Post COVID-19 Decade-from-Now Conversation

As dreams go, it was much more detailed than any dream I previously experienced. It was a clear summer day, there was a gentle breeze that came in off the Detroit River, cascading Belle Isle with a coolness to offset the feel of the summer sun. I was sitting on my green and white Michigan State lawn chair engrossed in the conversation I was overhearing between my wife, looking ever so young and a little girl whom, based on what I heard, I assumed to be my 8-year- old granddaughter. She was cute and curious, and my wife was demonstrating all the patience that grandmothers find after their children grow up and leave home. 

“Gram, why did you have to go into the office?”, She asked.

“Well, sweetheart, it was where I worked during the day.”

“Why didn’t you just work from home?”

“We went to work,” my wife said, ‘because we needed to meet with other people to get our work done.”

“Couldn’t you just talk with them on Stream Screen like I do with my friends in Africa and China?”

My wife waited a beat, “We needed to get work done and we did it by meeting with people in the office.”

I could see that she was rolling that thought around in her head, then said. “How many people?”

“Depends,” my wife countered. “Could be just a couple of people or it could be as many as twenty.”

“Wow,” she said. “I can talk with as many as forty of my friends on Stream Screen and we do a lot of things together. Couldn’t you just Stream Screen and meet with people?”

“We didn’t have Stream Screen. We had Zoom, Microsoft Meetings, GoToMeetings, Webex and other services like that.” 

“So, you couldn’t talk with a lot of people using those services?”

My wife thought for a second and said, “Yeah, I supposed we could have, but there was a time when we didn’t have all that. Your granddad and I would drive into work every-day, usually about 100 miles round trip to go to work.”

“Why would you drive that far everyday just to meet with people?”

My wife sighed, “At the time, it was believed that we would get a lot more done if we were in the office.”

“Oh?” She scrunched her face and said, “And did you get a lot more done?”

“No, not really.” My wife said. “We got as much done at home as we did at work.”

“Then, why were you driving?”

My wife never looked around to see if I would pick up the conversation, she pressed on. “Because that’s what we did.”

“Gram, that sounds really weird, almost as weird as the story you told me about driving to places to buy popcorn, sit in theatre seats and watch movies. Couldn’t you have popcorn at home and stream movies on granddad’s 150-inch screen?”

“Well, it was a way of going out for entertainment and to be among people.”

“Was that because there weren’t a lot of people?” she asked.

“No, there was no shortage of people.” My wife quickly countered, “We would get out of the house because it was relaxing.”

“Oh, so getting out of the house to go to work was relaxing?” she appeared to be beaming as if she got the punchline.

“Well, no. We went to work in an office to work on things we were passionate about and earn a paycheck so we could afford house where you come to visit us and consume all the food we order online.”

“But my friend Tina’s mom earns a paycheck, and she works from home. She has a big office in their house, and they don’t own a car.”

“Yes, a lot of people do that now.” My wife replied. “Tell you what, let’s walk over to the fountain and look for granddad.”

“Okay,” she said seemingly content with the misdirection. 

As they started to walk, she said, “Oh yeah Gram, granddad told me to ask you a question.”

“What’s the question?” my wife asked.

“What’s an 8-Track?”

It was then that my wife glowered over at me and said, “Not funny.”