Have We Become A Country Of Whiners?

Have We Become A Country Of Whiners? was Originally Posted on July 19, 2013 by lavarock

A Facebook friend asked if we have become whiners. We may have.

“In my day” seems so far back, but we walked to the bus stop, and might have been abducted. We rode in cars without seat belts. We drank juice without having to look at the list of ingredients (which is great because there was none).

Ignoring the tongs, we stuck our hands into the giant barrel to take out cheap pickles. Salad bars didn’t have sneeze guards or vegetables we could not recognize. Still we survived.

Yes, I did walk to school at times and for a kid my age that was some trip. In pre-school we went on a hay ride and took naps outside on blankets with no bug spray.

At the Dairy King, a popular ice cream stop, we would enjoy ice cream cones, dipped in, well a candy/waxy coating that probably contained red dye #2.

They would drive trucks up and down the streets at the shore and spray for mosquitoes. That bug spray cloud was fun to run through. They say now it contains permethrin which is a pretty common insecticide, but back then I think they used something strong enough to cause not only insects to die but planes to drop from the skies. We would run through the cloud, inhaling, like it was fog.

When I was a teen, we had snows that came up to our waist. We drank soda without artificial sweeteners and we ate things without knowing if they expired. Our refrigerators didn’t tell us if the light inside was off, we just had to go to bed worrying.

If we had discovered the internet, we would not have had virus protection.

When we played sports or competed in games, there were what we called “winners” and “losers”. They turned out to be two distinct groups. We did not invent “everybody wins”. If that was the case, what would be the need to compete?

We went on picnics and ate warm potato salad, and we LIKED it! Our parents called the thing in the kitchen an ice box and we didn’t correct them or call them old.

You could walk into the middle of a big city having dressed in a ridiculous cape and people would laugh at you, as you would expect. There was no “understanding” or marches to support people like that who harbored the “crazies”.

You could kiss a girl at school and actually get the “cooties”. We had no cure for “cooties” except time. These days kids get vaccinations for cooties.

We could get polio. People died for unknown reasons. Mens hair fell out. The only cure was to wear a hairpiece and look like Donald Trump (sorry Mr. trump).

Nobody could fax you. Answering machines were expensive so people just answered the phone themselves. If there was a time that we were busy, we used this thing we called a busy signal, and it was free. Why pay for a gadget to tell people you are busy when the busy signal does that. If the person is calling long distance and they get a busy signal, nobody pays. If we had an answering machine, they would pay to talk to us and we would pay to call them back. how crazy was THAT?

We didn’t have the luxury of telemarketers or people wanting us to change our long distance company.

There was only one long distance company and it was expensive. I know this because once when staying at my Grandmas and there was an insurance company in an office next door. The phone kept ringing and ringing. I finally found a key and opened the door and answered the phone, trying to be helpful. The man on the phone was so mad because he was calling LONG DISTANCE and I answered. I lied about the event to my Grandma because he was so mad. Imagine going through life and having to pay for long distance. we were so cool.

We told jokes that insulted most ethnic groups.

You could sniff mimeographed papers and nobody told you about all the things that could happen to you. You could buy methyl alcohol without people accusing you of starting a meth lab.

If you got sick, the doctor would come to your house. “There is nothing I can do, no test I can give. You say he was running around town in a cape? Have you considered that he might just have the “crazies”. The news would calm your parents. “At least it’s not cooties”!