Alright, listen up you whippersnappers. You don't know how nice you've got things nowadays. Your lives are too easy, too good, too plentiful. Let me tell you, when I was your age:
- We didn't have any of this "motion-controlled video game system" crap. When we jerked our controllers up to make Mario jump just a little bit higher on the screen, did he jump higher? No sir-ee bob, he did not. If you didn't hit that A button, Mario would get bit by that turtle and you'd lose a life, simple as that. Oh yes, we'd be waving that damn controller all over the place, but good luck having it do anything more than give you a psychological benefit in the game!
- Ketchup packets were just that – packets of ketchup that always contained too little ketchup and were damn hard to open. None of this "Dip & Squeeze" crap that Heinz is coming out with now. You bit your ketchup packets to open them because your hands were too greasy to tear open that serrated edge of the packet and that was that! And if you were in the car, good luck keeping ketchup on your food and out of your lap!
- Forget about cell phones, text messaging, instant messaging, email, twitter, facebook or skype. When you wanted to get in touch with your friends, you picked up the house phone and called their house! Or more often, you got on your bike or walked over to their house, rang the doorbell, and asked if they were home and could come play!
- When we had to do a report for school, the first place we went was the CARD CATALOG in the LIBRARY. Then you'd have to find BOOKS in the stacks and READ through them to find information! Google and Wikipedia searches didn't exist. If you wanted to find out when Picasso painted Guernica, you had to look it up the hard way. It built character, and ruined our eyesight. That's why we all wear reading glasses now, dontcha know?
I could go on and on about all the ways you kids have it too easy today, but it's time for me to go watch some Olympics on the DVR. Then I have to go read some of my feeds on Google Reader and follow it up with a "dance party" with my kids to the custom Pandora music stream I set up specifically for when we want to boogie on down. But hear me on this: you kids are SPOILED. Appreciate what you've got, because the next generation certainly will take it for granted…
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February 23rd, 2010 on 1:53 PM
haha…amen brother!
We used to have to listen to college radio and stay up late on Sunday nights watching MTV to find any cool music, and then we'd have to go to record stores and search and search and search, or maybe we could get something mail ordered if we sent in a money order or had our parents or older sister write a check. Or maybe we sent cash back in those days….there was no Amazon. There was no iTunes!
Ketchup is grown, not made? Do you pick it off a ketchup tree? I did not know that.
February 23rd, 2010 on 1:57 PM
So true!
It makes me a little sad when kids come straight to the reference desk when their teachers require print materials for their homework. They have no idea where to even start and don't even try a preliminary search on the catalog computer before asking. Most of their eyes glaze over when I mention the Dewey Decimal System.
February 23rd, 2010 on 2:10 PM
i loved the card catalog too! only because i was so awesome at it, and other students sucked! lolyou rarely catch me in a library now-a-days i'm anti-reading.. but i WILL go to use the free wifi. (=
February 23rd, 2010 on 2:56 PM
I was just telling my niece (16) about the days when you used to be able to pick up the phone calls of other people nearly every time you called someone on a house line. *sighs nostalgically* It was so fun :P
February 23rd, 2010 on 6:17 PM
What a great post! Seriously on the money. Card catalog? Oh, yeah, I remember that. Encyclopedias. Typewriters. Vinyl LPs and 8-tracks. Rotary dial phones with no caller ID. There wasn't even Mario in my childhood.
February 23rd, 2010 on 9:46 PM
Hahahhahahahahh! Now, I have to go write a post about how easy YOU had it as a child of the 80s compared to a child of the 70s!!!
February 28th, 2010 on 11:13 PM
This made me laugh! I had to read it to my husband. We purchased a set of Encyclopedias for the kids. They (the encyclopedias) at least look great on the bookshelf.