GETTING THROUGH LIFE'S TOUGH STAGES
Being a baby is not much fun. You can't tell people what you want. No
teeth, so you eat things like strained beets. No privacy. Your pants smell awful half the time. All those things that you'd love to put in your mouth, and they're out of reach. People try to sleep all night when you want some attention.
However, being a little kid is not a lot of laughs. Your parents make
you go to bed too early. There are bogeymen hiding in the shadows in your room. You don't have any money. You have to go to school. Big kids terrorize you on the playground. Your parents won't take you to the movies you really want to see..
Your teeth get a zillion cavities and then you lose them and can't eat
corn on the cob. You have to clean up your room. You can't wait until you are a teen-ager.
Being a teen is grim. Either you grow too fast or too slow. Your parents
won't buy you really cool clothes. Evil spirits invade your room at night and sprinkle zits on your face. Fierce blasts of hormones race through your body. Advertisers constantly bombard you with images of sex, and then you are instructed that sex can kill you. You can't borrow the car tonight.
Perhaps you make it to college. College is angst-ridden. Pass these
courses or abandon hope of getting a good job. You have to watch your political correctness every minute, and you still can't get a date. On weekends you feel compelled to drink vast amounts of beer, which you don't enjoy all that much, and then barf it up, which you enjoy even less. And then the basketball team doesn't make it to the NCAA tournament. The real life of adulthood must be better.
Young adulthood has its drawbacks. You have to go to work for some old,
out-of-touch jerk. You can't afford a house. You can't afford a car. You can't afford to get married, although you do anyway. Then you have kids, so you can afford even less. No more partying all night for you, bud. Your youth is over.
Middle age is unsettling. Once you craved hip, stylish clothes; now your
main fashion requirement is elastic waistbands. You no longer understand the wild music they play on the radio., You drive your kids crazy by giving them the same lectures your parents have you. It's obvious you'll never be rich or famous, but everyone's always asking you for money anyway. You actually start thinking about retirement.
...Tony Gabriele
Gannett News Service
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