the evolution of cell phones

Mac is pretty sure he needs a cell phone.

I'm pretty sure he's lost his mind.

Today he and I went out for lunch at his favorite El Corral Gourmet. While we were waiting for our food, he was playing one of the three games on my cell phone, which is just about the cheapest, most nondescript phone that Nokia makes.

Mac asked me how old I was when I got my first cell phone. I told him I was 23, had graduated from college and really only got one then because I was traveling for the FDIC and wanted to have it in case the car broke down or I got lost, and most importantly, I paid for the cell phone and the monthly bills with my own hard-earned money.

I told him that phones then had no games or applications on them, no camera, no music-playing or video-watching capabilities, and certainly no Internet connection. I don't think I'd even heard of the Internet then.

I then proceeded to demonstrate with my hands how big this phone actually was and how it came in its own little suitcase that you had to carry with you if you needed to take the phone outside of the car with you. The phone really was more of a car phone and less of a cell phone.

See Exhibit A for evidence (in case you've forgotten how big your first bag phone really was):

Apparently it's a remote concept to a very tech-savvy 7 year-old that something can be that big without having any purpose other than to make phone calls because he then quite seriously asked if I'd had the first iPad.

There are many things my first bag phone was, but an iPad is definitely not one of them.