Under 30 Spoiled Brats!!

[TerriDoodle 6]

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 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 in hell I was going to lay

a bunch of crap 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 damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you

don't know how good you've got it!

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!!

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!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to

steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the

beginning and @#*% it all up!

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!

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 agent, you just didn't know!!!

You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

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 'a steroids'. 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!

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!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that

was only like 15 channels

and there was no on screen menu and no remote control!

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 and there was n o Cartoon Network eit h er! 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!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat

something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire .. imagine that!

If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing

and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

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

Edited April 1, 2008 by TerriDoodle

[nikkikki2292 2]

OMFG I ABOUT PEED MY PANTS.

This is so funny!!!!

I'm 15, and I seriously don't think I could survive the 80's.

No ipod? No cell phone? No CALL WAITING!?!?!?

This was the best thing I've read all day. (:

[Wheetsin 714]

I'm 32, but on the cusp of many things in that list.

I remember having to use the card catalog. I also remember having to tune our TV by turning the little inset knob and having to mess with the antennae. I remember when I was in elementary school and we got cable. We had "The Movie Channel" and if we wanted to watch it, we had to get up and flip a little box switch from "A" to "B".

I remember too well trying to nab songs off the radio with my "boom box" (Escape Club "Wild Wild West," or Mike & the Mechanics' "The Living Years" anyone?), and being so pissed when the DJ would stop it too soon.

I remember handwriting reports, and then I remember things got fancy

and my parents bought me a typewriter. And then a few years later I upgraded to a word processor, and I was damned happy to have it.

Anyone else remember ditto machines and their blurry, crappy purple text?! Damn, the teacher would bring the copies in, still hot, and the first thing we did was shove them into our faces and inhale as much of the ink fumes as we could.

I remember getting our first microwave. I think - seriously - my parents paid like $1000 for it. It was about the size of my washing machine. And the night we brought it home, my father broke it by microwaving smores (in foil packets).

I remember my parents not being afraid to let us play in the yard or walk through the neighborhood to the park.

I also remember our first VCR, it too was seriously like $1000. Hitachi. It still works to this day, btw. My parents debated long & hard whether to go with VHS or BETA. They chose VHS. The VCR had a new thing called remote control, but back then the remote had to be plugged in still, so you could only take it as far away as the cord would stretch. It had 4 buttons on it: stop, play, rew, ff. And it was the shiznit!

[jtorie 0]

LOL Iam 23. My family was poor so we lived right on up through 2003 like it was still the 80's. I can relate my entire childhood to this. Pretty funny stuff. Thanks for sharing!

[Jachut 487]

Oh, you make me feel sooooo old. I'm 40 and that was my adolescence.

And the trouble is, I actually SAY those things. To the 20 somethings at uni, lol. This generation Y, in Australia they've had it so good. Low interest rates, jobs abounding, they have these expectations of life that are so darn unrealistic, and they expect everything handed to them on a platter. They turn up their noses at living in an outer suburb (they'd rather rent and spend their money on designer clothes) and laugh outright at the quaint notion of actually saving up cash for your new couches.

Grumble grumble.

[Cota129 0]

15 TV channels? For the longest time, we only had 3 channels. And only black and white TV . My mom had to cook EVERY night :puke:. No fast food or frozen stuff. We had to actually shovel snow, because no one had a snow blower. Cutting the grass was done with a rotary mower. Who owned a power mower? The funny thing is, I find myself doing the same things now, except the TV thing (I like my channels).

[TerriDoodle 6]

And you notice the biggest ommission of all is vinyl records and 8 track tapes!!

Our first CD player was $800.

[OH Juli 15]

Come on in 1980 the eight track was on the way out.

My childhood memories in the car:

Having beer cans rolling around underfoot in the back seat floor boards.

Parents both smoking with the windows rolled up and me turning green.

Four kids tumbling over each other with out a though of a seat belt.

Those were good times.

[Wheetsin 714]

I remember going to work with my mom, and she smoked in her office. They all did. She worked at the American Cancer Society.

And I can remember if I went to work with her, one of the things she would do to keep me busy was give me old microfiche sheets to make glasses out of.

And at the library we had to use microfiche to look up old newspapers and journals.

(watches everyone under 30 going to look up what "microfiche" is...)

[Daisalana 33]

Haha. Too funny Terry!

Well, I think at 24 I still saw both sides. I remember Microfish (but I thought it was spelled like that!), and using them. I remember card catalogues in the library.. and I absolutely hated looking for a book. I remember our TV was black & white and only had 4 channels until I was 7.

I taped things off the radio all the time, the most memorable was Rage Against the Machine when I was 13. My parents wouldn't buy me blank tapes, so I would take their bought tapes and learned to put clear tape over the holes on the bottom so I could over-write it.. ho hum.

I had pen pals, I wrote lots of letters to family members that don't live here.

..Just sayin!

[Haydee 2]

Love this Terry! I tell my 23 yr old sister how good she had it growing up. I remember when my dad showed up with our first VCR. Like Wheet said, it was about $1000 bucks probably. And yes, it still works! My sister grew up with Game Boy. We never had anything like that for road trips. We actually had to invent stuff to keep ourselves occupied. What else... hmm, I remember that we were my dad's remote control. We would stand by the TV turning the knob through all 15 channels until he found something he liked...

Ohh, does anyone remember something called YAK? I think that's what it was called. I remember my friend down the street had it. She said she could talk to different people all over the world through her computer. I thought she was lying and that could never happen...

[Scarlett O'hara 0]

That post was way too funny!

I'm (still) 39 and remember all that stuff!

We got a commodore computer when I was about 15. remember dot-matrix printing?

Remember when the phone had a cord ? My mom would call us in the room just so we could hang up the phone for her!

I too tape recorded off the radio and WOULD wait all day for a song! Anyone ever call the DJ over and over with a request?

The car we had was a station wagon with a 3rd row, but it looked out the back window - we would hop all-over those seats and make faces at the people we were facing! I dont even think there were seat belts in the car!

[Kat817 19]

No quite that far back---but I remember my Uncle paying like $1200.00 to a guy to videotape my cousins wedding---I think it was say 25 years ago!

And along those lines, our first camcorder cost us well over a thousand bucks and rested on your shoulder---huge!!! Now ours will drop in a shirt pocket!!!!

Yep I remember all that stuff!!! My Dad would call us in to change TV channels, and we would change it, and he would act like he was into it so we would go to leave and he would want us to turn it again.

In my opinion it is a damn good thing they did not invent remote controls any earlier, my brother and I would have been dispensible then!!!!!

Kat

[TerriDoodle 6]

.... We never had anything like that for road trips. We actually had to invent stuff to keep ourselves occupied....

Car Bingo, anyone??

I too tape recorded off the radio and WOULD wait all day for a song! Anyone ever call the DJ over and over with a request?

Yes. I remember being desperate to hear Mississippi Queen (know what I mean?)

[TerriDoodle 6]

My Dad would call us in to change TV channels, and we would change it, and he would act like he was into it so we would go to leave and he would want us to turn it again.

In my opinion it is a damn good thing they did not invent remote controls any earlier, my brother and I would have been dispensible then!!!!!

Kat

Remote control came out about the same time birth control did. Coincidence?