The year was 1988. It was May. I had just spent another restless night on the couch trying to sleep. My belly was so huge that to turn over, I had to stand up, grab my pillow, move it to the other end of the couch, and lie down. I still had three more weeks before the little Alien inside me was born.
I worked full-time as a Stripper in the Flexo packaging industry.
Within the commercial printing industry, the job of stripping involves arranging and joining film negatives as part of the process of preparing printing plates.[1] In the UK, the same operation is termed "planning" and film positives are used, rather than the negatives in the USA. Because the industry has largely moved to digital processes, the job of stripping, or planning has become rare or even obsolete. Wikipedia
I was the only woman in my department. The rest of the guys were old Union workers, and I was treated like one of them. Just writing about those days makes me smile.
In the last month, before I gave birth to my son, the guys I was working with were getting nervous. Suppose I made a noise because someone moved a foot across the inside of my belly and hit a few organs. The whole shop stopped and looked at me to ensure they didn't have to rush me to the Hospital.
The morning my son decided to be born, the day started with laughter. I was living with my parents and had just walked into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee so it would be ready when I was done with my shower when my water broke. In the Kitchen. ALL over the floor. I grabbed as many tea towels as possible and realized I could not get from the kitchen to the bathroom without making a mess.
No one had told me there would be gallons of water when your water broke. Most people said your water would not break, or if it did, you might not even know it. Each time I realized this, I started to laugh, which caused more water to leak, which caused more laughing because I was stuck in a kitchen, in the dark, with tea towels, in no pain, but two flights of stairs to more towels.
I finally decided to make a run for it! Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the tea towels and sprinted across the orange shaggy carpeting, up two flights of stairs with the same carpet, and into the bathroom and the bathtub. Once standing in the bathtub, I realized I was stuck in a bathroom with no way to call anyone to let them know my water had broken. This was before cell phones. The closest phone I had just left was in the kitchen.
I started laughing again, but I was trying to be quiet because my parents were sleeping on the other side of the bathroom wall. And the water was still running each time I laughed.
My son would be born into this world—one filled with laughter and life. He took his own sweet time that day to be born, but no child on this Earth wasn't loved more than him.
I was a single Mom for most of my son's life. I took him everywhere with me. We would stop and visit Uncle RV at his 'house,' which just happened to have a full-time bartender.
My son and I moved out of my parent's house when he was three months old. About two months later, I bought my first video game, The Original Zelda, for Nintendo. I was never a television watcher, and with only four channels to watch, there was never anything of any interest on the TV between 7:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
I played Zelda each night. I made epic maps of each of the dungeons, and I beat the game many times.
My son was always invited to work functions unless they were for adults only. Then, depending on the event, he would sleep over at his Grandmother's house, and his Dad would be there, too.
We lead a busy, fun life.
Years would go by.
My son, who was over eighteen by now, was living his life. I would hear from him when he could get to the internet, or I could.
I worked hard all day, and the last thing I wanted to do was go on a computer and do what? Read? I could read a book if I were so inclined.
More years would go by.
My son then decided he needed to walk across Mexico. This is his story to tell.
My son also decided to give me his laptop while he was gone. He told me I could use it if I were careful, but he would want it back when he got back, too.
During this time, I became very ill and lost my job. I had a laptop I had no idea how to use because it was a PC laptop, and when I worked in the printing field, we used Macs—the original ones. I could recreate and make printable any digital art you handed me in Adobe Illustrator. But I still had no idea what people did when they went on the internet.
Having your life go from 150% to 0% in less than three months will either make or break you. Little did my son know that his old-school laptop would often save my life.
After piggybacking on our neighbor's internet for about three weeks, I put my foot down, and we finally got our own internet. From there, I found Facebook and Facebook games—back when Facebook was fun and the games were too.
I started meeting people from all over the world, which was eye-opening. I attended many birthday parties and weddings over the internet. I learned the world never really slept and loved every minute of it.
If I was in too much pain, I could get on my game, travel the world, and talk to people in real-time. That little laptop was now two years older and slower when my son returned home, but I had taken very good care of it and handed it back to him in one piece.
Lucky for me someone had sent me a new laptop just before my son came home.
And that, my friends, is how I learned to use the internet.
All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.
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