When I was a kid...
This is thanks to an email from my cousin Amy...thanks babe. So funny it brought tears to my eyes and even made hard ass hubby laugh!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning...barefoot...uphill BOTH ways...YADDA, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that...I'm over the ripe old age of thirty (or thirty at least), I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so EASY! I mean, compared to my childhood, You live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter...With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ's usually talk over the beginning and @#%& it all up!
And talk about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
Don't get me started on the cell phone for kids issue. We have all fallen into the trap of "it's for their safety." But it is amazing that we came and went and never had a phone on us and we all lived. A cell phone, hell back then phones at home still had cords on them. Imagine being tied to one spot. Roaming charges...yeah, we had those...when we strayed too far from home we got charged with it and got our butts beat...there are some roaming charges for you!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little sqaure! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!
And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!...Just like LIFE!!!
Nowadays kids have a million activities after school and on the weekends that they need to be taken to. When we were young, our Mom's didn't take us anywhere, except to the grocery store (and back then they didn't even have to take us in, they could just leave us in the car!). Heck they didn't even drive us to school...your transportation was your stinking little feet. Not to mention they would never have paid money for all of those activities...we were told, "What do you think? We are just made of money?". The answer was no and we walked to where we wanted to go.
When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then there were only 15 channels and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV and change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?!
We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
And now there are DVD players in the cars! God forbid they just stare out the window like we did. Now Moms can't say, "If you don't behave I am going to come across this seat and beat your butt", no! Because they would hit their heads on the damn DVD player!
And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire...imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use the stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regard,
The 30-something crowd!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning...barefoot...uphill BOTH ways...YADDA, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that...I'm over the ripe old age of thirty (or thirty at least), I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so EASY! I mean, compared to my childhood, You live in a damn Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter...With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ's usually talk over the beginning and @#%& it all up!
And talk about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
Don't get me started on the cell phone for kids issue. We have all fallen into the trap of "it's for their safety." But it is amazing that we came and went and never had a phone on us and we all lived. A cell phone, hell back then phones at home still had cords on them. Imagine being tied to one spot. Roaming charges...yeah, we had those...when we strayed too far from home we got charged with it and got our butts beat...there are some roaming charges for you!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little sqaure! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!
And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!...Just like LIFE!!!
Nowadays kids have a million activities after school and on the weekends that they need to be taken to. When we were young, our Mom's didn't take us anywhere, except to the grocery store (and back then they didn't even have to take us in, they could just leave us in the car!). Heck they didn't even drive us to school...your transportation was your stinking little feet. Not to mention they would never have paid money for all of those activities...we were told, "What do you think? We are just made of money?". The answer was no and we walked to where we wanted to go.
When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then there were only 15 channels and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV and change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?!
We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
And now there are DVD players in the cars! God forbid they just stare out the window like we did. Now Moms can't say, "If you don't behave I am going to come across this seat and beat your butt", no! Because they would hit their heads on the damn DVD player!
And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire...imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use the stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regard,
The 30-something crowd!
posted by MommyOutOfControl at 3/22/2006
6 Comments:
That's too funny! Society has turned people into such instant-gratification addicts. That was a good post!
Very funny!!! And so true.
Pong...I remember Pong.
Very hi-tech stuff.
I still don't think you had it so bad growing up! Back in my day.... :-)
Love ya,
Mom
You are so right mom, I had it great growing up: own phone line, own bathroom, practically my own upstairs, my own car (upgraded for college). I was spoiled! You definately had a rough childhood...7 children, losing your father. I still don't know how Grandma kept you all together! Love ya. On the other hand, Matthew has so much is it ridiculous, so we are cutting back big time. Too much stuff!
Jamie
I love this list of the stuff kids have now that we did not. I mean, I am only 32 but sometimes when I think of what I never had in my life that kids nowadays could not DEAL WITHOUT, it is rather amazing.
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