Mine Would Be A Mix Tape.
This old random tape with something unknown recorded onto it has floated around our house for years. Every time I see it, I get curious about what is on it, because it looks exactly like tapes I played when I was much younger. This week I finally decided to find out what this little time capsule was holding inside, so I dusted off my old tape player.
It has been so long since I put a tape in a cassette player I sort of fumbled around trying to figure it out - just like the first time I ever played a tape. Does it go upside down or right side up? Which way is fast forward? If the tape goes in upside down, is the button that looks like fast forward really rewind?
It turned out the tape was warped - maybe from the heat from the inside of a car it had once been in, or maybe just time. I was hoping for a time capsule that would be some songs I had recorded from long ago, but instead, it was another kind of time capsule - I unexpectedly got to re-live a very important Gen X rite of passage - playing a cassette tape for the first time.
There were maybe a million times you put tapes in to listen to them, but the very first time you put a tape into a tape player and hit play, especially if it was a tape you earned with your allowance money, or babysitting money, or lawn-mowing money, may have been the moment you officially became Gen X.
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(c) 2012 photography and writing by Chloe - all rights reserved
