Non-Conformity

I really am beginning to feel my age because I am finding it more difficult to understand the language of youth and technology.  I have trouble defining trendy catch phrases as well.  When I upgraded by cell phone a few months ago the salesperson felt that the text message feature was a big selling point.  Now the little gal selling me on this phone was probably all of 20 years old.  I am sure she is really into the text message jargon but I have seen some of the shorthand they use and I would never be able to understand a received message let alone be able to answer back.  I think these messages look like the typing from the girl that sat next to me in typing class.   Oh man I really told my age there.  Typing class…. is the word typewriter even in the latest version of the Webster?  Anyway this gal had to be the worst typist I had ever seen.  Her text looked like script from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  That gal would be a text message whiz today!

            I don’t even understand the whole cell phone mania.  I see these young kids walking around and everyone has a cell phone glued to their ear.  What matters of earth shaking proportions could they be subverting?  I don’t even like to talk on my cell phone.  After I sit at work, listen and answer the phone all day the last thing I want to do after the earn a living grind is “chit chat” on the phone!  I know adults are just as addicted to this “convenience” but I like to rationalize that just maybe their job as a secret agent or tollbooth attendant requires 24/7 availability.  And what is with these earpiece phone attachments?   I went through a period when these hands free innovations first came out that had me really questioning my sanity.  I was seeing all these people talking to themselves.  I begin to wonder if I wasn’t one of those super intelligent people that have an onset of schizophrenia.  I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie.  Then the revelation hit me that these people were carrying on one of those very important conversations as a tollbooth attendant on their cell phone.  These people were so much in demand that they could not tie up their hands with all the time that they were needed on the phone preventing world disaster.

            As I said before I am also having problems with some of the new catch phrases.  Now I know when I was growing up, who really could put a definition on the word “groovy”? At least we weren’t using the word for something serious.  One I find most confusing is the word “issues”.  What does it mean when they say “he has issues”.  Does it mean that he has a problem deciding whether to wear the brown socks or the black ones?  Or is his psychosis so advanced that he can’t decide if he wants to be a pyromaniac or just a fireman instead.   I think the word becomes very convenient for defense attorneys trying to pull an acquittal out of their behinds.  “Mr. Jones can not be held responsible for tying up his wife with clothesline and beating her with a clothespin bag because she starched his shorts.  Mr. Jones has issues.”  Did you pick out of that statement what really would sound wrong to most people?  Not the fact that Mr. Jones is a wife abuser but the reference to a clothesline and a clothespin bag.

Do you know the quickest way to get kicked out of an “exclusive housing community”?  That’s right….put up a clothesline and hang the old man’s tightie whitee’s on the line.  Gasp…..a flagrant violation of a covenant.  What is with that covenant stuff anyway?    That’s another word that has become a matter of everyday speech.   This farm girl is redneck enough to say that my back stiffens when a homeowners group tells me what kind of garbage can to have.  For 40 years the only place I knew there were covenants was in the Bible.  I guess that is why they bestowed the name to these outrageous rules of development living.  Give these outlandish demands prominence.  Where do these covenants come from?  Let’s speculate how it comes about.  You have Joe who lives in this subdivision.  He is his back yard burning brush.  He is really getting into the smoke and blaze and all that when a neighbor yells out “thou shalt not burn brush in this housing addition”.  Joe stares into the fire thinking this decree is coming from a higher power….ta dah….the sub-division covenant is born.   Problem now….Joe can no longer receive flaming revelations because he can’t burn in his back yard because it is against the rules.  What happens when you violate a covenant?  You know what happens to those you ignore in the Bible.  Do the sub-division council of elders come to your door and threaten to have you and your family shunned?  Or maybe you have to sacrifice little Earl’s hamster to the high priests of the association at the annual members meeting.  I must admit that I have had the urge to collect every bit of Johnson Grass seed I can find and in the dark of night broadcast these community front yards.  Then I can stand back and watch. Chaos ensues as they lash out at one another when their new landscape plantings wreck havoc with the covenants.

Wow does that make me sound like one of those non-conformists in the 60’s?  Oh well maybe so.  I guess I may seem like those that chose not to fit in with progress.  I live out in the sticks with my dog and cats. The old man makes his living off of the land and we could live for a long time off of the food we have stored.  We are content with the simple life.  But I will fill your backside with 00 buck shot if you try and take away my satellite TV.

Livin’ the simple life…down on the farm

Ellen

Comments

[Nancy Meyers]

I loved this one & couldn't agree more! I had to print it off for Fred as he HATES his cell phone (never answers it & has no idea how to check his messages) & trying to search the web on the computer using what he calls a crazy & totally unpredictable mouse is out of the question!
Your country cousin,
Nancy

P.S. You will see undershorts on my clothes-line most any day you drive by! Ha!