| Rain Man |
07-05-2006 03:46 PM |
What's wrong with America today - Chapter 328 of a 350 part series.
I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I had a share a little anecdote from this weekend.
My wife and I headed out to the mall yesterday, and she got a new pair of shoes and I got a new sweater, a new shirt, and two new pairs of pants. The pants are a brand called Robert Graham, and they're really cool because the cuffs turn up and they have an interesting random pattern on them that's a completely different material. I bought a blue pair and, in a first for me, I bought an orange pair that's identical to a pair that I already own, but I get so many comments on them that I bought a second pair to have available, since it's very difficult to find a good pair of orange pants.
We finished shopping, and we went to the food court for lunch. I swore that I wouldn't get the Panda Express orange chicken, because I get it every time and I shouldn't get into a rut, but then we got there and they were handing out free samples of orange chicken and I thought, "Who am I kidding?" and I got the orange chicken.
We sat down to eat, and ended up near the Merry Go Round. This mall is big, and it's got a Merry Go Round that's probably half or two-thirds the size of a full one that you would see at Six Flags, and it's got horses and zebras and sea horses and at least one rabbit that you can ride, up and down and round and round, as long as you want if you're willing to pony up a buck-fifty a ride.
There were a fair number of families there, and lots of people were hauling their little children to the Merry Go Round to ride up and down, round and round on the sea horses and ponies and rabbits, and for the smaller kids, a bench where all of the other things can be observed from an on-ride perspective.
We watched the gate open, and the kids came pouring through to the Merry Go Round, their parents behind them. The kids climbed up on the platform, put their dirty little feet into the stirrups, and hauled themselves aboard their various mammals like little sticky cowboys and cowgirls. Then their parents fastened their seat belts, and away they went.
What?
FASTENED THEIR SEAT BELTS?
This Merry Go Round had seat belts on all of the horses. Seat belts! The children of today are not allowed to ride a Merry Go Round without wearing seat belts that hook them to the horses and sea horses and rabbits.
Now, I grew up in the era where, if a child could not hang on to a horse, said child fell off and presumably learned a lesson from it. Our motto was "If you fall off a horse, get right back on." Even with that philosophy, I remain today somewhat of a wimp. And if that's true, what does our future hold? An entire generation of kids who either a) cannot fall off a horse to start with, and b) have the motto of "If you fall off a horse, it means that the seat belt wasn't attached properly."
And really - who falls off of a Merry Go Round horse anyway? In all of my childhood, I never saw a child get bucked off of a Merry Go Round horse, and I would hazard to say that, from a genetic viewpoint, any child who couldn't stay on such a beast probably shouldn't survive to a reproductive age anyway.
I'm sure glad that I grew up in an era where all of my minor risks weren't mitigated.
|
