Must Be Great to Be Old

I hate making fun of people.

No, wait, that's not true.

I hate making fun of decent people who don't deserve it.

In my humble opinion and as an expert of train riding, people who do not follow the rules of travel do deserve to be made fun of. Here are the rules:

1.) Don't be obnoxious

2.) Don't be loud

3.) Don't talk really loudly on your cell phone

4.) Don't steal anything

Miss CarrieJeanJo broke most of those rules on the way back from Atlantic City on Saturday night. I named her CarrieJeanJo because of her appearance and life.

CarrieJeanJo had red hair, white skin, and a somewhat mannish face. Her clothes were not "What Not to Wear" bad, but they were definitely a little trailer-trash. I would guess her age to be around 30 based on appearance and her life story, which she told to the 450 lbs. dude sitting across from her on the train in a voice that (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being neutral and 10 being unbearably grating) was a 8.5. The final fact that I need to express is that when she smiled she had 3 front teeth. Not like "oh that's weird, there's one in the middle sorta, then two more around it" it was like "oh, she only has three teeth in her entire mouth."

Carrie Jean Jo was sitting in the front of the train, facing everyone else for loudest voice projection purposes, I suppose. The 450 lbs. dude was sitting facing her, with a survivor from Iwo Jima sitting behind them.

Through my headphones, this is what I heard of the life story of CarrieJeanJo. Her first husband wanted her barefoot and pregnant and didn't let her have any friends. Her next boyfriend which she had a kid with went to jail. Her next boyfriend told her that he was 35 when he was really 45, and she doesn't like liars so that was out (at that point, I was ready to say "so deary, I'm not lying but you are effin' annoying and ugly" but I refrained). And then she got married to her current husband who is a chef so she gets to eat well and doesn't have to cook.

The survivor from Iwo Jima and I had a talk by eyes, it went like this:

Me: "I'm so sorry you don't have an iPod to listen to."

Iwo Jima: "It's okay, I couldn't work one anyway. Besides, she's not THAT bad, I DID survive Iwo Jima."

Me: "Thank you for service to your country and being a kindly old gentleman instead of busting a cap in her ass."

Iwo Jima: "It's cool, my hearing aids are off."

Me: "Must be great to be old."

Why Goodwill is Good for Mankind

Today I worked at Burger King, figuring I'd write the post after something ridiculous happened. Much to my surprise, I found out a tidbit before I got to work that I figured was blog worthy. I went to Goodwill to get my dad a $20 gift certificate. (Okay, it turned out to be a shitty gift, but I only had $20 and he loves the Goodwill so I figured it would work out).

I met my friend's mom (Patti) in there, who gave me a hug and was like "sorry you saw me in my underwear the other day" and then asked what I was doing there. I told her I wanted a gift certificate and she disappeared into the back to get me one. This left me unoccupied for about 5 minutes. The first two minutes, I was people watching. Then I got caught. So I started to look around instead.

Sitting there on the shelf before me was none other than about 6 pregnancy tests. My brain said to me "Andrea, who on EARTH would buy a pregnancy test from the Goodwill, in essence a second hand store?" Then my eyes spied about 10 more on the eye-level shelf. As I was chuckling to myself, 3 trailer trash girls walked by, 2 obviously pregnant. As the 2 obviously pregnant ones walked in front of me, the third walked slightly behind and slyly grabbed a test off the shelf and headed towards the bathroom...I guess no one buys them...

In my utter disbelief of this town that I've been stuck in, my eyes traveled downwards towards a cardboard box occupying the bottom shelf. Inside I spied Maxim ribbed condoms. Right, like anyone in this town needs Maxim.

Now, my advice to the Goodwill is this. Put the condoms on the eye-level shelf, and leave the pregnancy tests on the bottom. In this town, its like 1 out of 3 girls is pregnant, and 1 out of 2 of those are unwed, uneducated, and poor. Condoms first, then the tests will be unnecessary, as long as the condoms aren't second hand.

New Classics, and why aren't there any?

Charles Dickens. William Shakespeare. Walt Whitman. (These are all men...Oh!) Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin. Mark Twain.

Let's play a game. What do all these have in common?

A. They are all men.
B. They are all fake names.
C. They all wrote literary classics still read today, at least in schools.
D. They all wrote in a lot of years ago.
E. They were all illiterate.

A. is sorta true, and goes with letter B. A lot of women used male pen names blahblahblahblahblah oppression blah blah inequality blah. Yea, so. Letter C! That's what I wanted to get to.

All the great writers, poets, novelists, all of them that are considered "classics" were written before computers, which was like a million years ago. For realz yo. I just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities, by none other than the great Dickens. As I was reading it, I marveled at the intelligent language and well put together story, and starting wondering why on earth I had read nothing that could compare to it in a couple of years - or by anyone who had ever used a computer.

I have two theories.

Theory Number Uno. Computers are trying to take over the world or are trying to make humans dumber than we already are.
Supported by my absolutely faulty logic, computers have been around for my entire lifetime. During my entire lifetime, people have been getting dumber. Exhibit 1: guy who decided that "cruise control" for an RV really meant "auto pilot" and that he didn't really need to be at the wheel of a 1 ton machine going 55 mph down a highway. Exhibit 2: The current economic crisis.

Also, Hollywood is always a good predictor of the future right? So, I'm going to pretend that all those "OMG COMPUTERS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD...hmmm, Brad Pitt is looking handsome today...OH NO I'M BEING EATEN BY AN APPLE" movies are true and that computers are just waiting until we as a human race are too dumb to do anything about robots taking over our lives. How they will do it? I can't tell you, it would require me to use a computer and then they might start to get ideas.

Theory Number Dos: The English language is being lost because we are lazy and have people like Kayne West and Miley Cyrus releasing books.
"Yo, I like did this good thing, something way more rad than I ever did 'fore. And then I got some mad z's, way more gooder than 'fore." Somehow doesn't compare to "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." Man, I just feel so fulfilled reading that. The first one makes me want to go back to English class.

So, how do we reverse this trend? 1.) I think that if you can't speak a clear sentence on the spur of the moment, you should not be allowed to release a book. 2.) If you are a celebrity writing about yourself, you should not be allowed to release a book. And 3.) Everyone should pick up a classic and read it right now. Mostly because it's just a good time!

:)

Garfield and my logic

So I journeyed home to Central Pennsylvania, which could be an entire blog post in-and-of itself. Central PA and Philadelphia are like apples and potatoes - the only thing they have in common is the state in which they reside (that would be the round state).

It was a Sunday night, and since I will not be around next week for church, I decided to accompany my mother to the evening service - officiated by my father.

I have ADHD (read "short attention span") and consequently cannot sit through even movies anymore. I usually watch them in shifts. This is also one of the reasons I skip class fairly often (can't pay attention anyway so what's the point). ADHD combined with my lovely hobby of watching people is great for church.

Pondering the elderly people that I have gone to church with forever, I wondered if I was just sitting around people who had always had big ears, or whether your ears grow like saggy or something when you get older.

Well, Garfield gave me my answer this morning:

I just want to say I LOVE old people, big ears and all! This was honestly just an intelligent theory, not a "LETS MAKE FUN OF ALL OLD PEOPLE" cuz I beat up the people that are all like "LETS MAKE FUN OF ALL OLD PEOPLE"!