12 Things I’ve Heard Boomers Say That I Agree With 100%

Come shake your fist at the sky with us…

I’m a millennial, but I’m one of the elders at the ripe n’ wisened old age of 42. Given my millennial senescence, perhaps my rapidly encroaching age-itude is causing an early onset of my get-off-my-lawn era. However I got here, there are a few things I’ve been shaking my fist alongside the boomers with lately.

And it’s not the ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ argument or whining about ‘the younger generation’s lack of work ethic’ stuff. Largely because I think those are stereotypes. The boomers I know — know that bootstrapping is bullshit now, and they see the double-stacked jobs and seven side hustles young people are doing.

I’m talking about the real meat-and-potato boomer arguments.

Anyhoozy, grab your lawn chair and cozy up so that you can shake your fist at the sky, while reading all the things I think boomers are spot-firkin-on about…

1. Fuck the QR Code Menus

Printing menus isn’t hard, or even costly. Bring. Them. Back. I shouldn’t need 5G just to eat at your restaurant, and you’re already (under) paying someone to come to my table to take my order. They can also drop off a menu. The QR code in restaurants might as well stand for ‘Quit, Really’ and we should give up on these spots.

I don’t even care if I now have to pull out my phone to use the light on it to be able to see the menu in the far-too-dimly lit pendant lighting. Yes, I can zoom in when using the app version. I don’t care. Gimme the damned printed menu.

Otherwise, I’ll print my own, on 18-point card stock, bend you over my knee, and spank you with it.

2. Make LED Headlights Illegal

I don’t know who decided that headlights on cars should be 34,000 lumens, but I’ll assume it was Beelzebub himself. Your headlights shouldn’t be permanently seared into my retinas, and if they are — you’ll be the first person I hit with my car.

Car company executives, if your headlights are bright enough to light up the Mariana Trench, I’m going to install them on lamp poles outside your bedroom window.

3. Subscriptions Suck Hairy Donkey Balls

My wallet is so co-opted by subscriptions that it’s been gentrified out of my price range. I used to be able to buy a piece of software for $30, and I owned it until that computer became an antique. All your turning Photoshop into a monthly subscription did — was make me download the free version, GIMP.

I used to have one cable bill, now I have to rotate streaming subscriptions like they’re the tires on my Corolla.

And why the hell are there still ads on subscription services I pay for? I’m especially glaring at you, Netflix. ,It costs double what it used to, and I have to watch three ads of women rollerskating on their periods, Mint Mobile, and boner pills.

4. Why Do Cars Have So Many Buttons (And Not Knobs)?

Driving a car is a tactile experience. I want a horn that takes up the entire steering wheel and a hazards button that takes up half the dashboard. And for the love of Jeebus, bring back the hand brake.

There’s a button for the hand brake now, it’s called the ‘electronic parking brake’. Nopeity nope nope. It’s called the oh-shit brake for a reason. I want to yank on that summabitch like my life depended on it, because — it might.

5. Where Did All the Other Buttons and Knobs Go?

I got into an elevator the other day, and it was touchscreen. Eww, no. You’re depriving us of the joys of button-pushing. And how can we hit the button for every floor to mess with our friends on a touchscreen? Humans love pushing buttons — bring. them. back.

6. There are Too Many Damned Apps

I don’t want to download an app for every store and restaurant I go into. Why do I need an app for McDonald’s, U-Haul, and the laundromat? That’s not even including all the parking apps, of which you need to decipher which of the ten different parking apps covers the lot that you’re in. It takes longer to find than the parking pass I’m buying is for.

7. Get Rid of ChatBot Customer Service Reps

Everything on this list grinds my last gear, but chatbot customer service might be the hill I’m most likely to die on. And I’ll die on it because I got stuck in a loop with your chatbot and died of old age while waiting to get a person on the phone.

And yes, we all noticed that your products somehow got more expensive even though you no longer employ human beings and now treat your chatbots like indentured servants of yore.

Not that we miss being those indentured servants…our backs hurt already because we sneezed.

8. Stupid Participation Trophies

Not every mouth-breather needs to win a trophy. It’s like that line from The Incredibles superhero movie, ‘And when everyone is Super…no one will be’.

9. Two-Factor Authenticate Deez Nuts

For my bank, sure, two-factor authentication seems like a solid plan. I should need to enter not just my password but my blood type, astrology sign, retinal scan, and firstborn. But for the app I’m forced to download to read a menu at the restaurant I’m sitting at? Go fellate yourself with a cactus.

10. The Tiny Print on Instructions

Let’s face it, young people will download instructions on their phones. It’s only us prehistoric, pre-internet peeps who are using the paper-printed instructions. Stop printing them in size .07 font. I shouldn’t need a magnifying glass to read where to put the allen key, and if I do need one, I can tell you where I’m shoving that allen key.

11. Stop Asking for my Email and Phone Number

I just want to buy a toaster; you don’t need 37 ways to contact me about it in the future. ‘But…but…you’ll get points.’ I don’t care. Also, standardize the points of rewards programs so we have an idea if we need 104 or 97,000 points to redeem them for the pocket lint prize.

And you’re forcing your minimum-wage, I-can’t-afford-shit 17-year-old worker to keep pestering us long after we say no. They care even less about this bullshizzle than we do.

12. Un-Bluetooth My Appliances

Not only is this confusing, it’s a security nightmare. I don’t need Russian spies activating my hot tub. And I don’t want my Bluetooth-enabled vibrator to be hackable.

I’d rather beat my clothes against a rock down by the river than run diagnostics on why my washer won’t run because it won’t connect to wifi.

Also, whoever made the clothes dryer not open for approximately 87 minutes after it’s done — I hope you step on a Lego.

Ooph, the emotional fortitude I needed to make it through that list without losing my mind was exhausting. Now I know why older people nap so much; shaking your mental fist at the sky is knackering.

But of all the things that different generations can’t agree on, I think the endless procession of useless nope-ity nope bullshit listed above are a few places we can come together.

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