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What!! No Cellphones?! Growing up in the 80's

MaGoose2010's picture

If you are 30, 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 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"! 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 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!

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 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 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
(Sorry, couldn't resist sharing this one!!! MG)

Comments

stepkate's picture

Fabulous. I'm 25, but I remember trying to tape stuff off the radio, too.

"Oh crap, its that song! Push record! Push record!"

And no internet to try to google the name of the song. You just hooped the DJ said it.

stepoff's picture

LMAO! tape decks? Hell, I had actual records! And if it skipped, you had to go buy a new one with your ALLOWANCE if you got it! TVs were a piece of furniture located on the floor. Telephones rang lound and had cords all over them with rotary dials.

this is why even ADULT skids don't know how to boil water these days. Use a stove ... what!!!???!?

pat's picture

HA ha , that made me laugh. I am 45 and I remember all of that. Hell I still have the atari system in my garage ,but i have a xbox360 now. I tell my kids this stuff and they tell me what planet did you live on? Do you remember how to make popcorn ? LOL
Cheers to memories !!! Smile

skylarksms's picture

How about PONG?? And my dad STILL has Commodore computers! The damn new gaming systems have more memory than those things!

I talked with SD about going to school and she was totally astonished that there was no internet when I went to school. Or cell phones. Or cable tv with more than a few channels!

And the kids these days have the COOLEST toys!! No imagination necessary.

mro's picture

Yeah you know you're getting old when you start saying, "when I was your age..."

 

Don't forget typewriters.  Remember when you had to type everything? No corrections either!  If you made a mistake (and it was always at the end of the page), you had to rip the paper out and start again!  My parents actually had an old Underwood before they got an electric one LOL (wish I had it now, it might be worth something!)

How about long distance phone calls? Aunt Marge calls from California and everyone comes running to join in on the 3-minute call cause long distance calls were very $$.