Growing up in Yesterdays World

[Chica Chaser]

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

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.... Uphill... Barefoot.... BOTH ways… In the snow... 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 my 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, 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! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

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!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends." OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! 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!

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 to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

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-finks!

And not many of us had microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats and seat belts - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

I LOL'ed at several of these! Fortunately I remember them all.

Reprinted without permission as I don't know who the author is.

[AshleyAshton]

Yep, that pretty much nails it and I am one of those spoiles rat-finks..hehehe
I can't imagine not having my Blackberry and all the wonders and convienences of it. My iPod...forget about it--can't be without that ever..it makes cleaning inside and out so much more pleasant. Caller ID--the choice to answer or not is awesome.


All in all..Lol funny stuff and Im guilty of pretty much all of it

Good post, Sweetie!

[Chica Chaser]

Originally Posted by AshleyAshton

Yep, that pretty much nails it and I am one of those spoiles rat-finks..hehehe
I can't imagine not having my Blackberry and all the wonders and convienences of it. My iPod...forget about it--can't be without that ever..it makes cleaning inside and out so much more pleasant. Caller ID--the choice to answer or not is awesome.


All in all..Lol funny stuff and Im guilty of pretty much all of it

Good post, Sweetie!

Thanks Ash, this one really hit home with me...because it's so true!

I can remember when my folks first got cable TV... OMG! Went from 3-4 channels to like 30-40!! It was nirvana for this high school geek-boy at the time. Of course I still didn't have a TV in my room.

And my first cell phone was in '86ish. A big Motorola that came in a bag with wires that went to antenna outside and power cords to plug in the cig lighter in your car. I specifically remember it cost .32 cents a minute as long as you didn't roam outside your home area. Nowdays...I'm with you; I couldn't live with out my BB and IPhone.

(PS, I'm looking hard at the new BB Torch released today, I'm about ready to retire the IPhone)

Also, remember the first time I got internet service. Dial-up on AOL, slooooow as hell!! Still have that original AOL acct too, but haven't logged on in months.

GOD, I truly don't feel as OLD as I make myself sound!! At least I can still fuck good!

[Chica Chaser]

Oh...our first Microwave? An absolutely mammoth Amana Radar-range. Damn thing was huge and took up half the kitchen counter...and weighed at least 50 lbs, easy! But the damn thing could boil a cup of water in 20 seconds flat.

Long before CD's, we had cassette tapes; before that we had 8-track tapes. 8-tracks are what I grew up with. The tapes themselves were huge and I had an entire library of them. When you went out in the car you had to decide which ones to take with you as you could have filled up the entire trunk of a 70's era car with all of them.

The good old days! Really, I'm only in my mid-forty's!

Now I'm just reminiscing....sorry; carry on!