“I do have to say, online shopping is so convenient now, I even get my groceries delivered now.”
“Yeah Dad, that’s way better than having to send a telegram to order a new divan from the Sears Roebuck Company catalog you were reading in the outhouse!”
“Wha… Again son I was born in the 60s.”
“Then they deliver the divan in a big wooden crate with you name painted on the side.”
“We had cardboard in the 60s.”
“And then grandpa was like ‘23 Skidoo! I also ordered us one of them new radio contraptions! It’s 200lbs and made with asbestos! We can listen to Benny Biggs and the Blue Jays now!’”
“Hey, we… well grandpa got all the asbestos out of the house by the time I was 10. Also that’s not a real band.”
I sometimes tell my grandma “I don’t know how you survived the Great Depression.” when she was born during the 40’s.
My great grandmother actually did survive the Great Depression as a young kid (I’m pretty sure her parents were first gen immigrants too, egg on their face lol, shouldn’t have moved to the US in the early 1900s for economic opportunity) and some of her stories were pretty off the wall.
It definitely made her value feeding people, every time I visited she’d try to get me to eat like a half a watermelon.
EDIT: I know this doesn’t really fit the vibe of the thread but Grannie was great.
When we were clearing out my sister’s grandma’s house after she passed away, we kept finding cans and dried food stored in weird places. In the basement underneath a table. Shoved in the back of cupboards behind pots and pans. Hidden in boxes beneath clothes.
People who grew up in that time period really had a number done on them that led to lifelong trauma.