I bought myself a walkman last week. How time has changed!!! I still remember walkman being a little bigger than the size of a man’s hand. I still remember being awed at my eldest sister’s walkman that at that time looked so stylish and she carried it around like a very square handbag… with the shoulder strap and all… and feeling totally superior to my sister of my sleekly curved (in my eyes at that time) smaller and lighter walkman.
And now my Sony (like.no.other) NW-E003F walkman is the size of a pack of chewing gum and hanging not off my shoulder or stuck to my waist, but around my neck and lighter than anything. Wow!!!
It makes me feel a bit like a dinosaur actually since I think that young people nowadays haven’t even seen the walkman I described earlier. I never pretend to be tech-savvy. All my techie skills are all things that I had to learn in order to function. Yes, I have a laptop, a desktop, DVD player and a digital camera (which some punk stole a few months ago) but it’s all as a reactive impulse. I don’t go out and buy the most up to date version of things. My philosophy is guided by one question: “Can I Use It?” And I didn’t get them on my own… my sister Kepips acts as my technology consultant.
To illustrate, when buying this laptop, I just tell her that I need a reliable laptop so that I can do my work on the go. My super hi-tech specs are:
*The smallest you can find
*I can type on it
*I can listen to music on it
*I can watch DVD on it
*WIFI enabled (I still remember how "advanced" I felt when I stuck this one in there)
*Around RM2,500…
Not very complicated huh? I gave her my credit card, taught her how to forge my signature and sent her on her merry way. That, my friends, is how I survive in this hi-tech world.
And of course, staying true to form- I bought this walkman with her. It started out with her showing me an MP3 player that she wanted. A cylindrical tube the size of my thumb attached to an armband. A really sporty gadget- sporty being the operative word. You know the kind people strap to their arm and run around looking extremely atheletic with. Or at least that's how the models looked like.
And suddenly I remember the time I was Indonesia waiting to come home at the airport coming back from a business trip. I wanted some music so I switched on my laptop to play my music- without headphones, mind you… The professor who was with me looked at me with great pity in his eyes and hesitantly said, “Joy, don’t you have an MP3 player?”
I looked at him straight in the eye and said, “Nope”
He shook his head sadly.
Remembering that, I decided there and then to get one…Impulse purchase in all its glory:) So I said to her, “Ok, choose one for me” and she did. The only decision I made was to choose a purple one. How girly was that! I trusted her to get me the best one at the budget that I had. She's used to my tech-shopping style.. lol
So now I’m the proud owner of a purple Sony Walkman. They say that you get a temporary high when you make an impulse purchase which will die out and leaving you covered with guilt and shame at the lack of your self-control. Not me- no siree-bob, I'm still enjoying my purchase and I can see myself enjoying it for a long time to come.
So if you see me on the street and I don’t acknowledge you, it’s nothing personal… I’m just enjoying my music…
Labels: walkman
