Thursday, April 11, 2013
Growing Up Without a Cell Phone
If you are 36, 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...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 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 damn 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 damn 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 ass! 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 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?
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 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 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 ass 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 spoiled little rat-bastards!
12. 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!
14. 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!
Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd
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OMG...I love this- so funny! The arm across? True.
ReplyDeleteWe had a station wagon and we would all be packed in like sardines. At times we had several in the way back...stopping was the best. We loved sliding forward!
I would NEVER EVER let my kids do that! lol
Ahhhh! The good ole days! How many of you did cross country road trips with a giant coffee can in the station wagon as a toilet. Not as fancy as today's RV's, huh?
ReplyDeleteLOL...... I like it all! I wouldn't have died in the 70s here because I don't watch much TV and I don't have a gaming console, I hate my mobile phone too. Caller ID is too expensive and I love the library.
ReplyDeleteAs for the seatbelts! Im glad they've been compulsory for all occupants of a car in our state since 1970. :)
Callie
The sad part is that I remember Pong and I was proud of my black and white TV. I didn't need a TV Guide. The rabbit ears only picked up one station and it wasn't the one I wanted to watch. Buck Rogers was on the other station.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes , yes to taping from the radio, sitting with your fingers on the buttons so as to press them at exactly the right time....and trying to mend the unwound tapes by pushing a pencil through the holes and twisting!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughts, I enjoy your blog.
Janey
I think we had it much better than our kids do. Small tv, outside playing all day long. Mud fights, frogs and cartwheels in the grass. Although we all have smartphones and laptops and Big tvs I would rather my four teens were outside playing with me. I dont miss the rabbit ears on the tv at all. Funny posts thank you it brought back some of the good old days.
ReplyDeleteI had totally forgotten about the tv guide and the stress it would cause if someone forgot to get it out of the Sunday newspaper. Nobody would know what was on all week long!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we grew up in a time when we did come home when the streetlights came on. It makes me sad that kids can't do that anymore. They are so supervised that their play gets thwarted.
I feel old. I remember all of these! The frustration listening to the radio all day in the hopes of taping my favourtie song only to have it cut off, or the DJ talk through the beginning or end. There was nothing like purchasing that vinyl though. CD's or downloading music just isn't the same.
ReplyDeleteHugs,
Roz
I remember all this and more than isn't mentioned because I am way beyond the over 40 crowd. We used to have to walk twenty miles to school in the snow and it was uphill both ways. LOL
ReplyDeleteOmg I just realised I am old :(( .We played space invaders on a game machine in the pub on our first date!! classy I know. And he let me win. I have been spoiled ever since. I loved my records though, much better than an ipod thingamajig.
ReplyDeletelove Jan.xx
ROFL! Ah, the good old days :) I wonder how we ever survived! I clearly remember standing up in the front seat of the car and falling and hitting the dash more than once. You'd probably be arrested letting your kid do that now!
ReplyDeleteLOL. I'm a little young for some of these, but I remember a few and they are pretty funny. Kids today just don't get it.
ReplyDelete