You Know You’re Old…

So, I was surfing and stumbled across one of those articles about aging that are supposed to be humorous. You know, one of those “trips down memory lane” and remembering “the good ol’ days.”

This one was targeted at Millennials.

Millennials? Aren’t they, like, in the 2nd grade or something?

So, here are a few of my own trips down memory lane. And lawd, do I feel old…

First though, I have to mention something in the article. Car ashtrays and cigarette lighters? You mean they don’t have those anymore? WTF? Yeah, I know I bought my truck in 1999, but…damn.

No ashtray? Where do you put your spare change?

Air travel. None of this cramming cheek-by-jowl, scrunched like a hair tie and all tangled up with the person next to you. See, back then, the planes were bigger. The seats were bigger. The space between rows was bigger, so you didn’t have to knock anybody out of the way to get a seat in the exit row. If you had your tray table down and the guy in front of you reclined his seat, you didn’t have his greasy, lice-infested hair in your face. Or lice dropping down onto your lunch. Speaking of lunch, the airlines served actual food. Not the greatest — you had to be in first-class for that — but real food. And airlines were regulated by the feds. That meant they got money even if the seat was empty, so if they didn’t sell it, so what? Okay, it ultimately came out of the taxpayer’s pocket, but still. If you were lucky enough to catch a deadhead, you had the whole fuckin’ plane to yourself. There might 5-10 other people on board. Maybe. And we’d chat and play cards with the stews, who served us all the booze we could drink. Sometimes the pilots would come out to say hi, too. They passed on the booze, though.

Cars, again. None of this low-to-the-ground shit where you practically need a grappling hook to get out. Yeah, I know. They look cool, sort of. But try getting out of one of those suckers in a short skirt and not give anybody who’s looking a coochie flash. In those old behemoths, all you had to do was swivel your hips and your feet were on the ground. Then you just stood up. No coochie flashes. And getting in? No whapping your head on the roof because you didn’t duck low enough.

You forgot your drawers…

Suburban sprawl. A couple miles outside the city, and you were rollin’ between the corn rows. Or whatever was growing. Now? I was headed somewhere I can’t remember where, but I honestly thought I’d gotten lost. Didn’t recognize shit. Going to Dulles airport? Better make sure there’s air in the tires, you got enough gas, and don’t forget to pack a lunch. Utter darkness, and there was one lone farmhouse that may or may not have a light in the window. No cell phones, so if your car broke down, you were SOL. So, next thing I know, I hear people complaining about noisy jets taking off at night. Uh…hello? You live next to a busy airport? You got a problem with that, why the fuck you buy a house out there?

All right, all right. Here’s one thing that wasn’t so good. New York City smog. Sky was always brownish-yellow, and on really bad days, you could hardly breathe. Top of the Empire State building looked fuzzy. You’ve seen those before and after pictures of Mumbai and New Delhi when everybody was on lockdown because of ‘rona? Yeah, like that.

When you need to enter your birthdate online and you have to scroll for your birth year. You position the cursor, click the mouse, and the years keep going, and going, and going… ‘Nuff said.

What did you do with Wile E. Coyote??

Decades. I dunno, but it seems like my time sense is off by 20 years. Twenty years ago was 2002, not 1982. 

No Saturday morning cartoons anymore! The world is doomed…

The “save” icon on an app. That’s a 3.5-inch floppy disk. For the computer’s A: drive. I couldn’t understand why they’d call them floppy, though. They weren’t. Not like the 5-inch disks. Now THOSE were floppy. And when CDs came out? Burning CDs? What sorcery was this???

And don’t get me started on key punch cards. They did make decent Christmas wreaths, though. Kinda decent, anyway. Okay, weird-looking. But hey, it was recycling at its finest!

Cursive writing. Well, if schools don’t want to teach it anymore, I don’t have a problem with that. Us geezers can pass secret messages about our plot to take over the world and no one will be the wiser. We’ll rule from our walkers and wheelchairs! Do banks still require people to sign their names in cursive to open an account, though?

Yeah, so I’m aging. Like fine wine. Although I’m more likely turning to vinegar.

For real.