The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd

[skalenfehl]

A funny email my dad sent me. I modified it a little to make it appropriate for this forum:

You kids today think you got it hard??

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 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 nonesense 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, 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 freakin' Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

1. 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!

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dang 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 screw it all up!

4. We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

5. 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 a gent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

6. 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 were horrible! Your 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!

7. When you went to the movie theater there 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!

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

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!

9. And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire .... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10. There was no texting!! When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do.....hang up and talk to them later.

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!

Regards,

The over 30 Crowd

[Canuck Mormon]

:clap::clap:

Well said!!!!!

Not to mention portable DVD players. We had to color and read or stare out the back window of our station wagon with the rear facing seat that folded into the floor. Very comfortable .

[kenneth]

This one made me chuckle. I'm a high-school teacher, so I just might print this out for my students and give it to them the next time they complain about their iPods, cell phones or whatever new technical device is being invented this week as we speak.

I'll just give them an Etch-a-Sketch or a Rubik's Cube and say, "Well then, here, play with this!"

Anyways, thanks for your words.

[Guest girlydolphin]

ROFL!!!!

[Gwen]

i enjoyed that one lol

[WillowTheWhisp]

I wonder what there will be in another 30 years time with our kids saying they only had ipods and MP3 players in their day.

[MorningStar]

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! I love the Space Invaders one. I can still hear the awful sound effects when you know you're about to bite it.

[skalenfehl]

And those klunky phones back in the day when you had to put your finger in the finger hole of the corresponding number and turn the dial all the way around clockwise. Seven times!!! I hated dialing the high numbers and remember trying to push the wheel back to try and speed it up, which didn't work. There was even a sound effect if you held the receiver to your ear while you dialed those numbers that took forever to return to their original position:

Shhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.....Shhp! T-d-d-d.....Shhhhhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d, Dangit! I dialed the wrong number!

Grrrrrr!!! Shhhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.....

:lol:

[pam]

And business was conducted in the office on the office phones. None of this walking all around, into stores, shopping, driving, eating, etc with a cell phone attached to their ear...or bluetooth attached.

[Jbs2763]

i get all the jokes but i have to say NAHT FUNNY NAHT FUNNY

not really anyway....im almost 30...and my house didnt have cable...still dont have cable..dont go that far into \the country....

[Canuck Mormon]

And business was conducted in the office on the office phones. None of this walking all around, into stores, shopping, driving, eating, etc with a cell phone attached to their ear...or bluetooth attached.

Hey don't knock my Bluetooth.

[skalenfehl]

Heh heh. I used to have a bluetooth until I ruined it in the washing machine (forgot it in my pocket). Fortunately, my headset that plugs into my cell phone that I use for listening to the radio also works the same as my bluetooth. So now I can listen to my favorite stations, Sean Hannity, etc and take phone calls too.

[WANDERER]

Cable in the eighties....you guys lucked out. Not here they didn't. 6 channels that all went dead at midnight....hah and I still remember a test screen and God Save the Queen playing at midnight, eventually that changed...but how funny. Did you stand or sit...some people even stood...oh dear....perhaps I am older.

[Gwen]

lol we lived out in the country and had 3 channels, four if the weather was right. lol my dad was to cheap to keep up with the times so we watched our 3 channels on a black and white tv my brother gave us till he finally got his second color tv, then we got his old one. lol remote...didn't know what that was lol and now i've had to put my son on remote restriction. he hides it and thinks it's his. lol he's 6.

oh my lol this is really making me feel old.....i'm 28.

[Canuck Mormon]

And those klunky phones back in the day when you had to put your finger in the finger hole of the corresponding number and turn the dial all the way around clockwise. Seven times!!! I hated dialing the high numbers and remember trying to push the wheel back to try and speed it up, which didn't work. There was even a sound effect if you held the receiver to your ear while you dialed those numbers that took forever to return to their original position:

Shhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.....Shhp! T-d-d-d.....Shhhhhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d, Dangit! I dialed the wrong number!

Grrrrrr!!! Shhhhhhhhhp! T-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.....

:lol:

We had that sound even after we bought a touch tone phone. My dad wouldn't pay the extra 13 cents/month for the touch tone line. I had a friend whose parents still had an old rotary phone up until just a few years ago.

[skalenfehl]

We had that sound even after we bought a touch tone phone. My dad wouldn't pay the extra 13 cents/month for the touch tone line. I had a friend whose parents still had an old rotary phone up until just a few years ago.

LOL, I remember that option!! Haha! Good times!

[Flyonthewall]

I remember a time when, if we wanted to change the channel, we actually had to get up out of our chair, walk all the way across the room, and actually turn a dial on the TV.

Now days, I have seen people actually spend 10 minutes looking for the remote so they can change the channel, rather than getting up and pushing the channel button on the TV.

I can also remember a time when, if the picture quality wasn't good, you had to fiddle with the "rabbit-ears", or even climb up on top of the roof and turn the antenna to get better reception.

[havejoy]

What about the self-propelled lawn mowers we have now? I'm over 50 and my kids had to actually PUSH the darn mower, not just guide it around the yard. Of course, back in my day we had to mow the yard my biting the blades with our teeth.