Kids these days

[triskellian]

(In backlash against being five yesterday, today I shall be seventy-five ;-)

Parts of my journey to work are shared by dozens of teenagers walking to school, and I have observed that all of them wear their backpacks properly, on both shoulders. What is the world coming to? In my day, no one used both shoulder straps, and backache be damned!

Poll Shoulder straps

Comments

[bopeepsheep]

Shoulder bag.

[bopeepsheep]

PS around tomorrow night?

[triskellian]

Yep. Although not sure I'm up to knitting - hand still hurts from falling over :-( Talk on email tomorrow to confirm/organise?

[bopeepsheep]

Suits me either way, really. There is wine and dvds and Arkham Horror if you don't want to knit; I'm more after company than knitting time this week. :)

[knirirr]

At my school the unfashionable way to carry one's books was a briefcase. The fashionable way was loose in one's arms. Backpacks were never used.

[white_hart]

There was a fashion among some of the girls at my school to have bags that were only big enough for exercise books and pencil cases, and to carry folders and textbooks loose (or more often in a plastic carrier bag to stop them turning into papier-mache if it rained), but that always struck me as slightly silly. Your arms would get tired, and if you had to stand up on the bus it was difficult to hold your books *and* hold on to a seat to stop yourself falling over when it went round corners.

[knirirr]

Luckily for the followers of fashion at my school there was never any requirement to use a bus (most were boarders, a small proportion lived very locally), just to walk between lessons. They also had lockers to keep the books in, so it was only necessary to carry a few at any one time. Pens &c. could go in one's blazer pocket.

[white_hart]

I lived two and a half miles from my secondary school. We didn't have lockers or blazers, and as well as books I frequently had to carry one or more of PE kit/musical instrument/ingredients for cookery lesson. Which made having a bag that I could at least fit all my books and my packed lunch in fairly essential ;-)

[bibliogirl]

I had a shoulder bag at school, but these days tend to use a rucksack/backpack (largely because we have a stack of free ones from rotwang's conference/work type stuff). The rucksack goes on one shoulder most of the time, or on both if it's especially heavy, if I need my hands free, or if I'm doing something which is likely to cause it to come loose (example; pulling a suitcase)

[bateleur]

Caveat to my poll answer: Except when riding my bike!

[smiorgan]

Mine was usually worn on the shoulder of some other kid, running away from me and laughing.

[knirirr]

I found once or twice that the unfashionable briefcase (mentioned above) could make a fairly effective improvised weapon, thus preventing such thefts.