Harry, 11, sauntered into the kitchen yesterday to show us a piece of kit he'd bought for his laptop. He was puffed with pride. The laptop is still a fairly new addition to his life as a cool kid, a top dog, a soon-to-be-teen, a King Pin...or do I mean Donkey Kong? Because the kit in question was a mouse. A mouse...with a cord.
Yes, in this age of electroterrific genius and technofabulous development Harry seems to have bought the only, how shall we call it, cordful mouse left in the UK. Honestly, I've only just stopped laughing long enough to start typing. We paid him out for the whole day.
'I'd like to buy a mouse for my laptop, please.'
'Certainly Sir, and what did Sir have in mind?
'Well, something dashedly inconvenient with limited range, I should think. Yes, something I can really get tangled up in.'
'Sir, may I say you're a man of exceedingly good sense. Luckily, I have just the thing.'
The only surprise is he didn't also come home with the world's last thermal fax machine, or a typewriter. In fact we're certain he can qualify for misselling compensation, like those victims of the banks' Payment Protection Insurance scams. Harry insists he wanted a mouse with a cord because 'then I don't have to worry about installing it.' I don't think it's been neccessary to 'install' a cordless mouse for half a decade but as long as he's got what he wants then who are we to judge? Of course, it's possible this penchance for antique hardware runs in the family. His grandfather, a consultant investigator, only recently retired his thermal fax...because he can no longer find anyone who stocks the replacement paper anymore.
But I think it says more about the old school nature of kids these days. They don't smoke, they don't do drugs, they sing along to Lenny Kravitz. In their limited free time they watch re-runs of Dad's Army, Grand Designs and Rocky. Yesterday Charlie, 13, wore straight legged, grey jeans teamed with a grey jumper. If he isn't pining for the days of Chairman Mao I don't know what's going on. These are simple folk.
My own theory, dreamt up purely for the purposes of this blog, is that kids yearn for simpler things. They know, instinctively, there's too much choice available at too young an age. They know there are cordless mice, bluetooth mice, iMice. But they also know they don't need these things. What kids want these days are winter walks and hot chocolate. They hand craft Valentines Cards and actually send them to people they like. They hug their friends when posing for photos. They talk of owning pets and, for a fiver, they'll do a decent job of washing your car and be thankful for the job. All this flies in the face of the popular theory that all kids these days want to be famous without doing any work. I know that's true in some cases, but I have a hunch it's not the norm.
Psychologists also write about modern kids wanting boundaries. I think I've worked out this weekend they're right. They do want boundaries, preferably half a metre long with a plug at the end. The next time I'm mugged I'm going to dangle two pieces of kit in front of my attacker and see which one he goes for....my new iPad 4 or an Etch-a-Sketch (and I mean an original from, like, 1986).
While we find it tough sometimes to accept our kids' old fashioned, self-set limitations, I think they might actually be doing us a favour.. Their hesitation may be the only way we can maintain any kind of technical parity. So be thankful that it's still true, youth, and technology, is wasted on the young.
Katherine Burgdorf types this blog assisted by a cordless mouse.
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