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 cattle slaughter house, where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself I wouldn't talk like that.

But.... Now that I've retired, and have more time to think about it, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy!

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 and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or free music download sites! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11!

Those were your options!

We didn't have those tiny little cell phones where you just reached into your pocket to make or answer a call. Heck, some of us didn't even have a land line! We had to walk 4 blocks to a neighbours if there was an medical emergency.

We didn't have fancy stuff 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, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics, or 17" PowerBook laptops! We had Etch-A-Sketch, and the graphics sucked. And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever.

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, tough!

And sure, we had television, with 3 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... ...D'ya hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little kids!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1960!

I've misplaced the origin of this note and wanted to give proper credit. But someone was thinking when he put it together. Thanks.