Friday Funny

Thought you might appreciate this, even if you’re not quite old enough to get it! ...

  

ARE  YOU "GOING GREEN?"            

Checking  out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much 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  young 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 our  day.

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, 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.

Grocery  stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused  for numerous things, like household garbage  bags.

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.

Back  then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the  throwaway 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.

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.

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.

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 in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a  whole house did before the "green thing."  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 23,000 miles out  in space in order to find the nearest burger  joint.

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

We  don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much  to piss us off . . . especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced  smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling  them how much.