Growing Up Without A Cell Phone...

[marinersfan]

My sister sent this to me in e-mail and it's so funny that I thought I'd share it!
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If you are 30, or closer to my age , 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 in hell I was going to lay a 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 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! Stamps were 10 cents!

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 ass! Nowhere was safe!

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!

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?

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!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! 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.

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!

We didn't have any fancy play Station 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!

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!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

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 rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

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 luckly, 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 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

[lmcconne]

ROFL

[$Saving!]

I've read this before but it never fails to bring me to tears laughing! It's all so true too! We ARE our parents afterall

[queenofthehivemomof5]

LOL so much of this is true! Although we had a microwave and a remote (although the remote had a wire to the TV and you always were tripping over it and the remote was the size of paper back book)

[Mama Stu]

We had a TV when I was growing up that changed channels everytime the phone rang. Of course back in those days there weren't very many channels. But, the phone would start ringing and the little turn dial to change the channels would just start going round. Then when the phone paused in between rings, the dial would stop and then start again with the phone. Hilarious, but very annoying if you were trying to watch something

[couponswapster]

hilarious and oh so true!!!

[Weinergirl]

Love it!

[amys]

ROFL

We didn't have a remote - but that was okay - we only had TWO CHANNELS!! Both local.

And party lines - anyone remember them? We lived in the boonies, so it took the phone company a while to switch over. If the phone rang, it might or might not be for you. "Hello? oh you want Mr Jones? okay, I'll hang up and you can call again and I won't answer" ring, ring, ring, ring - hmm must be someone else "Hello? oops, I'm sorry, I thought it might be someone else, try again. I PROMISE I won't pick up"

And forget push button phones. I grew up with rotary phones.

Hey - tangent - did you know in New Jersey, they actually charge a "non-rotary phone" fee still????? I was shocked - most people are non-rotary these days.

And pay phones!! Where did they go? I hardly ever see those anymore. and forget $.15 for a call - if you find a pay phone its laround $2 a pop!!!

[collectorofbells]

we had a remote for the BETAMAX vcr.....it had a two foot cord and all it allowed you to do was pause....LOL

otherwise I just made my little brother get up and change the channel!

[momof2inohio]

That is funny. I guess I am tad bit young for it though since we had most of the things listed. I will be 30 in september. We had a nintendo, call waiting, TV remotes, call waiting, a microwave and I got a cell when I turned 16.