In My Day....
"The Washington Post" readers were asked to tell
Gen-Xers how much harder they had it in the old days:
Second Runner-Up:
- In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot.
In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for
traction.
First Runner-Up:
- In my day we didn't have MTV or in-line skates, or any of
that stuff. No, it was 45s and regular old metal-wheeled roller
skates, and the 45s always skipped, so to get them to play
right you'd weigh the needle down with something like quarters,
which we never had because our allowances were way too small,
so we'd use our skate keys instead and end up forgetting they
were taped to the record player arm so that we couldn't adjust
our skates, which didn't really matter because those crummy
metal wheels would kill you if you hit a pebble anyway, and
in those days roads had real pebbles on them, not like today.
And the WINNER of the velour bicentennial poster:
- In my day, we didn't have no rocks. We had to go down to
the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads.
Honorable Mentions:
- In my day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver
Beauty, my beloved paper clip.
- In my day, attitudes were different. For example, women
didn't like sex. At least that is what they told me.
- When I was your age, we didn't have fake doggie-do. We only
had real doggie-do, and no one thought it was a damn bit funny.
- Back in the 1970s we didn't have the space shuttle to get
all excited about. We had to settle for men walking on the
crummy moon.
- In my day, we didn't have days. There was only time for
work, time for prayer and time for sleep. The sheriff would
go around and tell everyone when to change.
- In my day, we didn't have fancy health-food restaurants.
Every day we ate lots of easily recognizable animal parts,
along with potatoes drenched in melted fat from those animals.
And we're all as strong as AAGGKK-GAAK Urrgh. Thud.
- In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had
to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have
some fingers amputated.
- In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off
voice saying 'Doors closing.' We got on the train, the doors
closed, and if your hand was sticking out it scraped along
the tunnel all the damn way to the Silver Spring station and
it was a bloody stump at the end. But the base fare was only
a dollar.
- In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together
our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
- In my day, we didn't have Strom Thurmond. Oh, wait. Yes
we did.
- Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day,
the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched
on the back of a giant tortoise.
- In my day, we wore our pants up around our armpits. Monstrous
wedgies, but we looked snappy.
- Back in my day, '60 Minutes' wasn't just a bunch of gray-haired
liberal 80-year-old guys. It was a bunch of gray-haired liberal
60-year-old guys.
- In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed
razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you
just had to hope you could outrun him.
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