Back to Al's Text Humor Page

Back in the 80's

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears about how hard things were when they were growing up but now that I’m in my thirties, I can’t help but laugh at the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy!

You live in Utopia. You kids don’t know how good you’ve got it. When I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet; if we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in a thing called a card catalog!

There was no email; we had to write a letter with a pen, find an envelope, lick a stamp, stick it on the envelope, walk all the way across the street, and put it in a mailbox. And then it took a week to get there!

There were no MP3’s. To steal music, we had to get to an actual record store and shoplift it ourself. Or wait around to tape it off the radio but then the DJ would talk over the beginning and mess it up!

We didn’t have Call Waiting. If we were on the phone and somebody else called, they heard a busy signal. And no Caller ID either. When the phone rang, we had no idea who it was. It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn’t know. We had to actually pick up the phone and take our chances, mister!

We didn’t have fancy Sony PlayStation games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari 2600 with “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and graphics that sucked. Your guy was just a little square. We had to use our imagination. And the same screen forever. And you could never win because the games just got harder and harder and faster and faster until you died. Just like real life!

Movie theaters didn't have stadium seating. All the seats were the same height. If some tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat down in front of you, you couldn’t see. You either got up and moved or were screwed!

We had cable television, but it only had 15 channels. No Cartoon Network; we could only see cartoons on Saturday mornings. No onscreen menu. We had to open a little magazine called a "TV Guide" to see what was on. No remote control. Channel surfing? Ha! We had to get off our ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!

And no microwave; if you wanted to heat something up we had to use a stove or build a fire. If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled. You wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!