The Green Thing

In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an
older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags
because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't
have the green thing back in my day."

The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your
generation did not care enough to save our
environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green
thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink 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 nappies because we
didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a
line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240
volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the
clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their
brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But
that old 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 Western Australia. 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 a wadded up old newspaper 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 fountain 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 tram or a bus and kids rode
their bikes to school or walked instead of turning
their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one
power point 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 cheese us off.