When I was younger, “You’ve got mail” had two meanings and AVRDolphin was my alias. My parents divorced when I was little, which resulted in lots of moving over the years. When we would move I would get nervous in the new houses, so I unfortunately got into the habit of only being able to fall asleep with the TV on. This presented a problem. I would stay up way too late because I wanted to see how the shows ended. So my sister and I found the best solution. For a whole year we would fall asleep watching the movie, “You’ve Got Mail.” We would start from where we left off each night and would eventually rewind it and start again. It was the perfect plan, and to this day that movie still puts me to sleep. Who needs Nyquil when you have a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks love story to get you to sleep? America Online was my childhood. The day my Dad created my new identity, AVRDolphin, there was a whole new world to explore. I could search things, play games, receive emails, watch videos, but I barely did any of that. I would get really excited when I heard the computer man tell me, “You’ve got mail,” but the emails were always pretty lame. The instant messenger aspect was where my time was spent. I remember going into school giving everyone my screen name hoping they would chat me later. I would sit at my huge PC desktop at night with a bunch of IM’s open, just typing away. My Dad would often come in to check up on me, hoping I was typing so vigorously about something intellectual like homework instead of how cute my crush looked that day. He was almost always disappointed.
Photo taken by me: Distracting my nephews with TV while my sister and I got some other stuff done around the house
Therefore, growing up I was no stranger to television or the internet. Being the youngest of so many siblings, the rules were a little more relaxed for me and television was how I was kept occupied (a tactic still used on my nephews). I even learned the concept of time using the TV. When I would get sad my parents were leaving for a little while they would say, “We will be back in two Barneys and one Sesame Street” to make it seem like a lot less time. When I was in elementary school, I had both a TV and a computer in my bedroom and was allowed to use both of them whenever I wanted. Although my parents’ famous line was, “Watch as much TV as you want, but you are the one who has to stay up late and finish your homework.” And that I did. I would attempt to do my homework while watching TV, muting during commercials to do the reading portions. It was not the most efficient way, but it worked just fine and I always got everything done! I was the kid in school that people were jealous of, not because I was super cool and awesome (which I obviously was), but because I was allowed to watch things that they weren’t. My favorite being the show Friends. I was allowed to stay up later and watch the grown up shows that they dreamed about. This only got me in trouble a few times. Once at a friend’s house when I begged her mother to let me watch 7th Heaven so I wouldn’t miss anything (these were days before Hulu and DVR). Other times I would inform my friends of something I learned on a show or in a movie. Apparently these things kids weren’t supposed to know for a few more years.
video taken from YouTube
I can say definitively, I was not a fan of newspapers as a child. My parents love the New York Times and always have, which is the last thing a child wants their parents to like. It took their attention off my sisters and me. They were unable to multitask when reading the newspaper, which made my breakfast time incredibly boring. Although when Dad was reading it was the ideal time to ask him questions. Our favorite being, “Dad can we have a million dollars please” with an automatic “Yes” response. We were very smart little girls and he still owes us a lot of money.
My Dad also owned a publishing company when we first moved to New Milford, Connecticut. My sisters and I would often get dropped off there after school by our carpool until he was done working. Depending on the day, this was either really fun or incredibly boring and long. We loved playing with his employees and distracting them from their many tasks (sorry Dad), and they would even let us help with little things like shredding paper. We would often resort to painting our nails with White Out at his secretary’s desk or photocopying our hands with the copy machine (both very fun ways to entertain ourselves). All of these activities were fun, but only for so long. I had a very short attention span as a child. Therefore, the production of newspapers became just as boring as the actual newspaper itself. Occasionally we would do our homework, but we usually managed to find something better to do instead.
Top photo taken from Google images
