Growing up without a cell phone

[mamag8ter]

Hilarious! 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 I was going to laya 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 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 darn 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 butts! 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 darn 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 behind 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 rats!

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!


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

[GolphinGator]

I am well over 40 and remember those times well. I wish sometimes there were no cell phones so people would talk to people that are in the same room and pay attention when driving.

[anstro76]

i must've grew up high on the hog we had call waiting.

[gatordee]

It will only get worse. In 20 years you will hear parents say "Do you know what it is like to have to dial your numbers? You would not last 10 minutes in my world! Your grand parents had to drive a car to school!"

[g8orbill]

in the 60's the fact that we had a private line was considered rich

[vaxcardinal]

and tv's were black and white

[anstro76]

Yeah I think the article was aimed at people nearing their 40's

Sent from my mind using ESP

[secgator]

Originally Posted by vaxcardinal

and tv's were black and white

No..."THE tv" was black and white. Although in your example, you must be referring to the really wealthy---I mean, "TV's"...as in more than ONE??

Wow. A true silver spooner huh?

[outbackjack]

Awesome. growing up in the 70's. I'm 42. Remember everything on that list.

Remember it well.

[Emmitto]

Yeah, it's probably for people more like 50, but it's still funny and point taken. In a previous life I worked telephone sales for 14 years and now I literally despise a ringing phone of any type. I use mine all day but maybe 3% is for calls. I have about 10 minutes before I start to lose it. Get to the meat! Why'd you call?!?

But I am old enough to remember that even Space Invaders on the 2600 was high brow. More like Pong. Only the high rollers had cutting edge games like Space Invaders and Asteroids. Those bad boys were the at arcades and took quarters! And you put your quarter up top (or on the side for the fancy table-top versions) and stood there and monitored until your quarter came up. And good players could make a quarter last an hour+.

I still remember Pac-Man coming out on the 2600. Barely recognizable as the arcade game, but it was the shiznit to have. I had to borrow it, no way we were paying the king's ransom it commanded at stores.

[anstro76]

My parents also had a remote... it was me

Sent from my mind using ESP

[gator1986]

Originally Posted by anstro76

My parents also had a remote... it was me

Sent from my mind using ESP

Hahahah ^^^^^ my dad with me!

[ovillegator]

And rabbit ears!

[panamacitygator]

Wow, I remember growing up in the sixties...

1. The local dairy delivered half gallons of milk to your front porch every morning and it was still cold!
The milk was in glass bottles and you left the empty bottles out for the milk man!

2. No cable tv. In PC back in the day we had the local nbc affiliate and a real grainy CBS affiliate in Dothan that you might be able to watch on a clear night.

3. I also was the remote, not to change channels but to turn the tv on or off and the volume up or down.

4. We had rotary dial phones where all you had to dial was 5 digits. No call waiting so that people actually thought it was important to answer the phone.

5. The only air conditioning we had was a single window unit in the living room and I don't ever remember being hot!

6. We played outside all day and didn't come in unless it was lunch, dinner or bathtime!

7. We never locked our doors.

8. Gas was like 23 cents a gallon. The attendant washed your windows and checked your oil while "he" pumped the gas.

9. If we went to the movies it was the drive-in. Us kids wore our pajamas, Dad made homemade hamburgers on "white bread" (never had a HB bun until the 80's at home)

10. Going to a fast food joint ie McDonalds was a treat. We went like once a month. You could get a hamburger, fries and a drink and get change back from a dollar.

11. No Walmart, Kmart. Sears had everything. Going to the grocery store was just that buying groceries. Your groceries were bagged for you and taken out to your car.


Those were the good old days!!!

[Spurffelbow833]

We had much better music. That alone made it worthwhile to "suffer" all the other "inconveniences."

[lhnewman]

I remember " listening " to the heavyweight championship of the world on radio with my father and some of his friends...on the radio!! Floyd Patterson vs Carmen Basilio

not even on TV!!!

[SkyChimp]

This is the best thread I've read in a long time. Thank you for sharing. It's hilarious!!!!

[Gator515151]

Who here is old enough that the first boobs they ever saw were those African Natives in the National Geographic Magazine at library? Either that or some kid stole a Playboy from his daddy's room and snuck it into school.

[GunGator]

I'm 34 and remember being around 10 years old and having to ask how to use a rotary style telephone...

[Tebowism0823]

Originally Posted by Spurffelbow833

We had much better music. That alone made it worthwhile to "suffer" all the other "inconveniences."

Very debatable!