Bizarro is brought to you today by Modern Phone Technology.This cartoon was originally going to have a different caption: "What are you wearing?"
I still think that's a funny caption but once drawn up, it seemed really creepy to have a child saying this, my editor agreed and I changed it to this less pedophilic punch line. That's the nature of the business.
At the risk of sounding like an old timer, I cannot believe how far phone technology has come in my lifetime. Until I was a teenager, you had to dial a phone with that rotary thing, which was an arduous and deafeningly noisy task. There was no such thing as a cordless phone, so you had to stand wherever the phone was. The wires were not detachable, either, and you couldn't switch it off.
We thought the "future" had arrived when they invented extra long curly cords that went from your phone to your handset. But those looked like a bowl of dried spaghetti within a couple of months and you were back to standing next to the phone.
Voice mail and answering machines didn't exist, of course. An answering machine was anyone you could talk into answering the phone so you wouldn't have to get up. I was my parents' answering machine, as well as their TV remote.
On the subject of answering machines, have you noticed Hollywood is the only place that hasn't given them up for electronic voicemail? Movies and TV shows still regularly have old fashioned answering machines, so the audience (and characters in the room) can hear who's calling, thus advancing the drama. James Bond has a car that sees in infrared and shoots nanobots but he still uses an answering machine he bought at Target in 1974. "James, if you're there pick up! Pick up! Pick up!" Does he still have a block of ice hand delivered to his "icebox" every morning, too?
Don't forget to check back at 4pm NYC time today for the contest. See the post below.
