Posted by Beatrice_Rapaccinni at 12-229-78-142.client.attbi.com on March 21, 2003 at 00:26:33:
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 through
>year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings
>on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they
>maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time
>after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked
>for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from
>starving to death!
>
>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've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine,
>I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.
>You've got it so fuckin' easy!
>
>I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in freakin
>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--we wanted to know something, we had to go
>to the damn library and look it up ourselves!
>
>And there was no email! We had to actually write
>somebody a letter--with a pen!--and then you had
>to walk all the way across the street and put it in
>the fuckin' mailbox and it would take like a week to
>get there!
>
>And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to
>steal music, you had to go to the damn record
>store and shoplift it yourself!
>
>Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the
>radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and
>fuck it all up!
>
>You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just
>download porn! You had to bribe some homeless
>dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! It was
>either that or jackoff to the lingerie section of the JC
>Penney catalog! Those were your options!
>
>We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting! If you
>were on the phone and somebody else called they
>got a busy signal!
>
>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 boss, your mom, a collections agent,
>your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to
>pick it up and take your chances, mister!
>
>And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames
>with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600!
>With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the
>graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! We 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 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!
>A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!
>
>And sure, we had cable television, but back then that
>was only like 20 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! You could only get
>cartoons on Saturday morning... ...D'ya hear what the
>fuck I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled
>little bastards!
>
>That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have
>got it too easy. You're spoiled, I swear to God! You guys
>wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!