Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Barefoot Children In The Rain
I work from home most of the time, and it gets real quiet around here at times. It kind of reminds me of the old western movies:
Quiet out here tonight, Luke.
Yeah....TOO quiet.
So, before the guys in the black hats or Indians on the warpath attack, I find it handy to create a little noise around the house. Scully's no help. She's like a furry red rug that sheds all over everything while snoring behind my chair. I can put on Radio Margaritaville, but sometimes even that gets old. So, I keep a little TV in my office. I'll kick it on to MSNBC and just let the talking heads drone away in the background about Bush's latest screwup, while I basically ignore it. It's just about having a human sound in the background somewhere, see? I'm like the old man in He Went To Paris: I just don't care what most people say.
So today I was working away when I heard the cowboy behind me:
It's TOO quiet in here, Crime Dog.
Time to ignore MSNBC again, but something is horribly wrong: My remote control is missing. As usual, I spend vastly more time looking for the damned thing than I would by just getting up and flicking the switch on the TV. Turns out Scully is laying on it. She's a very conservative dog, so this is just her way of protesting that she prefers Fox News. She trades me the remote for a quick scratch behind the ears, and all is right again.
But that got me to thinking about how good we have it these days. Everybody has a car or two, TVs with remotes, microwaves, Tivo, cell phones, cordless phones, DVD players, home computers, and God knows what other amenities. It hasn't always been that way, of course, but most of us just now reaching middle age haven't had it all that bad. Our parents all used the same ammunition against us:
Why, when I was your age, we didn't even have ____________. All we had was ___________, and we were grateful for THAT! (Fill in the blanks as appropriate)
When I was your age, I walked to school barefoot through the snow three miles uphill both ways against the wind! And we were grateful for it!
OK, they might have exaggerated some, but my parents came through the Great Depression and World War II, so they really did have it pretty rough. But what are today's adults with young children supposed to tell them to make them feel guilty about whining? They can easily start out with "Well, when I was your age...." but where can they go from there?
We didn't have remote controls. We had to get up and change the channels ourselves. And we were grateful for it!
We didn't have cell phones. We had to use pay phones, and they were really skanky, but we were grateful to have 'em!
Microwaves? Ha! We made our popcorn on top of the stove, and were grateful for it!
We had to stay in the house to talk on the phone, but we were grateful for it!
It was horrible! We had to actually rewind our movies. But we were grateful for it!
The times are definitely changing, but I suppose it's all relative. When I was twelve, after school activities were baseball or basketball, or just hanging around outside and playing grabass like kids have done for generations. No video games, no video movies, no electronic babysitters, just sunshine and best buddies. We had it pretty good, but today's kids might think that sounds like a tough life. Just like I thought it was tough that my parents came home from school and went to work in the fields.
Hell, my friends and I still prefer being out in the sunshine and playing grabass like a bunch of kids. I guess things haven't changed all that much after all!
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Quiet out here tonight, Luke.
Yeah....TOO quiet.
So, before the guys in the black hats or Indians on the warpath attack, I find it handy to create a little noise around the house. Scully's no help. She's like a furry red rug that sheds all over everything while snoring behind my chair. I can put on Radio Margaritaville, but sometimes even that gets old. So, I keep a little TV in my office. I'll kick it on to MSNBC and just let the talking heads drone away in the background about Bush's latest screwup, while I basically ignore it. It's just about having a human sound in the background somewhere, see? I'm like the old man in He Went To Paris: I just don't care what most people say.
So today I was working away when I heard the cowboy behind me:
It's TOO quiet in here, Crime Dog.
Time to ignore MSNBC again, but something is horribly wrong: My remote control is missing. As usual, I spend vastly more time looking for the damned thing than I would by just getting up and flicking the switch on the TV. Turns out Scully is laying on it. She's a very conservative dog, so this is just her way of protesting that she prefers Fox News. She trades me the remote for a quick scratch behind the ears, and all is right again.
But that got me to thinking about how good we have it these days. Everybody has a car or two, TVs with remotes, microwaves, Tivo, cell phones, cordless phones, DVD players, home computers, and God knows what other amenities. It hasn't always been that way, of course, but most of us just now reaching middle age haven't had it all that bad. Our parents all used the same ammunition against us:
Why, when I was your age, we didn't even have ____________. All we had was ___________, and we were grateful for THAT! (Fill in the blanks as appropriate)
When I was your age, I walked to school barefoot through the snow three miles uphill both ways against the wind! And we were grateful for it!
OK, they might have exaggerated some, but my parents came through the Great Depression and World War II, so they really did have it pretty rough. But what are today's adults with young children supposed to tell them to make them feel guilty about whining? They can easily start out with "Well, when I was your age...." but where can they go from there?
We didn't have remote controls. We had to get up and change the channels ourselves. And we were grateful for it!
We didn't have cell phones. We had to use pay phones, and they were really skanky, but we were grateful to have 'em!
Microwaves? Ha! We made our popcorn on top of the stove, and were grateful for it!
We had to stay in the house to talk on the phone, but we were grateful for it!
It was horrible! We had to actually rewind our movies. But we were grateful for it!
The times are definitely changing, but I suppose it's all relative. When I was twelve, after school activities were baseball or basketball, or just hanging around outside and playing grabass like kids have done for generations. No video games, no video movies, no electronic babysitters, just sunshine and best buddies. We had it pretty good, but today's kids might think that sounds like a tough life. Just like I thought it was tough that my parents came home from school and went to work in the fields.
Hell, my friends and I still prefer being out in the sunshine and playing grabass like a bunch of kids. I guess things haven't changed all that much after all!
