AOL is now AWOL

Do you remember the invention of AOL? I do.

Let me take you back to the first time that I was introduced to AOL.

My first computer that I ever used was a Power Macintosh--a boxy machine that sounded as if it would blow up every single time that you turned it on. At first, the computer was only good for playing Darby the Dragon (probably the greatest computer game ever created for a kid) and Spider Solitaire.

But I was five years old, and I soon grew tired of the cards flipping through the screen after I won a new game.

What good was a computer? I was soon about to find out.

My mom came home in her floral blouse and high waisted jeans, rocking a side pony tail with a thick purple scrunchie. She'd just come from Target where they were offering free discs for a new internet program called America Online, or AOL for short. I remember looking over her shoulder as she sat in the small, grey office chair, pushing in the CD ROM, where a blue, dull screen had appeared.

I remember asking myself as a child, what is this black sorcery? Okay, maybe not the black sorcery part, but I was definitely confused and curious. I watched on as the program downloaded to the main tabs at the bottom of the screen, stared at the square box  in the middle of a different background, and waited for ten whole minutes for the three stages of signing onto AOL.

"KSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH," the internet had growled, trying to hold a connection to the modem. "KSSSHHHHH, BING LA DING DING DING DING DING..." You get the point.

A new screen appeared with a small swirling circle alerting to the program still loading, and I took it all in.

The chat box that was empty on the right side, the main box that offered news stories, chat rooms, a tidbit of information that might or might not be interesting. Yet what really got me was the deep male voice that alerted, "You've got mail."

I do? I stared at the screen, my little green eyes searching desperately for this supposed mail. I knew what mail was. It was cards from my grandma- dollar bills stuffed inside envelopes for memorizing bible verses and reading a new book that had been sent to me- or letters for my mom and dad that made their foreheads crease with lines. So how could this online contraption know what mail was?

Or better yet--how could I trust it?

My suspicion was about to fade away as the use of AOL would infiltrate all aspects of my life--and everything with it.

As desktop computers became more commonplace, AOL became a source of games, information, and educational resources.

Except not every computer had AOL. For instance, the library at school had something called "the intranet" which was an internet network for the school system.

I didn't know how to use this intranet set up. I only knew how to use AOL and it's easy to find tabs and the search bar, located right in at the top center of the screen.

This intranet had a weird search bar in the upper hand right corner, and tabs by the hundreds came from nowhere and blinded my little eyes.

By the time I was eight years old, I had learned an important lesson: I hated school use computers. I hated floppy disks and the unfamiliarity of the tabs. I hated it all.

And Windows? What the heck was that?

Why did I have to use an entirely new operating system that made me uneasy? Didn't they know that Macintosh was the only computer to use?

Apparently not.

Still, I found comfort and solace as I came home from school and waited the 10-15 minutes to sign onto the light blue screen.

I loved my Macintosh (it wasn't really mine, but since I claimed it as a kid, I believed it was), and the little yellow guy in the midst of a circle, signaling AOL.

But life is cruel...

And I was about to experience the fateful encounter of not only moving across the country, my parents going through a messy divorce, having a new step-family in a new city and in a new house, and experiencing the horrors of a cold winter.

I was going to lose both AOL and my Macintosh to second class technology- Windows and Internet Explorer.

They say all good things come to an end. I just never expected it to mean literally everything.