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> I imagined the teen casually picking up the AirPods in the co-ed locker room where I had dropped them only moments before, putting them in his pocket, and lat

> I imagined the teen casually picking up the AirPods in the co-ed locker room where I had dropped them only moments before, putting them in his pocket, and later breaking them out to play some tunes in front of his parents. I pictured them nodding serenely, approving of their clever son who had somehow produced AirPods out of nowhere. 1980s... my brother had a friend who'd come over our house now and then. My mom's walkman went missing, and the next day the kid comes over with... a walkman. My mom's walkman. He said "look what I got for confirmation!" Couple of thoughts jumped in to my head: A) Why would anyone gift you a walkman with a broken battery cover held on with tape? B) You're not Catholic. My mom had a really awkward conversation with the kid's mom. I don't even think that went all that smoothly. "Don't call my kid a liar!" "So... you're Catholic and Timmy just went through confirmation?" "None of your business!" WTF? She did get it back, but it was more broken and then unusable than before because... of course. He was all of about 10? 11? Moderately curious how he turned out and where he is now, but... not enough to bother digging. :)

mongol 3y ago
Is confirmation a purely Catholic thing?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Its common to most of Christianity (excluding the Baptist, Anabaptist and other “believer’s baptism” denominations) but has different cultural attachments; its quite plausible that, in a local area in parts of the US, the Catholic community would be the only one where it is both practiced and the kind of event for which gift-giving would be associated.
  - lowercased 3y ago
    It was a relatively italian/catholic area we grew up in. You sort of knew who was being confirmed and when in that era (late 80s).
suzzer99 3y ago
> Moderately curious how he turned out Probably not well with parents like that.
stodor89 3y ago
I also stole an old walkman as a kid. My eastern european mom gave me a good beating, and ordered me to return it and apologize. I was too embarrassed to do that, so I jumped the owner's fence, put it on their backyard table, and ran away. Today I pay even for my free Linux, so lesson learned, I suppose.

mongol 3y ago

Is confirmation a purely Catholic thing?

dragonwriter 3y ago
Its common to most of Christianity (excluding the Baptist, Anabaptist and other “believer’s baptism” denominations) but has different cultural attachments; its quite plausible that, in a local area in parts of the US, the Catholic community would be the only one where it is both practiced and the kind of event for which gift-giving would be associated.
- lowercased 3y ago
  It was a relatively italian/catholic area we grew up in. You sort of knew who was being confirmed and when in that era (late 80s).

suzzer99 3y ago

> Moderately curious how he turned out Probably not well with parents like that.

stodor89 3y ago

I also stole an old walkman as a kid. My eastern european mom gave me a good beating, and ordered me to return it and apologize. I was too embarrassed to do that, so I jumped the owner's fence, put it on their backyard table, and ran away. Today I pay even for my free Linux, so lesson learned, I suppose.