Don't you just love it when you get one of these, usually sandwiched between the rest of the 'Make your fortune', 'MILF' and penis pills spam? They are especially annoying when sender doesn't remove those annoying chevron symbols that accumulate after being forwarded several times.
Reality isn't all too important with these tales; they just have to be marginally feasible. They're designed to be mind-numbingly heart-warming; chicken soup for the soul.
Incidentally, do you think that if I took all the penis pills I'm offered I'd be able to grow a complete new one?
TODAY'S TOPIC: HOW DID WE SURVIVE?
"Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have."
Lucky for us that you did! Otherwise, we wouldn't get to listen to your wonderful whining... I mean stories.
"As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat."
Ah yes... there's nothing quite like the feeling of cool wind blowing through your hair as you plummet headlong towards an oak tree after being thrown clear during a high-speed head-on collision. Unless, of course, it's the feeling of cool wind blowing over your exposed brain after a hard bounce turns your body into an impromptu physics demonstation, leaving you with a fist-sized crack in your skull.
"Our baby cribs were painted with bright coloured lead based paint. We often chewed on the crib, ingesting the paint."
So THAT'S what happened to you.
"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets."
Is that jealousy? Or are you saying society currently lacks a sufficient number of childhood poisonings or other hazards?
"We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle."
You think that's ballsy? Me and my friends used to drink out of puddles and play "chicken" in the railway shunting yards. There's nothing like dodging a five ton freight truck to speed up your reflexes.
"We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem."
When I was a child, if you ran into a person's bushes with a go-cart, you could fully expect to be hacked to pieces and burried in a shallow grave before the sun came up the next day.
"We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day."
Ah, the good old days... running through the woods, following the stream all the way up to where it sprang from under a giant boulder, like magic. And then, just a few hundred yards past that spring, the empty, abandoned cottage. Who's that man walking around the side of the building? Where did my friends go, all of a sudden? What's that mister? Put what in my mouth? No, I've never seen one that big before... OH MY GOD! I'VE UNCOVERED ANOTHER REPRESSED MEMORY! How many of these is a person allowed to have, anyway?
"We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We played with toy guns, cowboys and Indians, army, cops and robbers, and used our fingers to simulate guns when the toy ones or my BB gun was not available."
We used climb up the outsides of multi-story blocks of flats, chuck darts at each other, and push each other out of trees. We also used to beat each other up on a semi-regular basis. One time, we even set this hyper kid's jacket on fire because he wouldn't stop following us around. He stopped bugging us after that.
"We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing."
Do you know where I can get some of that Sugar Soda? It sounds AWESOME!
"Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment."
Black people and women knew their place, and accepted their lot with smiling, deferential bonhomie.
"Some students weren't as smart as others or didn't work hard so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade."
Many of these students went on to ward off the twin demons of guilt and regret by compiling imbecilic lists like this one.
"That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and
problem solvers."
"We all took gym, not PE ... and risked permanent injury with a
pair of high top Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having
cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in
light reflectors. I can’t recall any injuries, but they
must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are
now. Flunking gym was not an option ... even for stupid kids! I
guess PE must be much harder than gym. "
How wonderful it must have been for those 'stupid' kids, having to cope with the ridicule of their peers and the scorn of their teachers. Such a marvelous way to reduce self-confidence and promote a poor body image. No wonder your generation spent a fortune on quack diets and inane self-improvement books.
Do you know what else "that generation" produced? They produced THIS generation.
"We had the freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all."
This generation is still dealing with the unexpected consequences of your generation's "freedom." This generation is still paying the price of repairing your generation's "failures." Many people in this generation have become screaming, lawless cannibals to conform to your generation's definition of "success." Of all the words that could be used to describe your generation, "responsible" is probably the one that fits least.
Your generation used this planet like a toilet bowl and tried to train this generation to do the same. Now, your generation refuses to take responsibility for this. Maybe the guilt is too heavy to surface. It hardly matters, though, as soon you will be dead. Trust me on this one, you may be in love with your generation now, but future generations will curse your name, and when you're pinned to that slab and dissected under the cold white light of history, you will be harshly judged.