AOL-D

It seems like yesterday.   But, indeed, it was probably about twenty years ago when everybody started to say "you've got mail."

You got your first PC and naturally you needed to have AOL.   No, wait, America On Line.  

You'd hook up the modem with the phone jack.   You went on-line and wouldn't receive a phone call as long as you were on the World Wide Web.   You'd set up your very first AOL user name and password.  You went through a painstaking process to come up with just the right on-line name.  It's as if you were naming your first child.

You'd click to sign on.   A crackle and hum would rattle the house.  Then, suddenly, a male voice would shout at you.

"HELLO!"

And then if you were popular....

"YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"

Usually, your connection would fall apart several times a day.   Or the system would run so slow that you'd see this running icon.

Sometimes it would run for hours.   You'd bang on your keyboard repeatedly.   Then get disgusted and swear off computers for life.

Chances are you were back trying to connect again in less than 45 minutes.

Yep, gang, that was 1994.  And you all remember your first on-line experience.

Flash forward to 2015.  The static and garble is gone.   Your connection now runs through Wi-Fi as does practically everything else in your house.  Everything is smooth as silk.

Now there are thousands of ways you can set up an e-mail account.  Yahoo.  Google.  G-Mail.   Many of them are free.

And then there are some of us still holding onto our original AOL monikers.  Hey, mine was way too clever.  A combination of initials and New York Met history.  I was proud of it.  The damn thing should live forever.  

Hello?

Sure, I've got access to some of the other portals.  Business accounts on company servers.   Other business on G-Mail.  But, still, my original AOL account exists.

There have been a few times where I needed to contact them for technical help and I did get a live voice that may actually reside on this side of the globe.  They are helpful and got me mixed.

I look at the AOL homepage and wonder what I am paying for, even if it is only a couple of bucks a month.  Every day, there is a spotlight on a bizarre news story.  A bride disappears on her honeymoon.  A child has not been found in the Adirondacks for weeks.  Interesting uses for snake milk.  Huh?

I could easily shift my super-clever AOL user name to another site.   Friends have already done so.  I think about the hassle and whether it's worth it.  It would have to be a slow migration.   It might take an entire year to achieve.

But I still hold off.  Why?

Recently, a business colleague was speaking with me and noted my AOL address.

"Wow, that's old."

Excuse me.

I was instructed that, in today's society, an AOL extension on your e-mail translates to the notion that you are out of it.  Not socially up on anything new.  A dinosaur.

Thank you very much.

I ponder what the new AOL greeting might be for me.

"You've got wrinkles."

I resolve to make the transition ASAP.  Before anybody else is RFLMAO at me.  

The process begins tomorrow.

Or maybe next week.

Or next month.

Damn you, AOL.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich and soup.