The following words I found on the web but I could not find out who wrote this piece so I cannot acknowledge their fine work. It was written in the USA so I have taken the liberty to translate it into English, as we would understand it this side of the pond.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own carry bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized 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”.  She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in our day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the factory 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 packed our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household rubbish bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings.  We were then 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 or lift in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower car every time we had to go 500 yards. But she was right, we didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throwaway 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. 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 a bus.

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. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a communal water 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 biro, and we replaced the razor blades 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 tram 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 4x4 SUV or van, which by the way now 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?

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 know it all who can't work out the change without the cash register telling them how much.