Excerpts from The Washington Post's “Style Invitational,” in which readers were asked to tell Gen Xers how much harder they had it in the old days:


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Second Runner-Up: In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction. (Bill Flavin, Alexandria)


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First Runner-Up: In my day, we didn't have MTV or in-line skates, or any of that stuff. No, it was 45s and regular old metal-wheeled roller skates, and the 45s always skipped, so to get them to play right you'd weigh the needle down with something like quarters, which we never had because our allowances were way too small, so we'd use our skate keys instead and end up forgetting they were taped to the record player arm so that we couldn't adjust our skates which didn't really matter because those crummy metal wheels would kill you if you hit a pebble anyway, and in those days roads had real pebbles on them, not like today. (Russell Beland, Springfield)


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And the winner of the velour bicentennial poster: In my day we didn't have no rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads. (Barry Blyveis, Columbia)


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Honorable mentions:

In my day, we didn't have fancy high numbers. We had “nothing,” “one,” “twain” and “multitudes.” Or you could hold up digits to show how many, maximum 20 for women, 21 for men. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

In my day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver Beauty, my beloved paper clip. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

When I was your age, we didn't have fake doggie-do. We only had real doggie-do, and no one thought it was a damn bit funny. (Brenden Basset, Columbia)

Back in the 1970s we didn't have the space shuttle to get all excited about. We had to settle for men walking on the crummy moon. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

In my day, we didn't have days. There was only “time for work,” “time for prayer” and “time for sleep.” The sheriff would go around and tell everyone when to change. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

In my day, we didn't have mouses to move the cursor around. We only had the arrows, and if the up arrow was broken and you needed to get to the top of the screen, well, you just hit the left arrow a thousand times, dadgummit. (Kevin Cuddihy, Fairfax)

In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off voice saying ‘Doors closing.’ We got on the train, the doors closed, and if your hand was sticking out it scraped along the tunnel all the damn way to the Silver Spring station and it was a bloody stump at the end. But the base fare was only a dollar. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms. (Diana Hugue, Bowie)

Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day, the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched on the back of a giant tortoise. (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park)

Back in my day, “60 Minutes” wasn't just a bunch of gray-haired liberal 80-year-old guys. It was a bunch of gray-haired liberal 60-year-old guys. (Russell Beland, Springfield and Jerry Pannullo, Kensington)

In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him. (Sarah M. Wolford, Hanover)

In my day we didn't have Strom Thurmond. Oh, wait. Yes we did … (Peg Sheeran, Vienna)


<br><br>Vectro

“Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.”