Wednesday, March 23, 2011

For the Over 30 Crowd

Yesterday my husband read an email to me that my Mother-in-Law sent him.  It is one of those chain emails that I hate to get, but I seriously could not stop laughing with this one.  I found myself constantly saying "yeap, that's right" and "that's how it was when I was coming up." 

I decided to share it with you this morning but I won't require that you send it to any of your friends;)


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...yadda, yadda, yadda



And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way 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 forty, 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 Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!



1) 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 library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!



2) 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!



3) 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 behinds! Nowhere was safe!



4) 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!



5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning !!! 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?



6) 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!



7) There weren't any cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! 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.



8) 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!



9) 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!



10) 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 behind and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!



11) 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 spoiled12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!



13) 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 - 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 1970 or any time before!

Written by Anika

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did, have an outstanding Wednesday and thanks for stopping by!

~Blessings~
Claudea B.









 


5 comments:

Jenilee said...

lol!! I remember using my tape player to tape music off the radio or even from a movie!! :) I had tapes of all kinds of things. commercials, half of songs, lines from the movie... so funny! we had some of our church kids over and they were asking me how old I was when my parents let me get facebook and a cellphone. they couldn't believe that those two things didn't even exist! lol

Mama Know Best said...

Lol...I know Jenilee, I use to be SO mad when the DJ would start a commercial right at the end of the song or start talking and completely mess up the song I was trying to tape.

Linda said...

These were too funny. it's a whole different world out there today isn't it? (smile)

Thanks for sharing.

Happy Wednesday!

Linda @ Truthful Tidbits

Anonymous said...

funny and scary to think about all that! :)

Janet Rose said...

Loved this. I'm sure our kids will be telling their kids similar things, too. For the longest time my parents didn't have a touch tone phone or a microwave. I was so embarrassed as a teenager. :)