When I was a boy...

I came across this very amusing remembrance recently and pass it on to my 'faithful following'. In 1984, I was old enough to be this guy's father, but I cearly remember everything he is talking about here. Isn't amazing how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

.........

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 both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

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 kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But....

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so darn easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a 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--we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves! And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen, and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the "mailbox". It would take like a week just to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJs usually talked over the beginning of the song and screwed it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari! With games like "Pong" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You 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 faster until you died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height. A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed! And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 10 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning, and then only if your dad didn't kick you out of the house (our Dad's lived with us, too -- talk about constant ass kickings and no trying to buy your affection with presents, but I digress). Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for five crummy hours of cartoons, you spoiled little turds!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy You're spoiled, I swear! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!

More Humor

Here are a couple of good stories I ran across recently. I'm not sure if they are true, but they could be.

American Justice

A North Carolina, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: That the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued...and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires." If you think that's a travisty of justice, just wait, there's more to the story.

After the lawyer cashed the check, the Insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine. - Only in America!


Anything?

A student comes to a young professor's office. She glances down the hall, closes his door, kneels pleadingly. "I would do anything to pass this exam."

She leans closer to him, flips back her hair, gazes meaningfully into his eyes. "I mean..." she whispers, "I would do... anything."

He returns her gaze. "Anything?"

"Anything."

His voice softens. "Anything?"

"Anything."


His voice turns to a whisper. "Would you... study?"