The Green Thing

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jpt

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Checking out at the supermarket, 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 nappies 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 Belgium . 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 train 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 water us off.
 
Yet another thread about the so called 'good old days' :roll: No such thing...they were just 'different old days'. Would you rather go back to those days and look at, for example, a black and white TV screen the size of a postage stamp? I think not...move on with the times, it ain't perfick, but it's better that what we had. Since when did we ever use the terms 'gasoline' and 'moms' as well, clearly another cutn'paste exercise from across the pond - Rob
 
woodbloke":29nuswfc said:
Yet another thread about the so called 'good old days' :roll: No such thing...they were just 'different old days'. Would you rather go back to those days and look at, for example, a black and white TV screen the size of a postage stamp? I think not...move on with the times, it ain't perfick, but it's better that what we had. Since when did we ever use the terms 'gasoline' and 'moms' as well, clearly another cutn'paste exercise from across the pond - Rob

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more.

Fancy posting something light hearted and humourous in the General Chat section. Tut, tut, tut. :roll:

I%20don't%20believe%20it.jpeg
 
How rude was the clerk, should have told him to turn the till off and work out the price in his nothing of a brain. What about all them hippies fighting for land and so forth. Now days if youth felt so enriched as to save some land they would just shoot the construction crew, polluting the air with spent gun powder. Its the younger gen thats got less respectful and less caring if you ask me.

Never mind tills and calculators, kids now days can't even count on there hands, they have no chance using an abacus. Saying that if they ever saw an abacus they would probably think its a Victorian version of connect 4.
 
It always amazes me that when I get a charge of £8.22 and I hand over £10.25 to avoid getting a pocket full of coins, they have to use the till to calculate the change.
 
Hudson Carpentry":2fyg27tu said:
How rude was the clerk

To be honest, this makes me question the story a bit. Since it's so overtly American, and every time I've been in any shop in the US the staff have been almost comically over-the-top with their courtesy.

Regardless - as said, it's amusing and some parts of it are very true. It neglects to mention the huge increase in environmental laws over the last fifty to a hundred years that prevent industry from pumping who-knows-what anywhere they please - and I know that the last time I complained about the quality of air in London my dad gave me one of those snorting "you don't know what it was like when I was a lad" retorts - but it certainly seems true that things have become more disposable lately.

Anyway:

paultnl":2fyg27tu said:
It always amazes me that when I get a charge of £8.22 and I hand over £10.25 to avoid getting a pocket full of coins, they have to use the till to calculate the change.

To be fair to the cashiers: as I understand it, it's actually not necessarily that they couldn't work it out without using the till, but that it's a requirement of their job to use the till. A lot of the time in smaller, independent shops I'll see the amount the thing I bought was worth rung up, with the cashier working out the change correctly in their head, but I gather that in chain shops and supermarkets and the like, managers insist that staff use the till completely for all purchases, just to make sure.
 
Well we seem to be about to take a step back towards the good old days in primary schools at least as I noted in the press that calculators are to be banned.

Roy.
 
paultnl":2gcvvnd9 said:
It always amazes me that when I get a charge of £8.22 and I hand over £10.25 to avoid getting a pocket full of coins, they have to use the till to calculate the change.

I went into the local NatWest earlier today, with a small bag of silver and mainly £1 coins, to get it changed for notes (£15, carefully checked). "I shouldn't do this, as we no longer accept mixed coinage," said the cashier*.

It's all very well not handling cash, but then you drive to Scotland on holiday to find your debit card blocked because of 'suspicious activity'.

Someone's missing the plot, somewhere, but then banks still claim they have 'products'...

Cheers.

Victor M.

*in fairness to her, she did.
 
Eric The Viking":1fhez9o1 said:
I went into the local NatWest earlier today, with a small bag of silver and mainly £1 coins, to get it changed for notes (£15, carefully checked). "I shouldn't do this, as we no longer accept mixed coinage," said the cashier*.
That's been the case though, for a number of years now. I think it's because they weigh (or maybe not?) the coin bags so they need bags of all one sort of coinage...could be wrong though - Rob
 
I was Treasurer for a Society for a time that used to run raffles.
Counting up the monies and bagging them was a real chore!

The bank plastic bags usually have the number of each coin type printed on them. And they do get weighed by the bank.
Mixed bags were not acceptable so I used to have to keep them separately until the correct number was reached.

For my own copper coins I take them to a machine at our local supermarket. They take a small fee but a lot less hassle?

Rod
 
Reminds me that the water cooler bottle that I've been filling up over the last 12 or so years with loose coins - might be time to empty it.

Dibs
 

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