My "Old Lady Moment"

A certain teen has just lost his internet and game system privileges until he can pull his grades up.  I'm quite unfair about things, he tells me.  Do I even know what it's like to live without the internet?  Do I even know how hard things are?  

There is nothing to DO.  Every day, this teen has "nothing" to do.

Well, I told him, you could bring up your grades maybe?  That's something to do...

*kid eyerolls*

Also?  I sorta have an idea of what life was like without the internet.  We played games or talked on the telephone.  We did this thing called "visiting friends' houses" and another odd thing called "going to the mall."  We used the record player and listened to music.  Sometimes we even wrote notes to one another, complete with doodles.

My grandmother Maxine (b. 1909) is standing next to the flag.

I must sound like my grandmother did to me when I was younger.  My Grandma Max would tell me about having to pick up bits of broken glass and rags by the roadside so that the family could eat every day.  I had no clue there was an actual "broken glass and old rag" business that could possibly be sustainable, but ok.  Once on vacation, our family drove along the streets where she would (allegedly) go about this work and it was just a usual street with car dealerships and a few dodgy restaurants with names like, "The Rusty Fork" (not really but almost).  It's in a town called DuBois, but it's pronounced "doo-boyz" and not any French way like you'd expect.

"When I was a girl," my grandmother used to tell me, "you spent the time telling your family everything about your hopes, dreams and aspirations."

Welp, if I had that "hopes and dreams" chat with my teen right now, it would be a short talk.  He just wants his game system back.