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Dear Kids born after 1995:

Let me enlighten you on what life was like before everything was easy.   :-) 

See this:  

This is a PHONE BOOK.  We use to have to actually try to find people's names in this thing.  

And this contraption:  Its called a VCR.  You use to have to put a video tape in it and REWIND IT.  OMG it was such a pain waiting for that thing to rewind.....  we also use to have to get VIDEOS from a Video Store.   And some stores charged if you didn't rewind the tape - true story.

This is a TV.  I'm not even shitting you - these things were HUGE and heavy (the one we had when I was a kid took up like a whole corner of the living room).  And did NOT have a remote.  Shut the front door you say?   I'm for real.  You had to get UP to change the channel.  And the thing only went up to like channel 13.  Seriously!  I know, its crazy talk.

This is a "phone" - see the cord - yep, we had to stay within a foot of the phone when we were talking on it.   Eventually we came up with cords that were about 19 feet long so you could at least move about the kitchen (these phones were normally attached to a kitchen wall ya see).

Speaking of phones - this is a first generation cordless phone and that thing in the bag is a cell phone.  For real.  My mom totally had one.

This is a screen shot of a "video game" - it was called Pong.   This was exciting to us.

ALF!  You kids missed some stellar TV shows.

This is Orbitz - it was a funky drink with little tapioca like balls in it.  Weird..... but it was the 80's.  

This is CURSIVE.  Back in the olden days we had to actually learn to write like this - and we even had to do it well.   Because if we didn't - we did it again.  No lie!  Amazing you could actually read our handwriting.

Caller ID - totally ruined prank calling AND scaring the bejeezus out of people.

This is a "mix tape" - see people you to wait til their favorite song came on the radio and then you had to run to your radio and hit "RECORD" - it then recorded (a very crappy version) of your song.   Crazy I know.  

MTV - for real - it was around back in the old days.  HOWEVER... they played music videos.  I know, wtf right?  No Jersey Shore.  All we had was Real World when it didn't suck.

This is kind of what a car seat looked like back in the day.  If you had one.... :)  Its amazing we lived.  Now kids are in "booster seats" til they're like 12.  We were on mom's lap as soon as we outgrew the one car seat everyone used.  

This is a "camera" - looks weird doesn't it?  These cameras had film - you actually had take that film to a drug store and have it developed!  It took like a week to get the pictures back!  And if everyone had their eyes closed in the pictures, too bad.  There was no "delete" button.

So this is  small glimpse of my childhood.  And it was great.  :-)  So next time I hear a kid complain about how rough they have it I'm going to flick them in the forehead and throw their cell phone in the toilet.