On a hot Thursday afternoon in June, I walked into what some Silicon Valley residents consider an oasis: Fry’s Electronics, a technology superstore housed in what looks like a Mayan temple.
But I didn’t find relief.
I saw clusters of cell-phone toting teens. And middle-aged men drooling over computer displays.
I fidgeted.
Even though I am 16 years old, I am horribly out of tune with technology. No iPod. No CD player. No text messaging for me. And I was ready to admit that to the Fry’s customer service staff. I waited in line for someone, anyone, to show me what all the technology hoopla was about.
I hoped going to Fry’s would help me understand my friends’ infatuations with their tech toys. They all own some kind of device that they never seem to put down. One friend depends on her PDA for phone numbers, dates — everything. Another friend loves his PlayStation Portable, which he got as soon as it came out.
Edward Sales, a 23-year-old salesman, gave me a full tour of Fry’s. “You know, a lot of teenagers like to make their own computers now,” he said.
Great. I’m even more behind than I thought. At no time in the near future will I be able to build a computer.
We head over to the iPod section. These colorful mini-music devices are more powerful than the laptop I type my essays on at home. Even the iPod mini has four to six gigabytes, depending on how much you pay. Compare this to my measly laptop, which boasts less than one gigabyte.
“It’s so small and compact,” Sales said of the $199 device. “Teenagers are looking for design.”
Maybe they’re also looking for friendship. My iPod-pocketing friends sound like they have personal relationships with their attractive little devices. It must be something serious. I find teens all over campus listening to their iPods instead of talking to the people surrounding them.
I don’t know what the big deal is. Neither does Angela Agellon, an 8-year-old I met at Fry’s. In fact, the third-grader doesn’t even know what an iPod is, so I instantly like her.
But Agellon is slightly more tech-savvy than I am. When she started telling me about her Gameboy, I thought she was referring to the equivalent of Playgirl magazine.
Gelatinous protective covers for iPods? Kind of expensive, and they don’t even cover the fragile LCD screen.
Watch a movie on the new PSP? How stupid. The screen is too small.
It’s not just iPods and MP3 players. I have never owned a CD player — no Discman, no CD-spinning boombox, no CD-car stereo (no car, either).
Oddly enough, I was the owner of one — and only one — CD. I bought “The Postal Service,” a CD full of dark techno music, a year ago.
Wanting to share my adoration for my new album, I played it for my parents as we rode to a campsite in their truck. But I stupidly stashed the CD in the driver’s-side door, and it fell out when my dad got out to gas up the truck.
Nobody noticed, which is how my dad drove over it. Twice. He backed over it when I insisted we return to retrieve it.
It was like fate wanted to keep me as far from technology as possible.
So I saw my chance to get a closer glimpse while at Fry’s. I begged Sales to show me the CD players, which cost as little as $20 now. I actually began saving up for one when I was in third grade, but abandoned my dream after realizing I would have to buy CDs to play in it.
Same thing with the iPod. I would need to buy MP3s.
A downloaded song costs 99 cents, which is a lot for some dumb song. And, according to the Christian Appalachian Project Web site, my 70 cents can buy $10 worth of medicine for a sick child somewhere far away.
If 70 cents can buy all that medicine for a sick child, why doesn’t 99 cents buy an entire CD?
Well, I’m not one to preach. Realistically, I’m not going to donate money to help a sick child.
And I’m not going to waste it on an MP3 player, either.
I started saving all my polished pennies at age 8. My parents would give me school lunch money, but I wouldn’t spend it. I figured if I saved $2 here and $2 there, I would eventually have enough money to buy a CD player.
But now, the thought of blowing all that hard-earned money on a gadget that eventually may be damaged — or get crushed by a car — breaks my heart.