It ain't me

The other week I biked over to the train station for assorted reasons. As I was riding in, some hysterical girl flagged me down. She wanted me to call her phone which she had lost in her car. I found it amusing that she blamed her Subaru WRX for "taking" her phone. Which she eventually located under a speaker box in the trunk. If the humor escapes you, imagine me flailing my arms about and crying "Stupid phone! Fucking car! Waaaaahh!" in a high-pitched voice.

My point, you ask? Well this chick apparently felt she was entitled to have her phone not magically flee her clutches into the trunk while she wasn't looking. No doubt she gets all A's (I assume she is a college student). Maybe I'm being callous. It's the makings of societal failure when people don't learn how to take care of their own shit by the time they are grown. I guess it could be argued that the very definition of 'grown' is when you learn to take care of yourself, but whatever the fuck ever Carl Contrarian.


From "helicopter parents" to "the nanny state" it seems there are all kinds of catchy phrases moving us toward excess sheltering. Some other college kid came to an interview here the other day with their mom. Seems unnecessary, but they were hired to work as an unpaid intern at arguably the dyingist company in the whole newspaper industry. The only thing worse than young people who think the world owes them something is old people who think the world owes them something. I'm looking at you, me generation. We deserve for you to not fuck shit up too much.

One would think that as you age you tend to get more experience. And, in turn, learn from this experience. Trip over a root, then watch where you are going while walking in a forest. It's an advanced concept. But it seems that learning from mistakes is becoming a lost art. Failure is not as bad as you think. Sometimes it's necessary in order to survive. Not everyone can be an astronaut.


Probably the most frustrating part of this entitlement nonsense is the increasing lack of personal responsibility. Guess what kids, your actions have consequences. Just because a celebrity does something on TV doesn't make it OK. You may find it preferable to think you operate in some sort of vacuum, that the rules don't apply to you. But that just makes for a rude awakening when you weigh 400 pounds after eating too much everyday or get fired for posting on a personal blog when you are supposed to be working.