Ernest Cline When I Was A Kid Lyrics

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears
with their tedious diatribes
about how hard things used to be when they were growing up,
what with walking twenty-five miles each way to school every morning,
uphill, both ways, through year-round blizzards,
carrying their younger siblings on their back
to their one-room schoolhouse
where they maintained a straight-A average,
despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill
where they worked for .35 cents an hour
just to help keep their family from starving to death.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell
I was going to lay a bunch of c___ like that on kids
about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it.

But now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine
I can't help but look around and notice
that the youth of today...
You've got it so f___ing easy!
I mean, compared to my childhood,
you live in a g______ Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today...
you don't know how good you've got it.

I mean, when I was a kid...

We didn't have the Internet.
If we wanted to know something,
we had to go to the g______ library and look it up!
And there was no e-mail!
You had to actually WRITE somebody a letter,
with a PEN,
and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the f___ing mailbox. And it would take, like, a WEEK to get there.

And there were no MP3s or Napster!
If you wanted to steal music
you had to go down to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day and tape it off of the radio, and then the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and f___ it all up!

You wanna hear about hardship?

You couldn't just DOWNLOAD p___.
You had to bribe some homeless dude
to buy you a copy of Hustler from the 7-11.
It was either that or jack off to the lingerie section of the JC Penny catalog.
Those were your options!

And there was no call waiting! If you were on the phone and someone else called -
they got a BUSY SIGNAL!

And we didn't have Caller ID either!
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!
It could be your boss, a collection's agent, your mom, your drug dealer--
You didn't know!
You had to just pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games
with high-resolution 3-D graphics.
We had the Atari 2600!
With games like s___e Invaders and Asteroids.
And the graphics sucked a__!
Your guy was just a square!
You had to use your imagination!
And there were no multiple levels or screens.
It was just ONE screen, forever,
and you could never win.
The game just kept getting harder and faster and until you died.
Just like LIFE!
Those video games built character, Sonny Jim!

And when you went to the movie theater
there was no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height.
If a tall guy sat in front of you, you were f___ed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only, like, 20 channels!
And there was no on-screen menu!
You had to use a little book called the TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network!
You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning!

Do you see what the f___ I'm saying?!!
We had to wait all week, you spoiled little b______s!

That's exactly what I'm talking about.
The problem with you kids today is that you've got it too d___ easy!
You're spoiled!

I swear to god, you wouldn't last five minutes . . . back in 1987.