If I could turn back time for a day
I was stacking up boxes in the garage, getting myself ready for my latest moving adventure, which I had planned for tomorrow morning at 9am sharp! I had been informed by my on-line confirmation that I had to complete my entire move in exactly six designated hours. The truck which I was renting at 9am had already been re-rented for 3pm that same day. Since my new home was an hour away I was forced to deduct two hours of driving time, leaving me with only 240 stress-filled minutes to load and unload a 17 foot truck! Reservations could not be changed. They had been placed and paid. The fact that it was almost 10pm did not allow me the privilege of talking to an agent.
As the stress about the whole move mounted, I couldn’t help but wish for a simpler time. I found myself reminiscing about how great it would be to see and feel certain things again; like renting a U-Haul truck for 19.99 for an entire day, instead of 29.99 for six hours, plus 10 dollars insurance and an extra 0.89 cents a mile!
What ever happened to real customer service? Not phone animated, web based conversations, but true person to person, eye contact customer service. Are companies truly making more money by using machines instead of live personal? Where did all the common courtesy like saying "please" and "thank you" run off to? Did it simply die off when Barney the purple dinosaur got taken off prime time television? While we’re on the subject of service, what ever happened to full service stations? I would gladly wait in an hour long line on an odd numbered day as long as I was only paying 0.89 cents a gallon for gas again!
I decided that I miss sitting around and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Not this new crap that their trying to pass off as cartoons. I want to sit in front of the tube on Saturday morning while eating coco puffs and watch the cartoon greats. Let me start the first few hours of my Saturday watching H.R.Pufnstuf, Dr. Doolittle, Motor Mouse, and Heckle and Jeckle. Let me enjoy my lunch while watching American Bandstand. I want to hear Dick Clark tell me one more time how high a rating a song received and how easy it is to dance to. I want to finish off my day laughing my heart out with Carol Bernett, Harvey Korman, and Vicki Lawrence. I want to hear Tim Conway's tell his elephant story one more time.
I want to return to a simpler time when there was nothing strange about Bert and Ernie living together. I want to take one more trip in the back seat of a station wagon and get passing trucks to honk at me. Not because I'm sexy, but because I look unbelievably cute in pig tails. I want to arrive home with my jaw aching from finishing one of those brick-sized packages of Bazooka which lost its entire flavor two minutes after you started chewing it. I want the most stressful and complicated thing in my life to be getting the "Chase" scene down in Ms. Pac man or trying to figure out who shot J.R.
I felt the need to call all my old high school friends and invite them to one more drive in movie. Perhaps after the movie we could all go back to my room and choreograph the moves to "Dancing Queen” on 8-track tape, while wearing leg warmers and not a single one of us would even consider putting it on YouTube. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all head down to the local roller rink and hear the announcer say "All skaters, change directions" just one last time? After skating we can all head back to the house gather around the radio and listen to the Dr.Demento show and learn all the words to Weird Al Yankovic’s songs by heart. Next we can all stay up late past our bedtime and watch them torment Mr. Bill just one more time for ol time’s sake. During commercials we can flip a coin to see which one of us is going to get off the couch to change the TV channel.
As I finish stacking up the last of the boxes for the evening and prepare for my stress induced day tomorrow I can't help but wonder if we wouldn’t all benefit from a walk down memory lane, now and then. I think once I'm done stacking all my boxes I'm going to make me some hot chocolate with marshmallows on top, sit down and watch one more episode of the Walton’s, just so I can hear someone say 'Good night, John-boy' one more time before I have to deal with the real world. I think there comes a time in everyone’s life when we just need to sit back, drink some hot chocolate and reminisce … Can You Dig It?