how early it was, but from the mostly vacant look of the parking lot I can retrospectively make a pretty healthy conjecture). Clearly in no hurry to get me out of the house and finally start enjoying her life, she gingerly shuffled me out of the van and sped off. I felt utterly alone. Thats my first memory; it explains a lot.

If I had only had my iphone then. I could easily

romanticize about how I would have called my mom back to me so that I wouldnt be so scared, or used the maps to find my way back home. But odds are I would have gotten to playing Kamikaze Robots (a delightfully engrossing game if not a little one-tracked) and not even realized I was no longer at home until lunchtime. Alright, crisis averted! Childhood memory one de-scarred! Thanks iPhone!

In middle school, there was once where I got pummeled for knowing nothing about sports...BOOM! I could have taken a quick gander at Sportacular and wowed those pre-meatheads with my extensive knowledge of all things recreational.

HIgh School. I take out the prettiest girl I know. 10 minutes into the date and she feels that it is already necessary to lay down the law that nothing will ever happen between us. The date continued for 4 more hours. Just think, one little push on Fake-a-call and I could have been out of that awkward catastrophe of a social experiment in a flash!

As fun as it is to conjecture, the more I really think about it the more I wonder if it isn't those very difficulties in life that prepared me to more thoroughly enjoy the ease that the iPhone brings me in my more wizened years. If I had had it all along, then I would probably be nothing more than a wealthy, successful, happy, healthy, respected individual; and who wants that?

So the next time you see a kid struggling against bullies, or trudging along on a hopeless date; just hold your iPhone up towards them, wink slowly, and smile as if to say:

"Its all uphill from here."