Those were days of some sort

Remember back when you used to have to hit the rewind button on the car stereo if you wanted to listen to a great song over again?

And it was such a big leap forward when the MMS button was invented, making the rewinding process stop automatically when it encountered a few seconds of silence on the tape; so if you were in luck, you could listen to the same song over and over and over again, if you liked, with just ten seconds or so of anticipation, accompanied by that little whirring humming noise?

Dude, you are officially old.

(Heh.)

Commuting today, I listened to an a particular album on my ipod over my car stereo -- an album which I had last listened to via CD in my college apartment; several songs of which made appearances on various break-up mix tapes, which have received some car airplay over the last decade-point-five, but not very often.

So here I was with this album again, after all these years, in my car where I've always done my most impassioned singing. Okay, probably the last time I listened to this album, I was in my (previous) car, broadcasting the songs from my CD walkman over the car stereo through one of those cassette adapters. (Awesome.)

And then, today, as one song is winding down -- past-me's favorite, which I remember obsessively re-playing one morning after driving a friend to LAX (someone who, of course, I seriously hoped was going to become more than "just a friend" shortly), and waiting those delicious ten seconds for the magic MMS button to find the beginning of the song for me each time....and I realized that when the song was done, I was going to reach over, hit the back button, and instantly get the song started again.

No waiting.

Instant gratification.

I tried it. The song started over again.

And (you probably have guessed it already, and I was only slightly surprised if I'm being honest), well, I was disappointed by the experience.

I missed the ten seconds of ... anticipation.

Until the new technology came along, I couldn't have known how much that little pause was part of my enjoyment of my "let's sing that one again" ritual.

I could re-create the little silence itself, of course -- just hit the pause button, wait a satisfying few moments, and then play it again. And yet, just as obviously, it would in no way be the same, because I would be controlling the experience; it would not be anticipation, it would just be ... Waiting.

Ah, modern life.