The Hexed Generation

A short time ago, I rummaged through my bachelor-style stocked refrigerator and realized that the contents within had dwindled down to a pouch of Easy Mac and a bottle of ketchup. I understand that these two ingredients constitute what would be a suitable meal for some people, but after seeing the visual result of the yellow and red mix together like that it is not at all something I’d call aesthetically pleasing, let alone edible. To me, the only place yellow and red look good together is on a traffic light. So, that was just something I was not willing to try. From the kitchen I loudly called up to my mother. After several moments of silence, I became acutely aware of the fact that I no longer lived with my parents. Surely I needed to make someone aware of the vital vacancies that existed in the refrigerator, so next I called to my butler. I was again only greeted by silence and the reminder that I had yet to invent something which would make such a financial investment as having my own butler even remotely feasible. These thoughts gave way to the sad realization that I would need to make a trip to an area which I believe to be the birthplace of bad driving habits, the grocery store. What makes people think that they can just park their cart horizontally across an entire aisle? I’ve had to pull moves that would make me a shoo-in for an opening at the police department. I don’t care if someone is amped out of their mind plowing out of the energy drink aisle, they can’t just blindly bash back into the main flow of traffic. However, what truly caught my attention and the reason I have brought us all here today was not something I saw, but rather an encounter that started out with something I heard.

As I was going up and down the produce aisle like a vexed VeggieTale, a small child in the next row over began to scream bloody murder the moment that asparagus was placed in his carriage. I realize that the screaming child in public rant is a bit played out in this day and age and sadly, he is not the one I took issue with at first. The worn-out woman attached to the other end of the cart looked him right in the eyes and somewhat sternly said “Trevor, if you don’t quiet down, I’m going to have to take your IPad.” Not at all phased by the empty threat, Trailer Trash Trevor continued on his tantrum. So the woman who was seemingly placed in charge of turning this miniature menace into a valued member of society wrestled the device from his hands like a crocodile tearing at the flesh of a zebra. At this point, Trevor decided, as any adequately raised infant would, to sit quietly as his mother finished her shopping……………No. This act of maternal mutiny sent his screaming into a volume that would’ve had David Draiman shouting “Can you turn that thing down please?!” After Forty-two seconds of this (trust me, I was counting) the mother goes “Fine!” and tossed the IPad back to him.
I can sense that you are as irritated as I was about this sequence of events and I promise that we are going to work through this calmly, chronologically and communally.

First off, she bought the asparagus the day before it was going on sale. Buying regular priced produce is like buying bagels that aren’t pre-sliced, it makes absolutely no sense and why anyone would think to do it is beyond me.

Secondly, at this stage in the life of Trevor the Treacherous, all he has to do with asparagus is eat it. There will come a point in this little turd of a toddler’s existence (as long as his clearly annoyed mother sees fit to grant him continued life) that he will have to: Go get it. Pay for it. Cook it. Eat it. So you, Mr. Market Basket Menace, are essentially on the first base of your relationship with asparagus. If you have survived long enough and happen to be reading this, for the sake of your own sanity and the salvaging of the hearing of those within a 4½ mile radius, I strongly suggest that you suck it up just a little bit.

Thirdly, what the (insert expletive of your choice that I’d rather not have my parents read here) is a kid doing being the incompetent owner of an IPad?! My original thought was that if an individual is not capable of reciting their 12’s time tables, they should not have access to that kind of technology. However, after bearing witness to some atrocious attempts at arithmetic in the checkout aisle, I’ve come to the conclusion that implementing this strategy may very well send us plummeting back into the Dark Ages.

So when is that one should be given that rite of passage then? When should someone be allowed to own an IPad? My thoughts, at least for men, is that IPads and Guy Cards should be handed out to a member of the male species on the day he decides within himself that the occurrences which he deems acceptable to tear up at have been dwindled down to the following:
1. The Sight of his bride walking down the aisle
2. The birth of one (or more) of his children
3. The scene in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King when Sam and Frodo are struggling to the top of Mt. Doom in order to destroy The One Ring and Samwise Gamgee is like “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!” because while we all have life struggles that we must ultimately choose to overcome and find our footing from on our own, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have someone there to carry us from time to time. That’s it! This list should not include the painful, but necessary purchasing of produce.

The last thing I want to do is sound like some old guy going “Darn kids today and their fancy oven-havin’ pizza delivery cars.” All that I’m trying to get at here is that I’m noticing a downward trend that needs to be stopped. In my dads’ generation, he was taken outside to be properly dealt with. In my generation, I was sent outside when my parents didn’t want to deal with me. My fear is that the only “outside” that the next generation will know is in Skyrim when you pick up a plate and are suddenly able to run through walls.

I will go a step further and openly admit to some of the the errors caused by the millennials. Around the time I hit sixth grade, belts on the hips of young men everywhere suddenly vanished. The belt of truth became an extinct accessory. The results were disgusting. Young men began to waddle around the streets looking like some miscreant Mumble the penguin. Let’s keep whether you’re a Hanes having man or Fruit of the Loom follower between you and your bathroom mirror, okay? There is no defending this kind of detestable behavior, but Baby Boomers, Generation X men and women, allow me to pose a question: do you have fond memories of “the belt?” General William T. Sherman once said “War is Hell.” British poet William Congreve wrote “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Every time my dad put on a suit, he looked like he was having wartime flashbacks, because apparently my dear sweet cookie baking, kiss giving grandmother was quite different back in the 60s.
The next aspect of this series of unfathomable events that I’d like to address is the fact that this mother lifted her punishment simply because it was met with angst and attrition. Do you know what happened to me if I started debating a disciplinary decision made by my parents? It wasn’t reversed, it was doubled!

This was just one isolated incident that I felt perfectly addressed a much broader issue on several fronts. Parents, stop letting someone who’s capable of walking under the kitchen table while standing fully upright run the household! It may have worked for Napoleon Bonaparte, but it shall not prevail! Kids, it’s a great big world out there when you’re not crushing candy or angering birds. Technology is not a curse, but it’s not everything either. For me, the greatest sense of accomplishment comes from when I’ve written the last line of some idea for a story that’s been pinballing around my head for weeks (Crap, kids today probably don’t know what pinball is) I feel like Mario on star power when I’ve finished writing a story. (Is that still too old for some people? Crap! I get angrier than a bunch of freakin’ birds when my readers don’t get the references I’m making!) The point is find something you are passionate about and pursue it with everything you’ve got. In the very much misquoted words of Bane “when you have reached an ancient and old age and have lived a life of fulfillment through service to others and are ready to become little more than ashes, then you have my permission to die.”