Being green

At the grocery checkout, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environmment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
"You're right," the older lady said, "our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in our day." Then she went on to explain, "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' 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 school books. This was to ensure that the books were kept in good shape, not to be defaced by scribblings, and used again the next year by the new kids. We were able to personalize the books on the paper covers. 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 h.p. machine every time we had to go two blocks."
No, we didn't have the 'green thing' in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line instead of into an energy-gobbling machine gobbling up 4000 Watts. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand new clothing made in third-world countries.
But that young lady was right - we didn'thave the 'green thing' back in our day.
Back then if we were lucky enough to have a TV set, we had one for the whole house, not one in every room, and it had a screen the size of a handkerchief, not one the size 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 frigile item to send in the mail, we used old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut our lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't have to go to a health club to run on treadmills that use electricity.
No, we didn't have that 'green thing'.
"We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty, instead of using a throw-away cup or plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled our pens from an ink bottle instead of getting a new one, and we replaced a razor blade instead of a new razor, when it got dull."
"Instead of being green, people took a street car or bus, and kids walked or rode their bikes to school instead of using "Mom's Taxi" using the van or the 3 ton SUV. We had one or two electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of them to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23 thousand miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint."
Isn't it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the 'green thing' back then.
We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off - especially from some tattooed, multiple-pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much