The Spoiled Under 40 Crowd

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 crap like that on our 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. They've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood they live in Utopia! And I hate to say it but the kids today don't know how good they've got it!

1. When I was a kid, we didn't have the Internet. If you wanted to know something, you had to go to the library and look it up... in the card catalog... no Google!!

2. There was no email. You had to actually write somebody a letter... with a pen! Then you had to put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! No Facebook.

3. There were no MP3's or Napster! 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 mess it all up!

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

5. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Display either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! Imagine that. It could be your school, your mom, your boss, a collections agent, you just didn't know! You had to pick it up, take your chances and say "Hello?".

6. We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3D graphics! We had Pong. A white ball and two paddles. Later 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, 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 sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8. Sure, we had television, but back then there was only a handful of channels, many black and white no less.... and there was no onscreen menu or remote! You had to get up, walk to the TV to change channels. You had to buy 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. You had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

9. And we didn't have microwaves. If you wanted to heat something up, you had to use the stove... imagine that! If you wanted popcorn, you had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing or a pot with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever, hoping it wouldn't burn and stick to the pot.

10. When you were on the phone with your friends and your parents walked-in, you were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone... barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in your fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what... hang up and talk to them later. It was a rotary phone, you dialed a number - no push buttons, no speed dial.

Kids today have got it too easy. They wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards, The over 40 Crowd