I was at Circuit City last night, buying one more in an endless stream of adapters, AC power supplies, and replacement batteries that now consume exactly 20% of my income (but that’s another story).

Overheard at checkout line:

Mature Woman (handing object to checkout girl
for scanning): I had a terrible time finding this.

Very Young Checkout Woman: Yeah, you don’t see
them much.

MW: I mean, what do people do if they want to take a walk
and listen to music?

VYCW (with pity): iPods

MW: Oooh.

It turns out the MW was purchasing a Walkman, as in cassette-player-with-headphones.

Initially, I thought, Whoa, what cave has this person been living in?

But then I realized that, very soon, I will be the Mature Woman in this story. Not long after that, the Checkout Woman will be the Mature Woman. And the Checkout Woman’s daughter will be pitying all of us.

Kind of makes a person want to be careful about thinking he knows an awful lot about an awful lot of things.