Gen-X Short Stories Needed***** (Nashville, SF Bay Area, LA-Westside, Chicago, Raleigh-Durham)

This is your time to shine.

Yes I'm talking to you.

Gen-X you (b1963-1980)

Older millenials you (b1981-1990 ish)

You did things that nobody may ever do again.

hyperbole hy·​per·​bo·​le | \ hī-ˈpər-bə-(ˌ)lē  \Definition of hyperbole : extravagant exaggeration (such as "our-sale-will-change-your-life")

Nope I'm not exaggerating. 

Look you might not be aware of it but the following activities 

literally may never happen again:

• Getting a busy signal
• Asking your parent or roommate "did I get any calls?"
• Using a paper map
• Asking a stranger for directions
• Using a pay phone (and having to remember all your numbers)
• Printing out Map Quest (!!)
• Hitchhiking
• Telling someone "I'll meet you there" and trusting each other to be there.  Every time.
• Answering the phone without knowing who it is first "the prom?  Oh, I, well. . um, sure I guess I can go"
• Meeting a girl or guy without an app (*GASP*)
• Making a mix tape (usually in order to seduce said girl or guy)
• Communicating (or trying) to a person in a foreign country without a translation app
• Driving across the country with only a road atlas and the cash in your pocket 

All of these and

many more 'analog' facets of life not only may never happen again, but if you notice they're getting harder to remember we ever dealt with them at all. 

Unless of course you lose your phone.

We'll be choosing (my publisher and I) the best 15-20 short stories so if you'd like to submit please send your story, however imperfect or polished, to: alden.olmsted@gmail.com

Last thought

This isn't about "the good old days" or grabbing onto some rose-colored fleeting nostalgia some of you younger readers may already be sneering at.  This is a bizarre time capsule of not just surviving without the conveniences we now take for granted but thriving despite.  The challenges listed above were among the many we assumed were part of the process of growing up. 

Part of becoming an adult.  

Part of life.

The tradition of telling stories verbally to each other, as opposed to broadcasting them in picture and clip form to the world at large, is one tradition that many are now reconsidering the importance of and one of the changes I would consider a loss.

Stories are the best.  

Telling stories in person used to be one of my favorite things.  

Maybe it can be once agan.

A

.