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I started my own cleaning business about 7 years ago. I started out doing residential cleaning, but moved on to commercial cleaning. I figured this would be a safe business choice since everything always gets dirty, there’s not much more they can do to “fancy” the vacuum cleaner (thus replacing me), and no matter how smart they are, monkeys will not be able to do what I do… some sort of thumb thing.

I really did think that... how much further can they possibly go with the vacuum cleaner? I’m pretty sure they will always need someone to push them.

I was recently on a houseboat trip with 18 of my family members. Technically, my husband’s family members, but I guess they are mine now too. I was in a bit of a panic because I heard rumors that my cell phone may not work in the uppermost corner of the state. I acted like this was totally cool with me...glad to get away, whew, no pesky texts… in reality, I was terrified.

What if something happens to the girl while we’re gone? What if the dog chokes on an oxtail while we’re gone? Fire? Burglar? Tornado? HOW WILL I EVER KNOW??

We headed out on the houseboat and I had my cell phone glued to me like fake nails on the toddlers from Toddlers and Tiaras. I was obsessively looking at it, watching, and waiting, until one by one, the signal bars slowly disappeared. As the last one disappeared, and the beautiful scenery of the northern Minnesota took hold, I got a “new voicemail” notification on my phone.

Nobody leaves voicemails. It’s either a text or a hang up. If it’s a hang-up, it’s just a way of saying “I want to talk to you, too damn lazy to leave a message, call me back”.

We were too far out, so there was no “missed call” notification...just a YOU HAVE A MESSAGE” notification. It had to be urgent.

So I searched the boat and asked the sister-in-laws if maybe perhaps THEIR cell phone still worked because I have an urgent voicemail.

Yup, one does. I grab it, dial my phone number, ready to retrieve my message, and have no idea what my password is. I don’t need a password when calling from my own phone, only from other people’s cool phones. After several failed attempts, the cell phone fake operator got fed up and said “sorry, you’re an idiot”.

By now we are probably into Canada and I’m not seeing cell phone reception until I get home in 5 days.

I’ll have 5 days to think about what we used to do in the “olden days”-the days before cell phones. Like the days when, as kids, we would just take off for the day and somehow magically show up at dinner time. My mom never texted me to tell me dinner was ready.

I remember my first cell phone. It was the size of a shoe, and well, actually looked like a shoe. You needed a separate purse to hold it. You could do ONE thing with it – make phone calls. I thought…wow…sweet….what more could they possibly do to the cell phone? This is pretty much perfect in my mind.

Well look at the iPhone and you will see what they can possibly do to the cell phone. I am scared to death of the iPhone. There’s an app for just about everything, including an app for that. The Blackberry terrifies me in the same way. Right now, I’m thinking this is about as far as they can possibly go with cell phones. This is it. Then I flash forward about 20 years when my kids will be telling their kids, “good lord kids, you should have seen those huge iPhones we had to use. Man oh man were they obnoxious. Good thing they came up with the phone now that they just sew into our chest and we just have to burp the number and think about what we want to say. Much easier…”

Same goes for music. I remember albums and record players. Then they came up with this super fancy 8-track tape. Whoa. What will they think of next?? What? A cassette? This HAS to be as far as they can go with music. Now a CD? Man! How do they do that?? Forget cd’s, now you need to get an Ipod. Now you need to lose the giant Ipod for the small elf-size Ipod. Screw the Ipod, now you can just put all your music on your iPhone, with really no work at all. Like a song you hear on the radio? Hold the iPhone up to the radio and it will download it and categorize it and then make you dinner reservations. Actually I’m not sure if it does this, but I’m pretty sure there’s an app for that.

Movies in the theater, movies on laser disk, movies on VHS, Beta (what WAS that whole Beta kick anyway??), movies on DVD’s, downloadable movies on TV, instant movies on your computer, movies on your iPhone, movies on some fancy IPods. Again, I wonder, how much further can they go with this? You know in 20 years my kids won’t be saying, “let’s stop by the Redbox and get a movie.” They won’t even remember the Redbox…

Our big fat televisions have turned into skinny flat screens-some the size of an Ipad (which, you wouldn’t need a TV if you have an Ipad for crying out loud), up to the size of a small theater screen. Now I hear that 3-D televisions are coming. We’ll all be walking around with 3-D glasses, looking like goofballs, watching the latest downloaded movie.

Anyway, this brings me back to the vacuum cleaner. That is one thing that has stayed pretty much the same since my mom was a little girl. They suck dirt out of carpet. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever be able to watch a movie on my vacuum cleaner while cleaning, nor will it give me a massage as I clean. Just a simple vacuum cleaner; and I like it.

As our houseboat trip came to an end, I kept checking my phone as we got closer and closer to shore, until those magical bars showed up again. I COULD FINALLY CHECK MY MESSAGES THAT I HAVE BEEN LOSING SLEEP OVER. Please let my kids be okay. Please let the dog be okay. Please let my house still not be on fire.

I get through…I had two messages. One was a dental appointment reminder, and one was from the nice man that fixes my occasionally broken vacuum cleaners. My vacuum cleaner was all fixed and ready to go.

Next time I’ll try to relax a bit more….