Vaporback Writer

Posted on Sunday, October 09, 2005

America's Misspent Youth


Okay, maybe not America's, but at least my kids'. Howser has them both hooked into such a sedentary lifestyle that they cannot be budged from in front of the screen (be it a computer screen, TV screen, or video game) with a crowbar.

I had a chore to do today, and I wanted at least one of the kids to accompany me. The nature of this heinous chore? Kitties. Our next door neighbors had gone for the weekend and asked me to check in on their two kittens. They'd been confined to one room to mitigate potential cat vandalism. The neighbors just wanted us to check on them a couple of times so they wouldn't feel abandoned and alone. Was there any litter box cleaning involved? No. Any special grooming required? No--neither of the kittens nor ourselves. We weren't even asked to fill a food dish or water bowl. All I was asking my children to do was walk a few yards with me to the next house and frolic--yes, frolic--with a pair of the most adorably fuzzy kittens ever minted in this county.

But no. They refused.

So, of course, I had to take out my pretend dentures and shuffle along with my pretend cane while I gave them the standard when-I-was-your-age lecture. "We NEVER had kittens when I was your age. All we had was an old feral cat that spent time drooling out by grandpa's rubish heap. He mostly just yawned and twitched, and that was hard to do because he only had three legs and one good eye.You didn't really want to pet him because of all the flies you had to shoo away. But we loved that damn cat, 'cause we never saw any kittens where I came from. Of course, we never saw the furry old bastard after that one Christmas when there were all those lay-offs down at the mill. At least we had food on the table. Not sure what it was exactly; tasted kinda like chicken..."

I can go on like this for pretty much forever, so Herbie finally promised that when he finished his current on-screen battle, he'd go with me to play with the kittens. Grudgingly.

As is usually the case, I blame Howser.