Bob Thomas Writes

I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS GENERATION AT ALL!
(a.k.a. The Opinion of an Old Fart!)

As I stumble from one day to the next, I find that I understand less and less of, and about, this generation. “This Generation” being the one that is currently in power and commanding the worlds attention by dressing like walking rag-bags with butt cracks or belly buttons exposed.

They seem to be obsessed with punching holes in their miscellaneous body parts and sticking gaudy. . . and cheap. . . jewelry in them! The majority of them seem to like ears and noses for this sort of activity, but there is the occasional masochist that feels compelled to gouge a hole through their tongue and put something that looks like a dumbbell through it! I would imagine that the noise created just by eating a piece of hard candy would be enough to drive them crazy, but they seem to like it. The ones who want everyone to see the horrendous damage they’ve done to their tongue are the ones who make me crazy. I initially want to tell them that no one says, “Hi” and runs their tongue out to the end of the roller! They can’t say “Yes” or “No” by just mumbling it out of the corner of their mouth like every other teen-ager in the world. They have to enunciate and open their mouth wide enough to park a tennis ball in it! All the while rattling that damn dumbbell against their teeth, and making a noise like a drunken woodpecker trying to play The Colonel Bogie March on a tin can! On top of everything else, I can’t help but notice the impression in their shirt of nipple rings and of course, the obligatory belly button ring! I dare not even think of the ‘other’ possibilities for punctures with chains and bells hanging out of them!

Maybe I’m just an old fart, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would willingly let someone punch holes in their hide! It has to hurt like almighty hell! I expect they have second thoughts as soon as the needle touches their flesh, but at that point they’ve already paid their money, drunk all of the Thunderbird Wine, and bragged to all of their friends about their forthcoming decorations. So, they have no choice but to allow it to happen. But, I believe, I could back out at the last moment. I could either say something like, “HOLD UP THERE NEEDLE MAN!, I’VE CHANGED MY MIND”! Or…I could start crying and saying something like, “PLEEEESE DON’T STICK ME MISTER! PULEEEEASSSSEEEEE! YOU CAN KEEP THE MONEY, JUST DON’T STICK ME!” (The second option is the most likely scenario!) I would then run from the building, leave the county, change my name and take up a life as a traveling “Yard Clean-Up Boy”! I would knock on doors and say, “Pick up your yard trash for Two dollars”? I would do that for a few years, say until the year 2015. . .and then I would get myself into a side show at the fair as the “Un-perforated Man”. I would stand up on the stage and show people my un-punched hide! They, of course, would be repulsed by the sight, and I would make big bucks! I figure that by then I’d be the only person left in the world with an un-broken layer of skin!
Several years later I could make a fortune by advertising that the “Un-perforated Man” was going to have something pierced! People would come from miles around and pay obscene amounts of money to see it happen! As I lay, or sat, on the table waiting to be hole-punched I could look through the audience,. . . literally! . . . and survey the damage done by thousands of piercings. I would ask everyone to close their eyes for a moment of silence and , as they did, I would whisper to the piercing person, “PULEEEEEASE DON’T STICK ME MISTER!” And I would grab the money, jump from the table and run for dear life!
After many years of picking up yard trash, I would move to some quite little town like ‘Dustbunnie, Texas’ and retire. Several years after that the newspapers would announce that the world’s last “un-pierced” man had expired of natural causes.
With all of his body parts intact!
Unfortunatly, some undertaker would probably send me to my grave looking like a pin cushion!