The blame game

Is it only me......but wonky weather is not our fault.

Recently I was checking out at the supermarket and the young whippersnapper of a cashier suggested to me I should bring my own bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment telling me in no uncertain terms:
"That's our problem today. Your generation didn’t care enough to save our environment for future generations".

Clearly a closet enviro-mentalistic eco-warrior.

Shocked and stunned that I and my generation were being blamed for the wonky weather and after some reflection and soul-searching on "Our" day, here's what I remembered about our generation......

Back then, we returned milk, lemonade 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 repeatedly. So they really were recycled.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have a lift in every store and office building. We walked to the shops and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

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 240 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.

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 Wales. 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 petrol 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.

Back then before health and safety had been invented, we drank from a water fountain or from the tap when we were thirsty instead of using a throwaway 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.

Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums 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.

It might only be me but isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we older folks were just because I don’t recycle my carrier bags and have the nerve to blame us for the wonky weather? It is not our fault that the polar bears don’t have any ice.

Let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.