# Young Checker at market, rude to an elderly lady



## Denise1952 (Nov 17, 2014)

This is a long read, but I read it this a.m. and thought others might want to see it.  It was a good reminder for me:


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 young 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 truly recycled. But we didn't have the green thing  back in our day.

 Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper  bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides  household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers  for our schoolbooks.
 This was to ensure that public property, (the  books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our  scribbling's. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown  paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.
 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  throwaway 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 23,000  miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger 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?


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