It was the year 2064. Mary (such an old-fashion, uncreative name for the 2060s) had come across some old (really old) family videos. They were in a box in the attic. At first she didn’t know what they were. Then a friend suggested they were videos and Mary spent quite some time going from expert to expert to find out how they should be played. Eventually a state-of-the-art studio managed to copy them for Mary onto her Clockdropia.
The first one she watched was labelled “The Family – 1991”. Mary didn’t recognize anyone in it, and presumed (even though the house with the attic where they were found had been in the family for generations) that the video was not of her own family.
The second video was more revealing. Mary recognized her late grandmother when her grandmother appeared to be in her teens. Grandmother was holding paper bags, and in them she said were wads of money. “Wads and wads of money. I’ll show you where I’m going to hide them so that a person in the future who finds and watches this video is welcome to get the money and become instantly rich!”
Would you believe! The paper bags were under a loose floorboard in the corridor cupboard. It was a miracle the house hadn’t burnt down accidentally or that the house hadn’t been sold or that someone hadn’t accidentally stumbled across the bags of money while returning the vacuum cleaner to the corridor cupboard. Mary went to the cupboard immediately.
There underneath the floorboards were bags. Inside each bag was an unbelievable pile of money. Mary counted it. It came to just over four hundred thousand dollars!
Goodness! It was 2064. What does one do with worthless paper money? Mary chucked everything into the dumpster.
It would be so cool to find videos of previous generations of the family.
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I would imagine it could be quite common in the future. My oldest videos of high school productions are now nearly 34 years old and I’ve nothing to play them on (not that I’d really want to!)
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I’m surprised that something as archaic as dumpsters made it all the way to the 2060s.
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Actually I was going to say she threw them into the recycling bin but that would also be archaic.
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In the future we have molecular deconstruction devices, which are much beloved by the companies which safety proof homes for children.
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It would be an interesting discovery, but the videos might be worth more than anything.
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Yes – that’s true!
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That is a lovely futuristic fiction that will remain as impactful in 2064 as it is today. I like how the nuances of technological and ideological incompatibilities have been carefully incorporated in the theme. The irony and tragedy are resounding in their impact.
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Thanks. Paper/metallic money seems to have all but disappeared these days. (And so has digital money!!!!)
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Tough luck. It should have some kind of collector’s value, though. Maybe the bum going through her garbage that night will be quite lucky 😀
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I once found a tin full of old farthings (quarter of a penny). I thought I was going to be rich but they were valueless!
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Money eh? My grandma left each of us seven children £100 in a will she made in 1965. £100 was worth quite a bit back then. If she’d put the money in trust I’m sure we would all have welcomed the legacy. By the time she died in the 1990s we got £100 each. About enough to pay a supermarket bill. No complaints but I’ve made slightly better arrangements for my grandchildren.
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My mother lived entirely on the pension she died each of her six children got $15,000. They said she must’ve been the only pension who saved that much living off the pension!
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Today I began chapter one of the story of a cycle trip I made around England in the mid nineties. Please feel free to pop in and out. It may last quite some time.
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I am delighted because your cycling trip was where we met! I shall go there on a regular basis. My wordpress email notification strategy seems to have gone down plug hole.
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