We got the Boomers, Gen X, Generation Z and all them others.
I been personally thinking this here generation needs to be called the Stupid Generation. I got a lot of reasons for this, but for one example, this summer my son Gargoyle, who happens to be in law school no less, claimed this car was broke, and it took his grandma, my mother-in-law Ms. Larda, to prove to him he was just out of gas.
Now he’s back at LSU, and my daughter Gladiola is driving to classes over at UNO in this same car, which we call Bubba the Car. And already, I got a call from her. “Bubba’s broke down,” she tells me. Her too? I say “Does Bubba have gas?”
“The gauge says it’s empty, but I just used my own money to get it filled the day before yesterday.”
Weird, I think. Maybe the tank has a leak?
A little background — this car used to be my mother-in-law Ms. Larda’s. She passed it to her son Lurch, who named it Bubba and drove it pretty hard. This summer my son Gargoyle used it to get to his summer job at McDonald’s, but he didn’t think it would make it back to Baton Rouge, where he goes to law school, so now it takes Gladiola back and forth to UNO.
“And I take good care of it,” she is saying. “I never turn off the motor. Never!”
“Except when you get out of it…” I say.
“Not even then! I let it run all the time, even when I’m in class. Then it’s all cool when I get in,” she says, sounding proud.
So, she’s basically driven poor Bubba nonstop for two days.
I tell her to take the bus home.
I call up Ms. Larda to tell her about it. I am worried about this generation. How stupid can they get? She says, “Mmm, mmm,” sympathetically.
Then I tell her I got to run — literally, since I got no car — to pick up something for supper, as soon as I find my phone. “I don’t know where I put it,” I tell her. “It’s not by my bed, not in my purse…”
“Look at your ear,” says Ms. Larda. “You’re talking on it.”
Oh.
When I get to the grocery, I push my sunglasses on top of my head and take my regular glasses and put them on. I forget about the sunglasses.
When I go to leave, I push on the pull door.
Eventually I get home. It’s hot out and I feel sweaty, so I go in the bathroom and wash under my arms and dab on a couple swipes from my jar of deodorant.
My gentleman friend Lust stops by to say he’ll be working late. I give him a kiss and he says I smell delicious.
I tell him about Gladiola’s problem with Bubba.
“Don’t this girl make straight A’s in school,” he asks. “Isn’t she an honor student?” I say yes.
“Maybe she needs a chauffeur,” he says.
“She’s got one. The bus driver,” I tell him.
Then I start boiling the spaghetti. The steam fogs up my glasses, so I push them on top my head. Gladiola finally walks in, grumbling about the bus ride, but she still comes over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“Ma? You smell like mynez,” she says.
“It’s pronounced ‘mayonnaise,’” I say. “‘Mynez’ means ‘my nose’ in French.”
She goes into the bathroom and comes out. “Ma, did you use my may-o-naise face mask?” she asks me. “The jar is open on the counter.”
Ohh. My deodorant comes in a little jar and so does her face mask. And I don’t have my glasses on.
So when I come out the bathroom, with the mayonnaise washed off and the deodorant put on, I tell her to sit down.
“As soon as I find my glasses, I want to have a talk,” I say.
“Which glasses you want? There are two pair on top your head,” she tells me.
“Thank you,” I say, very dignified.
I guess that talk will have to wait.
