I WONDER...

just what about our everyday lives in the year 2005 would be the most jaw-droppingly strange to a time traveler from, say, the year 1955.

After getting over the disappointment over the lack of 24-lane superhighways and domed cities everywhere, or there being no Gyrocopter in Every Garage! as pictured in Popular Science - what would be the biggest single observation that would convince our friend that, yes, it is now the year 2005?

Would it be the wide-screen high-definition color TV’s? Jumbo jets? Digital cameras? Computers? Calculators the size of credit cards? Credit cards, for that matter?

No, I think it’d be those Bluetooth-enabled schmitchiks that people hang from their ears, letting them talk hands- and wire-free on their cellphones.

Because our time-traveling friend would take one look at all of the people walking around, seemingly carrying on a conversation with Harvey the Six-Foot Invisible Rabbit, and he would immediately know that he is in a strange World o’ the Future where fallout from H-bomb tests has turned everyone into Lunatic Zombies.