This week John picks a fight with a social media meme

I read this on social media. It is American. I had to fix some of the typos. Not all of them though.

"We had powdered eggs then. And you know what? We were HAPPY."

"Checking out at the store, 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 environment,.
The woman apologized to the young girl 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."
The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady 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" 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 school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. 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 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 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 blade 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 in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."
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?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much."

Now, there's a lot going on here. Apart from the idea of this exchange taking place between a customer in a supermarket and the cashier, an already ambivalent socio-economic collision, its really LONG and I'm worried about the people queuing behind this Boomer with a shit ton of passive aggression to drop. 

First of all, yes, the youth on the till is a bit rude, if we're going to pretend this is real. But I don't think anything said anticipates the opening of a can of whup-ass this big and this boring. My God. Its a tsunami of smug entitlement masquerading as homely worthiness. This is basically the twentieth century taking a big toxic shit on the twenty first, and feeling really good about itself. Presumably because that's the only shit they've managed in the last four days. 

The older person tells the cashier, who has to sit there and take it because that's their job, that they used to recycle bottles. This was incentivised - you got money back for it. She then takes credit for shops using paper bags and there's a bizarre tangent about using the bags to cover books owned by her school. I don't know if schools still hand out books to children in either the UK or America and I'd be surprised that they did, but again that's just what you did when textbooks were communal property. These days schools have no money. You buy the books. Because if you didn't there would be no books because the infrastructure that gifted you books as a child isn't there because of what you did as an adult. 

She then complains about escalators and lifts. Bit disingenuous this one given a) the first escalator was invented in 1896 b) if she's old then the escalators are for her comfort and c) stairs haven't gone anywhere. If you love the stairs use the stairs - I'm not stopping you. Your hip-replacement might. Didn't have those in the old days either. 

She then gets into a reverie about the good old days: we only had one telly and it was small and shit, we washed nappies and dried them on the washing line (note: I dried clothes on the line yesterday. Despite what you may have read it can still be done), hand me down clothes were the norm (vintage clothes shop abound, man). Then she's having a go at young people for the way Amazon packs things. Okay. 

"We exercised by working" is where it shifts gear. Can you imagine? In this fraudulent scenario this woman is saying this to somebody who is actually DOING THEIR JOB as she is berating them. I also like the line where she talks about treadmills "that run on electricity" as though that were also some bizarre and newfangled notion. This is like getting a beat-down from Catweazle* about scientific advancement. There's stuff about refillable pens and disposable razor blades. This is again, like the small telly and the lack of a washing machine, a peculiar celebration of inconvenience as a moral choice. There were no alternatives but, and here's the thing, as soon as those things came along YOU WERE ALL OVER IT. How do I know? Because they're here. We have them. As soon as you found there were disposable "diapers" you boiled your last nappy. You can't complain about people driving their kids around in an SUV when you're driving your kid's kids around in an SUV. We didn't need an electronic gadget to find the nearest burger joint? Its a good job as you didn't have any. You still had the burger joints though, that's a pretty little artery hardening hangover from the twentieth century that's actually slightly less popular today than it was because people actually care about food now. 

As a final flourish she has a pop at the cashier's apparent physical appearance by dissing her new-fangled tattoos  (an incredibly ancient custom) and piercings (Prince Albert had one in his cock in the 19th Century). She then qualifies this torrent of abuse by saying she's old, so that's fine. Oh, and she can do maths in her head. Good for her.  

The twentieth century was the century the word "genocide" was coined. Because we really needed it. Everybody smoked and everything stank. People were routinely obliged to stand in line to be shot in the mud. Things were manufactured to last which is why hand-me-downs were prevalent, but as soon as businesses offered shittier versions that were designed to break down we overwhelmingly chose the cheaper, crappier things because they were new and colourful. Food came in packets or pots for convenience, freeze-dried, dehydrated, re-heatable. Biros cost nothing so who wants a fiddly fountain pen with expensive cartridges or worse scratch and dip nibs? Chuck 'em away. Lets use these bookie's pens that'll last a week and never bio-degrade. That's on you, Boomer. You did this. You may have grown up in boiled terry-toweling but as soon as pampers with the tearaway strip came along you were all over it. Perhaps, you might be willing to accept responsibility just once for the toxic world you have handed to your grandchildren, instead of trotting out pious homilies while a bloke behind you in the queue who only came in for milk is sighing and looking at his watch. 

There is nothing intrinsically good about being poor, about having to make-do-and-mend, about wearing your cousin's jumper and having your mum's mate cut your hair in the kitchen. That's just what people did. And now precisely because your generation didn't want to do that anymore it is not what people do: if your children and grandchildren are obsessed with newness, exclusivity and price-tags its because that's the society you handed them. Well done: you made the world. You don't get to reel off some childhood fairy tale because someone, however fictional, thinks you should take some responsibility for destroying the world. Its your fault. 

And pick up your dog's shit while you're at it. Its disgusting. 

*If you don't know what this is a reference to that's fine. I don't mind. I'm not that sort of old person.