Innovations

This post from Atrios reminded me of an exchange that occurred a few weeks ago at my grandfather's 90th birthday party. My grandfather's best friend's granddaughter Emily, who just graduated from Georgetown, wanted to send something to my grandfather to read. The conversation went like this:

Emily: Do you have e-mail?
My grandfather: Honey, I don't have a microwave.

Later on, I asked my grandfather what he thought was the most amazing technological innovation in his lifetime. His answer?

The cell phone.

I don't think that would've been my answer even for just my lifetime, but cell phones really have allowed for people to function in radically different ways, and that's probably more pronounced for someone who was alive in the early days of telephones. With all of the times I've needed a cell phone to coordinate something, I really have trouble grasping how we lived without them.

And this also reminded me that it took me a long time to convince my grandfather that he didn't have to worry about whether or not I was home in order to call me.