Old Person Whining

My Dad sent me this today:

THE GREEN THING

  

Checking  out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she  should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for  the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't  have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The clerk  responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough  to save our environment for future generations."

She was right --  our generation didn't have the green thing in its day or didn't call it "green."

Back then,  we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The  store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and  refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really  were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our  day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in  every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't  climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.  But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back  then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away  kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine  burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes  back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers  or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right.  We didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had  one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a  small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the  size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by  hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old  newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap  Back then,  we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We  used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we  didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on  electricity. But she's right.  We didn't have the green thing back  then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of  using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We  refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we  replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole  razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing  back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids  rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a  24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an  entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a  computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles  out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward  this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.


Remember:  Don't make old people mad! 

 

We don't  like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to tick us  off.

I wrote a response, but I'm not sure I should send it to him.

Wow…ok, this will probably make you mad, but here goes. 

Nobody brings bottles and cans into the stores anymore because the stores refuse to take them, and people fight curbside recycling programs until they are forced to use them and they everyone says how wonderful they are. And the above comment from the clerk was about plastic bags, not glass and aluminum. Walking everywhere was seen as an inconvenience, so the older folks created cars and suburbs and sprawl so they wouldn't have to walk everywhere, then became old and didn’t like being old so they created pills for erectile dysfunction and cholesterol and shove these ads all over the TV so that my 4 year old asks me what that is, and they parade around in free, government-funded electric wheelchairs and scream about DEATHPANELS! as soon as someone mentions making any changes to Medicare for anyone over 55. Advances in technology and medicine have lulled us into believing we can fix anything that's wrong with our bodies, pain and expense be damned. Our politicians capitalize on this antagonism by assuring the old folks that their government benefits will be fine, that all the proposed changes only apply to the next generation. But who pays for the old folks benefits? Folks who aren’t retired yet. But the workers still have to put up with being told how we are doing everything wrong while we are expected to support our older generation on top of supporting ourselves.

We are forced to drive everywhere because our parents designed our cities to force us to use cars because that is ‘freedom’ and we only go to our cities to work and then flee to the suburbs, making the cities practically deserts at night. These old folks have taught us that economic growth is the ultimate goal for capitalism, yet all we have to show for it is more JUNK with less overall happiness. Maybe old people are mad because they are being shown that their views of the world might be incorrect in some ways. What’s wrong with that? I know some of my views are incorrect, and I would like to learn why and how. But we don’t reward knowledge anymore unless it can make you obscene amounts of money.

People choose to use dryers. We aren’t forced to use them. But we are continually bashed over the head with very, very effective advertising saying that we should use dryers and that walking is for dummies and that we aren’t manly men if we don’t own GIGANTIC MADE IN THE USA FORD F-350 Diesels that have HEMIS and can pull a gigantic boat that we never use. All I wanted to do was watch a freaking football game, yet I have to hear about how my lifestyle is inadequate during every commercial break. So dryers are bad but washing machines are good? When was the last time you hand washed all your clothes? I have to mute the TV during the ads because the commercials are so loud that even if I flee the room I am bombarded by the sound and fury of these commercials. Yet if I ignore these ads and refuse to buy things I don’t need, I am told that I am being un-American for not buying things and keeping the economy going. I don’t think that the old people were told that not buying is un-American, yet these same older folks who run and profit from these companies in retirement are telling us to do so. I don’t get it. If we just eliminate the god awful amounts of CRAP that we make, we would be much better off.

I like using a fountain for drinking water. A lot of people don’t because in a lot of places in the country the city water is HORRIBLE because old and young alike refuse to pay for new water infrastructure. Old folks remember what the old days were like because they were experiencing all of this fabulous new infrastructure that was NEW so that the water tasted a lot better and wasn’t full of giardia from the well or stream.

I take the bus because it makes sense and is actually cheaper than driving my car everywhere. Old people must think we are really pathetic for letting our kids run our lives, yet aren’t they the ones that taught us to do that when they were driving us around to soccer and baseball games in the 80’s? People do this because they think that our kids want to have really fulfilling childhoods because that will get them and edge in life and they are just sick and tired of hearing grandpa bitch about how he had to walk to school in 8 feet of snow uphill both ways every time they say hello to him and maybe they don’t want their kids to turn out the same way.

Old folks were wasteful back in the day, but like most Americans today including me and you, we are all wasteful now and have embraced the wasteful lifestyle. I think being able to use my phone to find a pizza joint is awesome now, and saves a lot of paper instead of using a phone book that doesn’t ever get used. If you agree with how dumb a smartphone is, why do you own one yourself?

Kids today are a product of their upbringing, so if kids are whining now, isn’t that because the parents (now the older generations) spoiled the snot out of them and didn’t teach them that reality doesn’t always mean getting a gold star for finger painting or their 5^th grade graduation? We teach kids that they are special, but if everyone is special, then no one is.

Old folks scold kids for staying inside and playing video games, and while exercise is a must, I bet those old folks would have played video games if they had been around when they were young. They would have eaten (and do eat) at McDonalds. When the old folks were young, all these appliances were touted and embraced as signs of PROGRESS and American ingenuity. Now they are being labeled as terrible devices that make everyone lazy. I’m pretty sure that our grandparents’ grandparents grumbled about how cars were dumb and the horse and buggy was all that was needed (never mind the massive piles of dung that would collect in the streets). People were and are wasteful because they don’t know any better. Why is knowledge treated as a bad thing nowadays? It’s human nature to resist change, but as humans aren’t we obliged to take care of our environment and not just exploit it?

So just spare me the old person whining, and I’ll spare you mine. What ever happened to ‘We are all in this together.”?

That’s how I was raised.