I Must Be Getting Old

This article was going to be another edition of We Might Not Make It After All, but since every generation before us has in fact "made it" it doesn't quite fit the profile. What I mean by this is every generation before us had to deal with crazy, rebellious youths sporting bad hair and crazy clothing and yet here we are: still here.

Somehow.


Of course, there was a time during my youth in revolt stage where my parents didn't get it and they were absolutely hopeless. Every male goes through that stage called puberty where he all of a sudden has to deal with extreme levels of testosterone and angst. I went through it just like everybody else. I grew my hair long and wore baggy clothing while blasting my music way too high and sticking out my chest to say "Just try to fuck with this guy here!" High school had a lot to do with it. You have the ever controlling teachers in middle school who don't let you do anything, and all of a sudden you are thrown in high school with so many new body chemicals flowing you don't know how to handle it. And then there's the teachers who don't give a shit about what you do as long as you don't interfere with their Excedrin migraine. This is South Carolina after all. Our way of getting the grade point average higher is to lower the passing score. Back to the point: high school. You get a car, you get to swear, and you get to have sex. All these new freedoms kind of make you feel like you're on top of the world. But you aren't. You are just annoying everyone you come into contact with who is older than you.

Even I want to punch the shit out of me.

As Biggie said, "It was all a dream..." High school is what it is going to feel like when you are finally rich. Yeah I know that's a big let down but it's the truth. All the shit I didn't have to worry about in high school is kicking my ass today. I left the house with an "I'll show you" attitude, and after a while I called back apologizing for every thing I did wrong. Ever. After I moved out, I tried to hang on to a few of my high school values and attitudes. I quickly learned that the real world does not take that sort of thing lightly at all. So having to grow up has changed my opinion on how I used to be. I understand that it was a phase that happens to most folks, but I had no idea just how much I was pissing off people older than me. Now the tides have turned into a tsunami of disgust. It hits you one day. You see some kid with his hair blocking 92% of his vision wearing skinny jeans and and a tie with a t-shirt and you just shake your head and say. "What the fuck are...I'm gonna kick his ass!" It really is kinda scary. Never before have you experienced a feeling where you absolutely want to pile drive some guy that you've never met. You go home and reprimand yourself for being so cranky today. Shame on you! Be prepared, for this is only the beginning.

I dare you to not punch your screen.

It isn't a gradual thing that takes some time, it literally happens overnight. You wake up in the morning and all of a sudden you're conscious of what the youth around you is doing. I'm almost 23. I'm still young by most people's standards. But having worked in a professional environment and learning how to be a professional (of sorts) has tuned me in to how the people who make a shit ton more money than me view those who they wish to share their business with. It makes me feel old when I say, "Don't they know they aren't gonna get hired looking like that? Don't they know how stupid they look??" I abstain slightly. They aren't worrying about a job yet. They're having lots of sex. It's good for them. The thing is, they are conforming to what the teen mind considers to be "cool" or some other fucking vernacular that will only piss me off if I hear it. So it isn't just one teen who wants to be this way, its a lot of teens who want to be this way. Take Beiber for instance. This moppy headed kid put his damn haircut on my brother! My brother hides under a hoody and has to shake his head every two seconds to get the hair out of his face. I love my brother to death, and support whatever he does, but sometimes I just wanna go "REALLY? You wanna look like the Beib?" And it isn't just the emo and punk kids that get to you. The rednecks and the preps have attitude like you wouldn't believe. I had this also. I'm not innocent here. But when you walk down the street and some kid hangs out his window and yells, "Faaaaaaaag!" it just makes you so mad. And then they get pissed off at you when you throw a brick into their vehicle.

Fag this, bitch.

But remember what I just said. I did the exact same thing. I thought it was funny to do this to people (if I was with a group of folks of course) and I have done stuff similar when I was a runt. Now on the other side of the coin, I don't like it one bit. It makes you wonder how the hell your parents put up with the shit you did. The other day I'm getting out of my work car and this guy called over at me. I turned around and he took a step back and said, "Dude, you look like a linebacker." He was asking to borrow my phone by the way, not trying to diss me. I told you that story to give you an idea of my size. I'm 6 foot and 2 inches and 270 pounds, I can handle myself. That's why I can throw shit at belligerent teenagers and get away with it. But it still makes me oh so friggen mad. And I know that not everyone is going to have that day when they realize that they need to shape up or get shit up. It makes me worry about the future. I remember what teens were like when I was a small kid, I remember what teens were like when I was a teen, and I know what teens are like now that I'm a little older. It seems to get worse and worse, trending towards a shade of ridiculousness that may one day be irreversible. Tattoos and piercing holes are hard to hide for a job, and this "don't give a shit" attitude is one day going to have to be acceptable or nobody is going to get hired.

The next two Presidents...

Shape up kids. Or there will be more bricks to come.

Thanks for reading.