Conversation with My 10-Year-Old Self

It’s 2011 — the future — yet it’s not quite what I expected as a child. I kind of wonder if I could even make it all sound that interesting to my ten-year-old self. So, as a little thought experiment, here is an imagined conversation if I were able to go back in time and talk to young Frank J.

* * * *

“Hello! I am you from twenty-one years in the future!”

“Wow! Are you astronaut?”

“Well… no.”

“Then get away from me, loser!”

“Hey, not so fast. The future is a lot different than you would have thought. Didn’t get to be an astronaut — they’re still pretty rare — but I did get to be a blogger.”

“That like a plumber?”

“No, I write my thoughts on a computer and people all over the world get to read them.”

“So really cool people read what you write?”

“Well… people read what I write. Oh, and I’m also on this thing called ‘Twitter’ where I can instantly share my thoughts with thousands of people… as long as it’s under a 140 characters.”

“That’s asinine.”

“Wha… How do you even know that word?”

“So do you have jetpacks in the future?”

“No, not really. Those are dangerous.”

“Flying cars?”

“No, that would be dangerous too. We don’t like dangerous things in the future. Instead of flying cars, though, we have cars that are part electric and part gas.”

“Why?”

“Um… I’m not sure. I think to stop the planet from getting too hot… or too cold. One of those.”

“Asinine!”

“Come on; you can’t actually know what that word means.”

“So what cool tech do you have?”

“We have phones with lots of features on them.”

“Phones are boring! Who cares what features they have?”

“No, phones are really cool in the future. They’re like the coolest thing now.”

“You have the dumbest future ever!”

“No, it’s neat. You can throw birds at pigs.”

“What are you even talking about?!”

“I have a Droid.”

“You have a robot! Awesome!”

“No, it’s a type of phone.”

“Why is the future so boring and stupid and full of phones?! Do you even have robots?”

“Just… um… robot vacuum cleaners.”

“You guys took every cool idea for the future and made it boring! What do you guys even do in the future?”

“We… um… like things ironically.”

“Huh?”

“Well, we take things that are kind of cheesy, and pretend to like them. Especially things from our childhood. Like, things you really like now, we’ll pretend to be into that in the future.”

“So you’ll pretend to like the Simpsons?”

“Oh, you have that? That’s actually still on and decently watchable. Wow, I forget how old that show is.”

“So is there anything interesting from the future?”

“Well… we have a black president.”

“Like Mr. T?”

“Um… more like Urkel. I forget if you know who that is yet.”

“The future stupid and you are stupid!”

“Oh, I did bring one thing from the future: Here’s my new Nintendo 3DS.”

“THE FUTURE IS AWESOME! I WANT TO LIVE THERE!”

33 Comments

  1. Fred Thompson is like Mr. T.
    FormerHostage I think we need a confessional appoint or a trip to the woodshed since I’m not catholic. “Pron” for a ten year old is not appropriate. I pity the fool who give pron to a kid

  2. “So really cool people read what you write?”

    “Well… people read what I write.

    Infidel! May you fall over and put joystick in your eye. You shall then wear patch and will forever play in 1D! Your insults shall no longer be tolerated by loyal readers! I have your picture on the floor and am hitting with shoe…ha ha…take that one eyed 1DS player! Alah Akbar!

  3. Urkel as president would be a major improvement – the same level of manliness and leadership, but an intelligence increase by a factor of 20 or so.

    Also, it would be less annoying to listen to Urkel give a speech.

  4. “That’s asinine!”, is 10 year old Frank’s way of saying, “That’s ghey!”, in today-speak.

    Asinine is Ass to the 9th power. Your 10 year old self was really good at math.

    I always thought Frank’s ‘cool readers only’ filter was a little bit lax.

    Grown up Frank should have shown 10 year old Frank video of Capt. Kirk using his communicator, on his Droid. 10 year old Frank would have liked that.

  5. “Well… we have a black communist president with a name very similar to the Arabs who killed 3000 Americans who has terrorists write books for him and refuses to prove where he was born or anything else about himself.”

    There, I fixed it for you.

  6. When I was 10 years old,
    my Grandparents bought a beautiful new
    1970 purple Plymouth Roadrunner
    that was a dual fuel vehicle.

    It burned gas and rubber,
    and darn near flew.
    Too bad we wasted all the technology on computers and phones since then,
    instead of using it to keep producing fuel at a price that would make
    those muscle cars affordable today.
    “The future stupid and you are stupid!”
    Yeah, mostly.

  7. “‘So really cool people read what you write?’
    ‘Well… people read what I write. Oh, and I’m also on this thing called ‘Twitter'”

    I’ll give you credit. To try to put others down as not being cool, while simultaneously admitting that you’re on Twitter takes some guts. Ghey guts, but guts.

  8. “THE FUTURE IS AWESOME! I WANT TO LIVE THERE!”

    $20/gal. gas
    $.50/kwh electricity

    $10/loaf bread
    $15/5 lbs. sugar
    $10/10 lbs. flour
    $5/lb. potatoes

    $100,000/new GM Obama/Pelosi POS all-electric car

    And these will be the “good times.” Woo hoo!

  9. Thank God for all that surplus ammo I’ll be buying, Jimbo.

    Ammo is the best
    For it keeps me at rest
    Whether it’s Aught-Six, an old man’s friend
    Or nine mil, the old sissy’s friend
    Ammo takes the cake
    And makes baddies shake

  10. Let’s fire up the FED’s printing presses, Marko, so we can afford your ammo!

    Quantitative Easting forever, baby. I mean let it rip! Spew those greenbacks out like Japanese tsunami debris.

    Hey Congress!! Screw balancing the budget – or even cutting the deficit! Money for everyone!!! To hell with economics, and work, and effort, and reward, and savings and such old-fashioned ideas. Billions are starving and have no clean water or toilets. We need houses and food and medical care and medicine and water and TV’s and iPhones and electric cars and computer games for EVERYONE.

    Oh, computer game Nintendo 3DS. I knew I was on topic.

  11. Jimmy – you have our future economics nailed ma boy! As the bozos at the Fed continue to print gobs of money, the money becomes worth less and less. Gold is up to over $1,400 per ounce not because Gold is any more valuable but because the dollar is collapsing! My advise to anyone who will listen is to get out of the stock market now! Buy precious metals and sit and wait. There will be tremendous financial upheaval coming and if you own stocks you will get wiped out! I am buying Gold and Silver. Some are predicting Gold at $2,500 to $5,000 per ounce and Silver at $187.50 to $250.00 per ounce. Silver is currently at $33.00. The people saying this predicted Gold at $1,500 3 years ago!

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