Communication primer from a Stone Age dad

My teenage son Daniel was making Friday night plans with a gang of 10 friends, in typical modern fashion — on Friday night, at 8:30 p.m. — in a torrent of text messages.

One minute they’d decided to meet at Atwater métro at 8:45 for pizza and the film Man With the Iron Fist. But 33 text messages later they’d changed to McGill métro at 9:30 for James Bond, followed by poutine.

Then their plans changed again, and again, until they decided to converge at Vendôme métro and decide then.

They work on MSTT (Modern Standard Teenage Time) where everything is decided at the last possible moment.

Watching my son juggling plans I mentioned I couldn’t do that in my teens, or 20s, because we didn’t have cellphones, let alone emails and text messages — and he looked at me in amusement and pity.

“Stone Age childhood, eh, Dad? So how did you make plans back then?”

I did my best to explain, but for other 21st century kids who wonder, here’s how we lived Before the Cellphone Was Invented.

Back in the Neanderthal BC (Before Cellphone) era, we relied on a large, bulky contraption glued to the wall that was inexplicably called a telephone — though you couldn’t carry it across the room, let alone outdoors.

To make plans you phoned people many hours or days ahead because no one was usually home to answer — and when they were the line was “busy.”

Once you’d made contact you rarely changed your plans because it was too exhausting. Even then, the night of your planned gettogether bad weather might interfere, or someone might get delayed with no way to contact you — and you’d end up standing on the street corner outside a movie, fuming and wondering if you had the wrong time, or day, or friends.

Eventually you’d see them running down the street sweating and apologizing profusely — and you’d shrug and go to the film 20 minutes late.

Then overnight, the world was transformed by a revolutionary new technological device — the telephone answering machine! It was a hissing, crackling thing that often cut off your message after 15 seconds, just when you’d said: “Hi — it’s Josh. I wondered if you wanted to — .”

But it seemed like a miracle. Amazingly you could now leave messages saying you wanted to meet for a film — and you could even change plans at the last minute.

For instance, when someone realized they were late en route they could go to another weird contraption called a pay phone, which was available on every corner, like a walk-in private office.

After begging a dime from strangers they’d call your answering machine and leave you a message saying they were late and couldn’t make the 7:15 p.m. film as planned, but they’d meet you right after, at 9:30 for a drink.

Meanwhile, since they hadn’t shown up you’d phone your answering machine from another pay phone to see if they’d left a message.

Then you called their machine to say you couldn’t meet at 9:30 because the film was sold out and you were seeing a later one that ended at 10:30.

You’d spend the rest of the night leaving messages on each others’ machines but never actually see each other.

Today this draining answering-machine ballet is ancient history, as people email or text each other every 33 seconds to say: “Stuck in construction. Should be there in 6 minutes.” And then: “Out of construction, but stuck in pothole. Will advise when out.”

Modern time seems more elastic than old-fashioned time and allows everyone to re-set the clock many times.

Last week a restaurant called me 40 minutes before my 8 p.m. reservation to say it was running late — could I come at 8:30 to avoid lining up?

Delivery companies no longer make me stay home from dawn to dusk, waiting for them to arrive — they just call on my cell a half-hour before they come.

Taxis don’t make you wait outside in the rain — they phone once they’re there. Even airlines text to advise that your flight is delayed. We’re becoming a last-minute society where any decision can be made on the fly and then changed 10 times. But there are still challenges.

Recently someone emailed me a group invite, suggesting a lastminute Friday night Christmas gathering at a restaurant. Other people instantly began to answer, saying: “Sorry, can’t do Friday — how about next Tuesday?” Then someone else emailed “Friday and Tuesday no good, what about Thursday?” — and we spent the next five days exchanging 111 emails, juggling plans like my son and his pals do in 15 minutes.

Finally we gave up and postponed till January, or February, or next Christmas — because we were all more exhausted than in the old answering-machine days.

The bottom line is you can change technology — but you can’t change people.