An old lady was on the checkout at the local supermarket when a young female cashier approached her.

The cashier looked at her arrogantly and told her that she ought to bring her own grocery bags next time, saying “plastic bags aren’t green and you are hurting the planet.”

We didn’t have the green thing back in my earlier days,” the senior woman explained.

The cashier looked at her angrily and replied, “I don’t care what you had or didn’t have! that’s our problem today! Your generation didn’t care enough to save our environment for future generations. You almost blew and it ruined the planet.”

The old lady didn’t say a word and the cashier continued, “It’s all your fault and now we suffer because you were too lazy and indifferent!”

The old lady admitted that the cashier was right about one thing. Their generation didn’t have the green thing in their day.

She looked at the cashier with a warm smile and told her: “Honey, back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottle and water bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so that it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled.

We walked up stairs because we didn’t have an escalator in every shop and office building.

We walked to the shop and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind.

We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from there brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

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 Scotland.

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 post, we used old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burned petrol just to cut the lawn.

We exercised by working, so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead od 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 pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mother into a 24-hour taxi service.

And now you tell me how lazy I am, dear?”