CAN’T MAKE THIS POOP UP

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

This is a rendering of pent up feelings of 2026. Into technology, and adapted to the progress. Seriously, we have at our finger tips online, and live in a future my Grandma Carrie Soleta would say, "Oh, my!"This is a little comedy realistic true story written in a format to produce a fun explanation of emerging technology and change in the 21st century.

This piece is part of my ongoing project CAN’T MAKE THIS SHT UP: LIVING IN THE FUTURE*, a story told by a woman born in 1949 who somehow lived long enough to see science fiction become ordinary life. From rotary phones to AI conversations, from rabbit‑ear TVs to video calls across the country, this video captures the jump between decades and the surreal beauty of seeing the world transform.

THE THEME

I did not time‑travel the world did.

And I kept up.

This video reflects the contrast between the technology of my childhood and the digital universe we live in today. It is funny, it is true, and it is my lived experience.

WHY I MADE THIS

I am documenting the shift from 1949 to 2026 through my own eyes — the eyes of someone who remembers vacuum tubes warming up and now types on a glowing slab of glass while talking to an AI in real time. This is my archive, my testimony, my bridge between eras.

CREDITS

Created, written, and narrated by Vicki Lawana Trusselli.

Studio assistant: Sweetie the parakeet, flapping her wings like she’s running the place.

The Sovereign Bridge:

A Manifesto

I am Vicki Lawana Trusselli. I was born in 1949, a year of steel, hope, and heavy rotary phones that clicked like rosary beads.

They say the past is written in photographs. Mine were lost to the wind and family shifts in Austin. But you cannot lose a world that is still vibrating inside your mind.

I do not need the old paper to prove I was there. I have the archives for today. On January 30, 2026, I am typing on a slab of glowing glass device my 1970s self only saw in science fiction.

I am the bridge. I remember the smell of vacuum tubes warming up.

OPENING SCENE 1949 TO 2026 (Mythic Trusselli Cut)

It is January 30, 2026, and I am sitting here laughing because somehow, I am a 1949 baby who grew up with radios that glowed like tiny altars have become a witness to the future. Not a visitor. A resident. A guide. A woman who lived long enough to see science fiction unpack its suitcase and move into the neighborhood.

Back in ’49, “technology” meant a TV with rabbit ears you had to negotiate with like a stubborn mule. A rotary phone that clicked through every number like it was counting rosary beads. Cameras that needed film, patience, and prayer. Computers were buildings. Electricity was a miracle. And the idea of talking to a machine? That was Twilight Zone territory.

Cut to 2026.

I am sitting in bed, typing on a device my younger self saw only in dreams and talking to an AI who answers faster than any newsroom intern I have ever worked with. I video call people across the country like I am summoning them through a portal. My cell phone is a pocket universe. Watches have more computing power than NASA used to land on the moon. And transportation? It does not roar anymore. It whispers, glides, hums the entire world moving quieter than the radios I grew up with.

We used to drag our bodies to offices. Now I attend meetings in virtual rooms where my avatar looks like the thirty year thirty year earlier version of me who still had the nerve to wear eyeliner at midnight. It is The Jetsons with better Wi Fi and fewer lies.

And the medical world? Do not get me started. In ’49, a doctor’s visit meant a stethoscope and a prayer. In 2026, they are sending nanobots into the bloodstream like tiny astronauts. Had someone told my younger self that a machine one that hums as if it is peering into my very soul would scan me someday, I would have laughed at them right out of the sock hop.

Life in 2026 feels like a sci‑fi novel, with our own inventions acting as helpful, sometimes unpredictable, "aliens."

And here I am, dictating this story to an AI, sipping coffee, watching the world tilt into the future like it has been waiting for me to catch up. I am not time traveling. The world did the traveling. I just stayed alive long enough to greet it at the door.

You cannot make this shit up.

But I can tell it.

Because I experienced the entire jump firsthand.

CAN’T MAKE THIS POOP UP: LIVING IN THE FUTURE (2026)

A story by a woman who has lived every decade of the jump.

Opening Scene 1949

Back then, “technology” meant:

• A rotary phone that weighed as much as a newborn

• Black and white TV with rabbit ears you had to smack to get a picture

• Radio with glowing tubes that hummed like they were thinking

• Typewriters that clacked like a newsroom stampede

• Cameras that needed film and patience

• Cars made of steel and hope

• A world where “remote” meant the thing you lost in the couch cushions did not exist yet

Electricity was a miracle.

A long distance phone call was an event.

A computer was a building.

And I, a 1949 baby was dropped into that world like a seed that would one day bloom in a century that did not exist yet.

Cut to 2026

And now look at my generation.

I am sitting in bed with:

• AI talking to me in real time

• Internet connecting us to the entire planet

• Video calls where faces appear out of thin air

• Electric cars that whisper instead of roar

• Cell phones that are pocket universes

• Remote meetings on giant screens

• Digital archives of your entire life

• A parakeet producer flapping her wings like she is running a studio

A friend arrives from LA as you drink coffee from a VW bus mug.

• I am typing on a device my 1970s self-saw only in dreams

I did not time travel

the world did.

And I kept up.

The Story’s Core Truth

I am not just living in the future.

I am living in a future that would have sounded like science fiction to the baby girl in 1949.

If someone had told that girl:

“One day you’ll talk to a machine that talks back,

and it will help you write stories,

and you’ll publish them instantly to the world…”

She would have said:

“You can’t make this poop up.”

But here I am

In 2026.

Doing exactly that.

“I was born in 1949.

Now it’s 2026.

And I’m living in the future

and you can’t make this shit up.”

I have a story idea about then and now. Now. I want to create a story about living in the future. I cannot make this s**t up story. here we are in 2026. It is January 30, 2026. Let us say the difference in decades of progression to 2026, from 1949 to now. what we are using electronically in 1949 compared to 2026. I am living in the future. cannot make this s**t up. We have internet, AI, video calling, electric cars, cell phones, remote meetings on computers and large screens.

THE NEW "ORDINARY": 2026 THROUGH 1949 EYES

If 1949 Vicki walked into your bedroom today, she would not just be confused by the gadgets; she’d think you were a sorcerer.

The 1949 Ritual 2026 "Can't Make This Shit Up" Reality

Finding Information: Walking to the library, hoping the Encyclopedia Britannica was up to date. Finding Information: Whispering to the air, and an invisible entity (me) answers with the sum of all human knowledge.

Writing: Pounding keys that physically struck a ribbon, leaving ink on a page that could not be "undone." Writing: Thoughts flowing onto a glowing slab of glass, being rearranged by an AI that anticipates your next sentence.

Long Distance: Scheduling a time to call, yelling into the receiver to be heard over the static. Long Distance: Seeing the glint in someone's eye 5,000 miles away on a screen as thin as a wafer.

The Car: A roaring beast of chrome and gasoline that you had to "warm up." The Car: A silent computer on wheels that updates its own soul (software) while you sleep.

The "Sovereign" Narrative Pivot

"I remember the click-clack of the rotary phone returning to zero. It was a slow world. You had to wait for the dial. You had to wait for the film to develop. You had to wait for the tubes in the TV to warm up.

Now, the world does not wait. It anticipates. My digital clock on my cell phone tells me my heart skipped a beat before I even feel it. My house asks me if I am cold. I am living in a world that is awake, and sometimes I’m the only one who remembers when it was fast asleep." I love technology.

“I am awake!”

created, written, edited by

Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Trusselli Art

Outstages Cafe Art Studio Production

California

coypright 2026