I think I know why the bulk of people under 30 didn’t bother to vote.  Remember Goofy singing, “Oh, the world owes me a livin’. Doodle doodle doodle doodle do.” It’s this same amusing attitude that today’s youth display towards things like work.  Nicky can barely force himself to stay at work for 8 hours, one day a week.  And this for the princely sum of $24/hour to sit at a computer.

Marilyn works part time at the curling rink, and described the new kid they hired.  She said he already told her that he can’t work Sundays, Monday or Tuesday nights.  She asked him if he was working elsewhere as well, or in school, and he said, “No.”  I guess he just has prior engagements on those days.

I told her I want to go and apply for a job, and then at the interview say, “However, I go to fitness daily at 9:00, so can’t start until 10:30 and I need to be home by 4:00 so I can watch Oprah.  Weekends are out entirely as are evenings.”

I guess because I was paid 25 cents an hour to baby sit, which meant watching kids as well as doing dishes or whatever other chores were left for me to do, I have become impatient with the spoiled young.  On the weekend I dropped fruitcakes off at a store with a deli/bakery.  I said to the two young girls there, “These were ordered by the manager.  There’s an invoice and promo materials inside.”  To which one of them said, “This isn’t our department.”

I can thank mom’s rigorous training at the fruit stand for my ability to work like a mule and behave civilly to others.  We were taught basic etiquette towards customers, such as standing up when they came in, as well as greeting them.  Nowadays, the heavily-pierced and tattooed clerks at the till are too busy re-hashing the previous evening’s party for any of that fluff.

But as my mom, as well as yours, has pointed out to us hundreds of times, these brats are of our own making.  Mom and her friend Pearl were always beside themselves with the idea that kids would be asked something like, “Do you want Cheerios or toast for breakfast?”  In their day there was none of that.  Breakfast was served, and you ate it.  Choosing wasn’t allowed.

However, we were too busy feeling terrible about what we’d discovered to be true.  With both parents working full time outside the home child, raising kids is a horrible amount of work.  And by placating the little so and so’s we found that sometimes a moment or two of peace could be bought.  A bowl of sugar-coated cereal and a Bugs Bunny video often bought an extra bit of blessed sleep.  And really, how were we to know that by buying every Fisher-Price toy, Nintendo, Ninja Turtle sewer, pedal car and Wii that it was going to lead to all of this?