10 Things Your Kids Will Tease You About in the Future

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42-25841795 Photo: Raygun/cultura/Corbis

You probably think of yourself as a lover of the new and the now, a forward-looking person who's not afraid of what's coming. You're saving up for your ticket to space, and you're actually wearing wearables. Your dog is as decked out as you are. You tweet, swipe, stream, Snapchat; you fall asleep with your e-reader, and you leave the house with a gaggle of gadgets. 

This list below is not intended to suggest you’ll become a Luddite — just that you're going to get older. Everyone, as they get older, holds on to some of the habits of their youth. And their children — or other peoples' children — inevitably make fun of them for it. Here are ten things that you might insist on doing in the future that the next generation (and maybe the one after that) will gently, lovingly, and mercilessly mock you for.

Going to Retail Stores
Online shopping hasn’t killed the brick-and-mortar store yet, but it will. One of the few reasons people still bother going to stores is because they don’t want to wait for shipping. Drone delivery could easily end that. Meanwhile, virtual dressing rooms will make the physical experience even less necessary. Once Auntie Anne's starts delivery service, it’s over — there's no reason to ever set foot in a mall again.

Driving Your Own Car to Get There
Whether it’s a car that drives itself or a low-paid contract worker driving for you, only those nostalgic for the days of piloting a metal death machine will get behind the wheel. Their kids will spend their commute times working, napping, and coming up with new ways to tease their parents about their inexplicable love for the "open road."

Eating Food
In the future, energy will be too valuable to waste on chewing. But you’ll probably still long for the days when flavor mattered and all of your nutrients couldn’t be gulped down in a vitamin slurry. In those moments of weakness, when you eschew Soylent and Ambronite for something you can chew, your kids aren’t going to shut up about it.

Cooking
The only thing weirder than eating messy, inconvenient food will be your insistence on cooking it. Don’t even try to convince them that there’s satisfaction that comes with taking disparate ingredients and turning them into one, cohesive dish. With their reliance on powdered nutrient drinks like those mentioned above and robot chefs, they’ll never understand.

Owning Any Form of Physical Media
Records, cassettes, and CDs have already died. DVDs and Blu-rays aren’t long for this world. Physical books, resilient as they’ve been, can’t hang around forever. But just like your dad and his beloved milk crate full of records, you’re not going to be able to let go of all of the content you’ve accumulated. And your kids won’t be able to let it go, either.

Drinking Coffee
“There’s just something about pouring a cup of coffee in the morning and relaxing with those first few sips,” you’ll say, as your kids strap on their brain-stimulating energy caps and roll their eyes.

Using Your Phone So Much
You’re already tied to your phone for apps and social media, but as the “internet of things” becomes more of a thing, your rechargeable appendage will become even more important. Turning on the stove? Use your phone. Lifting the lid on your toilet? Use your phone. Going to the doctor? Use your phone. Your kids, meanwhile, will take to technology that’s better integrated into the world around them. One possibility: a world of invisible but tactile buttons controlled by gestures.

Hiding in a Closet During a Hurricane
Super storms are going to get bigger, stronger, and more frequent in the next century, which is why your kids will live in underground bunkers designed to easily withstand hurricanes and tornadoes. You, on the other hand, with your silly insistence on having a yard and windows, will be forced to wait out each potentially deadly storm in a tiny closet. Or worse: You’ll have to trade safety for a night at your smug kid’s underground lair.

Longing for the Old Times Square
You know how ridiculous people sound when they pine for the days when Times Square was a drug-strewn sex haven? That’s how you’ll sound, too, when you glorify the days when advertisements didn’t jump off the billboards and try to grab you.

Dying With Dignity
As you get wrinkly and gray and begin to wither away, they’ll be getting genetic therapy to prevent aging. And it’s not just that they’ll live longer — they’ll live healthier. Genetic therapy can delay the onset of disease and help retain the coordination that often wanes later in life. You'll continue to insist that gray hair is a fashion statement. Then, when your body is finally ready to give out, they'll implore you to upload your brain to a computer and live forever. And when you insist that's creepy, they shake their heads and start secretly planning how to make sure it happens anyway.