As I write this today, I’m beginning to feel like a grumpy old bat though I consider myself in training because I’m under fifty. But I’m grumpy because I feel like kids today are really getting short-changed when it comes to fun.
First off: for the last couple of weeks or so I kept seeing these signs for ‘Trunk or Treat’ on the marquees of schools and churches. Then I finally learned what these events are and I actually saw a couple in action.
Trunk or Treat is when kids go to a parking lot in broad daylight dressed up in their Halloween costumes and go around to people’s cars where they’re given candy out of the trunks of said-cars. Why, I asked myself would anyone think this was fun? Or is it just me being a grouchy old bat in-training?
To me, dressing up in costume to walk around a boring-ass parking lot getting candy from people who only want to be there because they’ve been guilt-tripped by the PTA or the church-council thingy into doing this doesn’t sound like anyone’s having any real fun. Running around a neighborhood after dark trying not to get hit by cars while looking for houses with porch lights on (and ones that hadn’t been toilet papered) was fun. Or maybe that was dumb as dirt to kids today. But there was a sense of adventure back then, of being out after dark running around yelling for candy when someone opened their front door.
Today in suburbia there aren’t a lot of sidewalks so walking around in the dark is riskier, I’ll give you that. And in most neighborhoods I drive around in, there are a ton of parked cars on the street you’d have to dodge, too (though not in the high-dollar places because the HOA’s there don’t want the neighborhood to look all ghetto and shit). Also in suburbia, it’s very important to know what your neighbors might think of you and you have to care about someone you may only talk to once or twice a year (give or take). I’ve heard that so many people these days don’t really know who their neighbors are so why should someone care about what some dumb-ass down the street thinks about them?
I always said if I had ever ended up in suburbia as a yuppie soccer-mom I would have been run out of there eventually because I swore if I ever did end up there I’d wear loud t-shirts, play rock ‘n’ roll music, let my kids stay up late on the weekends, and actually pay attention to my kids’ conversations. I guess you could say suburbia got lucky when I never got there.
Oh, another reason for these Trunk-or-Treat things is this stupid-ass fear perpetuated by Fox News and all the fearmongering right-wing asshole-news sites that candy from your neighbors might be laced with fentanyl. Yep. Now another reason not to trust your neighbors if they’re not Fox-News brainwashed assholes is that is that they’ll feed your kids fentanyl in their candy.
What every right-wing asshole has never understood, or has totally ignored is this:
DRUG DEALERS DON’T GIVE OUT FREE SAMPLES OF THEIR PRODUCT!
Drug dealers don’t set up free sample tables like they’re in Costco or your local grocery store. Their product is too damn valuable to give away for free so they’re off in their drug dens (many in rich-bitch suburbia) laughing their asses off at this shit. So, if they take their kids to the local Trunk-or-Treat event they’ve got to be laughing at all the dumb-ass idiots that live around them who buy their product from them behind everyone else’s back.
Many years ago, my father and I were talking one day about the 1970’s minus the double-knit polyester clothes and my dad said: “At least people didn’t walk around like they had a stick jammed up their ass like they do now.” At that time, I thought to myself: it’s official, my dad is now a cranky old guy. But after a few days I realized he was right. He’s right now more than ever. Even people who don’t vote Republican can be more than a little tight-ass at times. It’s why kids today must jump for freaking joy when they go off to college (especially out of state) and realize they can talk to people who are different from them, listen to all kinds of different music, and dress up and act like idiots if they want to.
Kids today are more aware than any dumb-ass adult about how shitty this world is. They’ve done active-shooter drills since kindergarten, get hated on for reading books, and are fighting like hell not to get all their freaking human rights taken from them. Yes, some of them become Young Republicans but not near enough to replenish the ranks of that asshole-squad.
To any young people reading this (young people to me are under thirty):
You’re doing fine. I have lots of hope for you.
Have fun. Blast that music. Do stupid shit. Make mistakes.
And for God’s sake: don’t jam a stick up your ass. And don’t do drugs either.
MicheleSayre.com 