Vignettes About Stuff

#1  Things People Don't Say To You Any More and Things They Do

               Have you ever noticed how the things people will say to you or won’t say to you change throughout your life?  As a kid I heard a lot of these:  “Go to your room.  Why don’t you go play outside?  Have you done your homework?  Do your homework,” and perhaps the most often repeated of all, “Be quiet.”  I don’t hear those things anymore, although I may say them now and then to a grandchild.  But no one says them to me.  I don’t hear other things either, like “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” or even “Down the road you’re going to thank me for this.”  No one says them to me because I’m old.  I don’t have my whole life ahead of me; just whatever is still left of it, And I may not be around  when we get down that road to thank you for whatever it is you may be doing for my own good even though I don’t like it.  Or, I might be completely incontinent and not caring enough to be appreciative of whatever you did for my own good.

               But some things, no matter how old I get, I haven’t stopped hearing.  Things like:  “You need a haircut.  Take out the garbage.  How am I supposed to know where you left it,” and that old favorite, “I already gave you lunch money; what did you do with it?”