They say the only thing that stays the same is the fact that things always change. Time continues to pass faster than the tacos in my colon after a late-night feast. It seems that things have changed since the days of my youth. The music that I used to listen to that was cool is now considered classic rock and is only played on the oldies channel.

I had an extensive collection of music cassettes thanks to the insistence of Columbia House sending me 16 tapes for only a penny. Not only did I have an account with them but so did my dog, my cat as well as my imaginary friend who conveniently lived at the same address as me but had a slightly different spelling of my name. Today, the music companies are totally unreasonable and want me to actually pay for my music. How rude. I used to have a lot of acid rock. These days I have a lot of acid reflux. Not exactly the same.

I have seen change in the telephone industry in my time. In my youth, no one ever lost their phone because it was attached to the wall. It was common to only have the one phone in the house and that line was shared with several of your neighbors. I would pick up the phone and all I would hear is my elderly neighbors talking about how long it had been since they pooped. Today, we have phones that do everything but wash the dishes. I compare today’s phones with teenagers. Both think they are smart, and know everything when in actuality, they don’t. I went out for a drive in the country only to find that there was no cell signal. Suddenly, the phone that moments before thought it knew everything was instantly transformed into an unreliable and useless object. Yep, just like a teenager.

I recall in my youth, we only had one television in the house, and we all gathered to watch episodes of Hee Haw on Saturday nights. These days, it seems that everyone has their own television and watches different programing at the same time. Our old television in my childhood home only got three channels if we were lucky. If we weren’t, we would have to go outside to turn the antenna to watch different stations. Today, my television thinks it knows more than I do and tries to tell me what programs I will like. I don’t need my television to tell me what I like. However, I would appreciate that service from my refrigerator because I can’t ever seem to find something I like in there.

After I started thinking about change, I realized that although many things have indeed changed, many things have not. For instance, I recall in high school, it was cool to cut holes in your jeans. Today, I still have holes in my jeans except today it’s from having them rip open when I bend over to tie my shoes. Back in school, my favorite time of day was lunchtime. Today, at work, that is still my favorite time of day.

I recall when I was a child, the road that went to the church we attended went right by a little restaurant that sold the best ice cream in the world. Every Sunday after church I begged my parents to stop and get me a peanut butter milkshake. Although that place is long gone now, there are days when a peanut butter milkshake is the only answer to life’s problems. Yes, it seems that some things never change.