# Back in my day... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383 "2002-07-11T06:57:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@Ell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ell)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/1 "2002-07-11T06:57:14Z")
we didn’t have these new fangled bike helmets. When we wanted to go for a velocycle we’d get a fruit crate and strap it to our head. So you’d say to your friend “Let’s go for an apple.” Which is funny, because in those days they weren’t called apples, they were called oranges… ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/2 "2002-07-11T07:14:56Z")
And you sure couldn’t compare one to the other, not like today. And you couldn’t count them, because numbers hadn’t been invented yet! We had to mark how many “oranges” we had by yanking out our own teeth to keep track. Eventually we wised up, and instead of pulling out our teeth every time we wanted to count something, we’d pull them all out at once and make an abacus with them (since we couldn’t afford rocks)… ---
**Author:** ![Lodrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/3 "2002-07-11T07:33:42Z")
Bah! Whippersnappers! We didn’t _have_ teeth back then - if we wanted to pull something out when we counted them, we used our pseudopods. Durn’ sniggin’ multicellular youngins, don’t know what’s good for them. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/4 "2002-07-11T10:18:09Z")
Back in my day, we didn’t have days. We didn’t even have time. We were just a bunch of disembodied energy formations _wishing_ we had pseudopods. Try taking a leak in that state. You lucky bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/5 "2002-07-11T10:30:54Z")
Ha! Back in _my_ day, we didn’t even have enough energy to create a formation! We sort of hung around all day, almost fainting from fatigue. And then we had to get up half an hour before we went to bed to clean up the lake, and out father would kill us all after breakfast. On a good day. ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/6 "2002-07-11T10:50:30Z")
You had a father? We had one sperm cell and one egg among the whole collective, and we had to pass it around until we had all been incarnated once, and near the end of the line, that little flagella was looking pretty nasty, let me tell you. Then we washed the egg out, caught a new sperm, and started over. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/7 "2002-07-11T11:28:01Z")
A lake? A sperm cell? Luxury! Why, in my day the sperm cells hunted _us_. We had to poke each other with a rusty nail, wait for the wound to get infected (_if_ we were lucky), scrape the resultant pus together and form it into a new person. Then one of us would volunteer to be the father (on a good day, and there were no good days) and cook anti-matter meals for the rest of the pus people. Let me tell you, there was nothing better than being atomized a full day before you were born. And we were _thankful_. ---
**Author:** ![Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@Crepitus\_Fremitus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crepitus_Fremitus)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/8 "2002-07-11T12:16:08Z")
Back in my day, we didn’t have RUST! Never been invented yet. We had to paint our nails with mudpuddle diddle and PRETEND, which was hard, 'cause no one’d even thought up imagination yet. Your were lucky, when you closed your eyes, weren’t no squiggles, all you saw was yer next door neighbor, crammed all in a single SPOT. Whoo boy, the BO! 'Course weren’t no B then neither. We just called it O! ---
**Author:** ![GrizzRich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ba0ec/32.png) [@GrizzRich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrizzRich)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/9 "2002-07-11T14:33:26Z")
You had “O”?! Why, we’ve given up our own lives to have “O”. That is, if we had lives… Nah, we were just random nodes of thought, bouncing off the inside of some supreme being’s brain. Not even created yet. Mighty crowded in there with all them “supreme” brain cells and all them thought processes. And you’d better watch where you step 'cuz if you got caught in between two “supreme” neurons when they fired… well, let me tell you about some kinda pain! YOW! ---
**Author:** ![screech-owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@screech-owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/screech-owl)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/10 "2002-07-11T14:36:50Z")
We would have killed for pain. Would have been paradise to us. ---
**Author:** ![OldBroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/11 "2002-07-11T14:49:09Z")
The Supreme Being wasn’t yet supreme. He/she was a Pretty Good Being working toward his “Good” badge. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/12 "2002-07-11T15:08:22Z")
Ha, neophytes! In our day we would have been ecstatic to have a Pretty Good Being, or just a Being for that matter. “Being” didn’t exist, we were happy that we’d just gotten “ing” which was an upgrade, and a heck of a lot easier to pronounce, than “ng”. ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/13 "2002-07-11T18:03:46Z")
Oh you kids today think you have it so tough. Why back in my day there was just “Nothing”… and we were damn happy to have that! Because without Nothing what have you got? ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/14 "2002-07-12T03:53:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fibonacci \* > \*\* > Because without Nothing what have you got? \*\* Ummmm, Everything? You think you had it bad? I remember when we could count Daddy’s billions on only one hand. We only had 30 rooms in our house and barely enough staff to keep the place clean. We didn’t even have a Mercedes in my favorite color (purple). I remember one year only 300 people showed up at my birthday party. I cried myself to sleep that night. Oops, gotta go, it’s time for my daily massage. Kisses! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/15 "2002-07-12T04:06:28Z")
…luxury… ---
**Author:** ![Redboss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@Redboss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redboss)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/16 "2002-07-12T08:07:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ShibbOleth \* > …we were happy that we’d just gotten “ing” which was an upgrade, and a heck of a lot easier to pronounce, than “ng”. Try telling that to my friend Kim Ng. Her name is pronounced “Kim Ing” but with the i silent. It’s easy! try it. …and back in my day, we were grateful to listen to Life With Dexter on the radio every Monday night, when Mum and Dad had their Night Out and Nana came to stay and cooked us puddings that Mum didn’t know how to cook, like Semolina, Sago pudding, and Queen Of Puddings, and we’d tip-toe into The Front Room, which Mum never let us go into, and peer into the Cocktail Cabinet where she kept lots of Wedding Presents - glasses of different colours and a set of barrel shaped tumblers in red glass, and a holder for paper napkins where the napkins were folded over little prongs so they looked like the skirt of a ballerina, whose body from the waist up was the handle. Redboss ---
**Author:** ![ninevah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/46a35a/32.png) [@ninevah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ninevah)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/17 "2002-07-14T05:26:48Z")
[hijack] Wow, its amazing how a Yorkshire accent fits perfectly with all of these posts! [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/18 "2002-07-14T06:01:06Z")
Bah! Back in my day we didn’t have Strom Thurmond! Oh…wait… ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/19 "2002-07-14T22:06:21Z")
Well, back in my day, we didn’t have anyone to say “Bah! Back in my day…” We had to complain about what was _happening at that time_! ---
**Author:** ![Xan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ac8455/32.png) [@Xan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383/20 "2002-07-14T22:30:11Z")
Back in my day…what was I saying again…Oh yea you kids today have it so good with your new bo fangled music. You know with your Rock N Roll, your Hip AND Hop. We didn’t get Hop till about 20 years later…Where was I? Oh yes we didn’t have music back in my day. We had to hit our heads against big rocks to make sounds…Problem was no one had invented sound yet! Forget about melodies your were lucky to get a big thump. Did I ever tell you childrent the time I invented blue…_trails off and goes to sleep in his recliner and drool comes down his chin while snoring very loud_ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-in-my-day/118383.md?page=2)