The Embarrassed Time Traveler

I Am Not Caught Up With Modern Life

Still hanging in my kitchen. Even though it hasn’t had a ringtone since 2020.

Occasionally I feel like a time traveler with all the romance and blunders that come along with it. It’s a common experience, and it’s becoming more common the longer I live my life on this homestead.

Take for instance, yesterday. I spent most of my day working on the farm; moving animals to fresh pasture, weeding gardens, handling falconry birds, and grooming horses. When that work was done, I stayed outside for my R&R too. I swayed in my hammock and walked the stream with my fishing pole. When it got dark I went to bed. This morning, when the sun rose, I got up. And once coffee was poured, I was ready to head back outside to my timeless chores of living on a small farm in a forest. Sounds like something from another century, doesn’t it?

Well, you should see me try to go see a movie…

I’m generally not around chain theaters. My closest movie theater is a discount independent theatre in Bennington (or at least, still was the last time I visited). You’d show up a few minutes before a show, buy a paper ticket from a real person, walk into the empty theatre and sit wherever you wanted. Classic movie experience, at least to me. But this experience is rare and outdated for a lot of people now. Almost quaint.

The handful of times I have been to an AMC, someone else used their phone to pick seats and buy the tickets, saving me the humility of touch screens and QR codes. But the last time I went to the same theatre solo, I paid for and reserved seats online from my desktop computer. I figured that was that. I had participated in this new way to see movies now, which includes paying for your assigned seat in advance, online. But when I showed up with my emailed receipt, I wasn’t allowed in. I didn’t have the right app to scan my entry, or ability to download it since my phone was so outdated.