Open All Night

This blog entry will deal with some items that I have previously blathered on. It is thus uncreative, from an originality perspective.

Sadly though, that is one of my beefs. I complained about those stupid stickers that families put on their minivan that, in stick figures, diagrams what comprises the family itself. They are getting more and more prevalent – as people copy one another. They are for the most part similar, although some are a spin on the theme (using flip flops when near the beach). And I did enjoy seeing one this week where the dad was missing (almost as good as the beheaded family one).

But the same is true of those stupid white oval stickers with a black border and text. They have them for everything now. Ok, you went to Hilton Head Island. Oh wow, you ran a half marathon or a triathlon you narcisisstic overachiever. Ok, your kid goes to Arrogant Prick Institute. Do we really need one for every school now?

Speaking of school related stickers, is it really a requirement to have a sticker showing your kid’s jersey number and what sport he/she plays? Just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean you have to be uncreative and follow it. The only thing it does is illustrate how uncreative you were when you named your child, because we see what completely asinine spelling you added to a normal name.

Continuing the segue roll with a children topic, I saw the strangest billboard the other day. It said “Abortion – 40 million that will not be paying into social security.” I pondered that for quite some time and still am not confident I get it. I mean, do not get me wrong, I get pretty frothed up at the fact that I am contributing to SS but will never get a cent out of it. But that does not mean I am going to let it change my stand on abortion. “Yeah, you know Clem, I was ok with going down to the PP clinic until I realised that my monthly check in 30 years was going to be fractionally smaller. I mean after all, the difference in my check will assuredly cover 18 years worth of expenses for a child.” Is that really the most cogent argument that they could come up with for not having an abortion?

Finally, while we are on the subject of death, I want to complain about the further coddling of our youth. When I was a kid, come spring, they would put out the “don’t drink and drive” car. It was a car that had supposedly been involved in a drunk driving accident, and these bastards were mangled! I used to spend 30 minutes every year analysing the car, trying to figure out what happened, how it got hit, if the person lived, etc. I remember the year that the rear impact was so violent that the rear seat was pressed against the back of the front seat. I remember the year that that the A pillar on the passenger side was almost touching the driver’s seat. And I cannot forget the years that the blood was still in the car, including on the windshield one year. THAT was a deterrent. The car I saw this year was a joke. The fender was barely crinkled, and the bumper had basically been ripped off. I don’t even know if it was fast enough for the airbag
to deploy. The only thing it made me want to do was get in an accident like that! It looked like something we would have done locking wheels on our way back to the apartment in college. The net of it was that it was too pansified for me to waste time to stop and look at. Just like I won’t have time to stop for the pansified youth of today when they need a binkie in the workplace in 15 years…

Still ornery after all these years,
-Michael