The Green Thing
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the
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 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 its 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
and 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.
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. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in
our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the
throw-away 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. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have
the green thing back in our day.
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. But she’s right.
We didn’t have the green thing back then.
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. But we didn’t have the
green thing back then.
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. 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest
pizza 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?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a
lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.
Remember: Don’t make old people mad.
We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much
to piss us off.
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