Talking ’bout my generation

My eight-year-old son asked for an iphone X. Absolutely not, I said. He’s far too young to have a mobile, plus there’s no way his generation is getting a higher generation phone than my generation.

Sorry if that was confusing. Like Roger Daltrey, I was talking about my generation.

Which brings us to the interactive part of this week’s column. Dear Reader, please break out your air guitar and play the greatest bass line in rock history — John Entwhistle’s thundering riff from The Who’s “My Generation.”

Yup, forget who is around you, especially if it’s your boss or an important client, and play bass.

At the same time, in your deepest voice, say — “Boom boom bood-delly boom, boom boom boom-delly boom.” Bravo!

What a line!

And that kinda brings me to the point of today’s piece — lines, phone lines to be exact.

Since the iphone X conversation, I’ve been lamenting the fact my mobile-wanting son, and anyone who has or will experience adolescence since, say, 2009, will never go through the agony and anxiety of waiting for a love interest to call on a shared family phone.

Most kids have their own mobile phones today, and those devices are not fastened to the kitchen wall or parked on a phone book on an end table in the living room. And, these days, communicating with a crush is done instantly and quietly through messaging or social media apps.

Which means the youth of today and tomorrow will never know what it’s like to nervously pace the kitchen floor, waiting for someone they fancy to call the only phone in the house, a phone used equally by parents and kids.

So, they will never hear, “Steve, you’re going to wear out the linoleum,” or “Steve, a watched pot never boils,” because they have devices in their pockets and can take the easy way out by texting “Hello” with an emoji, instead of mustering up the nerve to call. (And, besides, their names aren’t likely Steve and they don’t know what linoleum is.)

As well, current and future generations will never experience the frustration of the phone brrrrinnngging and it being, not a love interest, but their mother’s friend wanting to chat about last night’s bridge game, the Food Centre’s sale on chicken, or the latest cliffhanger on “Another World.”

“Mom,” they will never whisper loudly, “How much longer are you going to talk about Rachel and Mac? I’m waiting for (insert name) to call.”

Teens of today and tomorrow will also not have the related experience of having two or three siblings waiting for a crush call at once, of the phone ringing and multiple people sprinting for it at Usain Bolt-like speed and ending up in a wrestling match on the floor with the phone cord wrapped around them.

“Kids,” they’ll never hear their parents warn, “you’re going to pull the blasted phone out of the wall”

Sometimes, moms and dads used words other than “blasted” when the phone or its cord were being stretched beyond the limits.

Anyway, waiting for a call on the family phone was one of the most excruciating and patience-testing parts of my teenage years.

I believe it built character and helped teach me how to wait.

But my son — and his peers — will never got through it and get those benefits.

So, guess I’ll have to teach him patience — by making him wait years for an iphone X.

“Boom boom bood-delly boom, boom boom boom-delly boom.”