I know all of these things still exist, I just miss them in the way that you miss an old friend you've permanently lost touch with: it can never be quite the same again.
1. Letters. We have much faster means of communication now but I am a little sad that letters have been rendered largely obsolete because of this. I've got letters from friends telling me they'll see me in a day or two: I miss the speedy post where you could actually write to a friend to make fairly imminent plans. I miss getting proper letters in the post. I miss the postcards. I miss that you could send somebody some news (sometimes bad news) and then not feel anxious about their reply popping up in an unspecified time frame.
2. Photo booths. If you needed a photo booth photo for something proper, like a passport or a rail card, these were a rotten pain because you never knew how they were going to come out until it was much too late, but they were fun for all cramming into and taking silly pictures.
3. Libraries. Portsmouth Central Library was like a mothership for me as a kid. Hours and hours were whiled away in the acres and acres of orange carpet. Four floors of silence and books. I love that libraries have adapted now to offer communities what they need, but, oh.
4. MP3 players. A bit more modern, this one. I am not hanging out to return to the days of walkmans, because I don't particularly miss having to carry around batteries and cassettes, and I definitely prefer the modern version of headphones, but I do miss the MP3 player. Mr Z bought me one c2003 and it held a massive 13 songs, but it was half the size of a credit card and they moved on quickly. I had a Phillips one that sat in an arm cradle for running. Such thoughtful tech. Now I use my old phone as an MP3 player, which is handy because I can also have Audible on it; but I saw a meme this week that said something like, 'Remember when the battery lasted over a week because it wasn't tracking you?' and, yes. That was good.
5. Phone boxes. It took me a long time to think of a fifth thing, or rather, to decide on a fifth thing. I'm not romanticising the phone box: they were usually chilly, often smelled of urine and frequently slightly broken so the sound quality wasn't great. But they were handy places in a world where people didn't have a personal phone: a way to have a truly private conversation; a place to have a long chat over a long distance in a pay-as-you-go fashion; even just a little shelter from the rain to have a conversation with someone in person.
I was ruminating for so long over a fifth thing that I forgot to finish this on Friday *sadface* but I had written it up to 4 on Friday, so I am backdating. Don't call me a cheater. My blog, my rules. I should have just made it Friday four, though.
* a very fancy name for the drawer of my filing cabinet that has all my old diaries and letters in it.
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