The youngsters are really changing the world. And now I understand the oldsters that I couldn't understand when I was a youngster. Cuz a lot of the changes are hard to get used to. Some folks my age just refuse to even try. A good example, one close to my heart, is language. It's my bread and butter. This whole sentence would be written differently by a person younger than myself. For instance they have a new structure denoting emphasis. It's when you take any adjective and attach the word "ass" to it. So I should have said something like "Now I understand the old-ass people I couldn't understand a long-ass time ago when I was a young-ass person." I'm not too sure if I mind THIS change in the language so much. Sometimes I think it's a cool-ass change but sometimes it doesn't work. Other changes, the kind of things I used to notice and encorporate almost without hesitation, I am hesitant-ass to use. There's an example of the ass emphasis not working.
Young people, you can't MEAN something until you've said something, okay? So when someone sees you for the first time today, crosses over the street and says, "Hey how's it going?" don't say, "I mean... it's okay." What do you mean, you mean?!?! You haven't said anything! This lame-ass language trait is annoying. I used to have a teacher named Mr. Sarbadhikari. He was Indian. Probably still is. He liberally sprinkled "I mean" throughout his language. It made him fun to immitate. "The Canturbury Tales is, I mean, E-Chaucer's, contribution to, I mean, the canon." We used to waste entire classes counting the "I means." I remember triple digits! But for him it was like, "Um," or "Like," it wasn't as annoying to me. Plus English was his second or third language. "Who do you think will be voted out tonight?" asks Jeff Probst. "I meaaannnn... Dennis looked bad in today's challenge but I'll be voting with my alliance." Just say "um" or "uh" or "duh," for crying out loud.
But some things stay the same too. I still get asked regularly why I'm not married. Often, and most recently, by a Korean. I've even been told I'm selfish for not having a wife and kids. Me and Doug Stanhope beg to differ. Hey, next time you and your wide-ass, 12 baby making hips are standing in line waiting to use the women's washroom, don't complain because it's folks like you who have kids like they're collectables that are partly responsible for overpopulation, starvation, malnutrition, fresh water shortages, ozone depletion, high prices of scarce non-renewable resources, and bathroom line-ups. Don't be honking your horn at ME in traffic either. I have zero kids, (that I know of). I am contributing to population DEcrease. Meanwhile you have more than made up for me and you have the clackers to blow your horn at ME? Just sit back and enjoy the fourth time you've played "Frozen" today on your newly indebting minivan TV screens. Try to block out the screaming of the youngest and the arguing of your third and fourth. Don't pay any attention to that seatbelt click, or UNclick, or that mysterious smell. Remember YOU got yourself into this because they're cute for a short time, they kinda look like you and once in a while they say or do adorable things. The rest of the time you have this, but you signed on for it so don't complain and DON'T take it out on me by hammering on your horn like the steering column is going to go through the Astrovan's floorboards and punch a hole in the ground that you can just dive into and disappear.
If you knew me you might do it out of jealousy. I'd get that. This morning, well, more accurately a little after noon when I slowly got out of bed, got a piece of pizza and a beer from the fridge, took them and my laptop to the toilet, ate brunch, I guess, while surfing porn on my laptop on my lap on the toilet with the bathroom door wide open I thought to myself, "It's times like these I need to remind myself of how lucky I really am." You can't do that because you have a wife and kids. You have a role to play. You have a life to star in. The question is not why I made the choices I made, is it?
Don't get me wrong, I sometimes feel a twinge of envy at couples who kiss on New Year's Eve at midnight, or families who have big Christmas dinners and piles of gifts under the tree. But they're nothing compared to the Hunger Games bow TWANGS every nerve in my body gets simultaneously when I am in the supermarket and a kid is knocking stuff off the shelves and his mother is trying to keep her cool saying, "Jeffery that's not how we behave in public." (nervous laugh and glance at fellow grocery shoppers). "Shut up, Mom!" screams Jeffery, grinning like Damien the anti-Christ, continuing to knock products off the shelves. Some break open and will need to be paid for by Mommy. "Jeffery, please stop doing this. You are embarrassing yourself." "I'm not embarrassed, YOU are!" screams the demonic little brat. "Am I going to have to give you a time-out?" "Time-outs don't scare me you bitch!"
Remember when we were young? Oh sure Mom might behave like this in the grocery store but when we got out of public we were in for it! So WE didn't behave like Jeffery. In our changing world it seems like everyone is more violent except parents and teachers. The ones raising the larger and larger numbers of kids in the world. They're the people who need a little MORE power behind their disapproval and society is allowing them less and less. Of course there are limits. I believe most of us are naturally provided with the ability to have kids and the ability to know when one of those kids could use a patt on the butt or a smack in the head. And when we were young parents were still allowed to use corporal punishment. You know what I'm talking about, Dad comes at you, takes off his belt, ties your hands behind your back, strips you naked, butts out cigars on your skin, maybe a little waterboarding, you remember that. (that's Doug Stanhope. I just watched him last night. lol)
Seriously though, any parent, teacher, babysitter who even LOOKED like he/she might not be afraid to employ some REAL physical discipline rarely had to use it. Just the threat was enough. And, BLAMMO, limit established. Okay, now we know and we will behave accordingly. I don't think I want the all too difficult responsibility of creatively establishing and reinforcing behavioural guidelines on kids with the insane limitations society and laws made by young folks have provided. "Okay any student who is caught fighting, torturing, maiming, murdering or bringing any harm to another student will have his or her Xbox priveleges revoked. FOR A WHOLE WEEK!" That's why I don't teach kids. Well, not young ones anyways. And that, coupled with the lack of the necessary partner, is a big reason why I don't have any kids of my own.
Right now sunlight and rain are free but give our owners a few years to figure out ways of owning the sun and the rain and renting them to us and they will. It's so much about ownership nowadays. Moreso than when I was a kid. And getting worse. I think that's the inherent gambler in all of us. There are a VERY few people in our world who own pretty much everything, and don't kid yourself, they own me and you too. But we don't mind! We're cool with that! For the same reason we're fine with paying money for a lottery ticket or a visit to the casino. Because we know there is a miniscule chance that the bet might pay off and WE coud become one of the owners. Unlike a lot of people, I have no desire to be one of the owners. I don't want to be rich, own a big house, a wife and three kids. I want to own a vehicle someday maybe but that's it. And when I'm old, a small shack, a small piece of property and a blazing fast internet connection. Try to find a gal that thinks that living the rest of her life with me, cranking out some kids and having one vehicle, a small shack and a small piece of property is worth it. The blazing internet connection doesn't sweeten the deal much. She knows she can do better. This may not be a big change but I have noticed over my lifetime that it has changed in degree. The ladies of my youth were more satisfied with less. Now that might have something to do with my having more hair, less belly and better looks back then. Maybe. Or maybe it might have had more to do with having more years left in the work force, and more drive to get that job that will lead to the bigger house, multiple cars and so on.
I'm even finding that employers have the same prejudice. This is WHY wages are going down while the cost of living goes up. Like in China where factories pay so little the workers MUST work hundreds of hours of overtime just to keep from starving, the model has expanded into what we call "western" cultures too. Businesses want workers who will work for the company knowing that they won't make very much money unless they DO the overtime hours. This way the company has a larger stake in your life. They OWN a bigger piece of your life. Like everything in the world, this benefits the owners and it's by design. This is how we've ended up with upper classes making more money than ever and the other 99% making less than ever. Higher numbers on the paycheck don't mean you're earning more money.
Bust your ass your whole life and if you're lucky you get a decade of retirement when you're body and mind are too worn out from the years of hard work to enjoy it. I want to make enough money now and work few enough hours to enjoy that money. While I'm young. Golfing, travelling, sightseeing, sure I can do these when I am older but they're not as much fun. Right now I want to go sightseeing at the Great Barrier Reef, Soy Cowboy, catch a tiger shark, not have tea at an emperor's palace or stroll the batanical gardens. Snorkelling, diving, dancing, drinking, whitewater rafting, hiking up volcanoes, catching big fish, there are long lists of things you can't, or probably shouldn't do after retirement. I'm just trying to scratch these off my bucket list while I'm relatively young. Can't do it if the company you work for OWNS you. And if you have 4 kids and mountains of debt trying to give them the kind of life society mandates, then you are STILL owned by the owners. Maybe not just the ones who own the company you work for.
The way I see it, I'm a bit more free than the average guy. I am leaving less of a footprint on an overtrampled Earth. And though I'm not free, I am not so beholden to my owners. And I always reserve the right to tell them to kiss my big-ass ass if they start getting too possessive of me. It's nice to have that ability, but in my opinion, things are changing in this world so fast that this ability won't be around much longer. I might be a dying breed. So take advantage of the time you have with my single-ass, free-ass ass! I, and others like me, will soon be extinct.
EASILY the highest "ass" count of any post ever by me.
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