Day121:Your kid has a what?

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At what age do you think it’s appropriate for children to get cell phones?

Prompt found at Plinky .

I was in college when I got my first cell phone. I haven’t personally had a cell for several years because of this screwed up economy but when I did I paid my own bill. My younger sister only got a cell phone when she got a job so she could pay for it herself. We were never given one. Today I’ve seen second graders with them.I admit there is a logic to”latch key”  children having them as a safety measure that makes sense. What will never make any sense is a child who isn’t even in kindergarten but has a cell phone . I’m not talking about a plastic toy they insist on carrying to be just like mom and dad. I mean a real, pay the bill every month, cell phone. I personally know a three year old who has one. Three, really?! If people think my generation has entitlement issues they have no idea what’s coming. If this recession has no lasting positive effect other than to break this trend I will consider the hardship worthwhile

Day 95:I’m leaving on a jet plane…

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I wish I were anyways. I need a vacation preferably away from the majority of my family. For obvious reasons I would probably take mom but that’s okay I can live with that. I really wish I had the option of driving because even though I’m not generally claustrophobic is starting to feel like the walls of my house will eventually crush me with malicious intent even. You know you need a vacation when you start to suspect the walls are out to get you. Of course I realize they’re not but that just goes to show you how my brain functions when it’s backed into a corner, that is to say strangely. They are coming to take me away… They’re coming to take me away…

Day 85: the continuing struggle for personal autonomy

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Several  weeks ago I wrote getting a portable word processor so I could write down story ideas wherever I found just like everyone else who can use a pencil and a napkin. Just as I feared it has been put off for months and I have been recently told that I will not be able to get it before the first of next month even though I am supposed to be able to dictate how my inheritance is spent. People have paid lip service to the fact that they wish me to be a reasonably autonomous adult, able to make my own decisions, have a steady income which is not state provided, pay my own bills, move out of my parents house etc. but when it comes to letting me take the baby steps to those goals it seems to be harder than pulling teeth for all the roadblocks put in my way by seemingly well-meaning family members. Insert silent scream here.

Day 84: family photos may induce childhood trauma, a cautionary tale

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Some people cringe away from telling stories about themselves as small children, I try not to. The way I see it it will be much more embarrassing for me if my parents actually get around to telling the stories that if I don’t let myself, with that introduction on to the story.

When I was 18 months old decided to show me the first photograph I had ever seen, it was a Kodak Polaroid of my dad when he was stationed in Korea for the Army years before I was born. I apparently took one look at the picture and began to cry and wail with the force of a small banshee. My mother tried to the next 45 min. to calm me down, to no avail. My 18 month old brain had somehow seized upon the logical fallacy that my dad had been literally shrunk into the photograph and was now two dimensional and therefore I would never see him again, hence why my mother’s frantic pleadings did not help. She finally called my dad at work (he was a manager at Burger King at the time) and explained (with me still shrieking in the background) that he had to talk to me and reassure me that he was not stuck forever in a photograph and that he would be coming home from work. I think she had to explain it twice before it actually sank in how upset I was. I seem to remember being totally relieved at hearing his voice and I’m told that when you finally did come home you couldn’t have pried me out of his lap if you had used the Jaws Of Lifel

Day 59: “you can’t handle the truth” or why I am not always truthful

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Do you always tell the truth?

When we are small we’re taught to always be truthful and that lying is bad, the world was just that simple.  As we get older we realize that the world doesn’t only see things in black-and-white like we are taught in kindergarten, at some point most of us are introduced to the “social lie.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if this phenomenon originated in the South.  How many times have newly married guys ate second helpings of a burnt supper rather than tell their wives that the dog shouldn’t even be allowed to eat it?  I know the least a few men who have admitted to doing that.How often does someone internally marvel at a friend’s lack of taste in clothes but grin and tell them they looked wonderful?  My sister is an exception to that statement if she thinks you look bad she will tell you… in the nicest way possible, but trust me you will know… she has done it to me.  There are certain things about my life that my grandmother does not know, it is better for the entire family that she doesn’t because it might literally worry her sick.  I don’t technically lie to her… if she asked me a direct question I would answer truthfully.  However I will do my best to avoid those particular subjects for as long as I’m able.  I learned a long time ago to appreciate the military concept of “need to know” information.  I still believe it is wrong to lie in most cases, you should always tell your parents when you wreck the car, drink a little too much at a party, or take $10 out of the mother’s purse.  As a sidenote, lying to the police is just plain stupid, because nine times out of 10 they know you’re lying before its half way out of your mouth, just don’t do it.  That having been said, I admit to being no stranger to the occasional social falsehood.  At least I’m not the only one.

Day sixteen: why playground rules should apply to “real” adult life

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I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, I admit it.  The sky has been the color of steel wool all day and I was so not looking forward to therapy that afternoon. I went anyway  When you insist on playing hard you must except the consequences which will very likely follow.  I am now thoroughly sure in case anyone is interested  Mom and I drove there and freezing rain and when we exited an hour later it had started to snow.  While getting into the car my knee got wrenched, as if I wasn’t sore enough already.  We got home end in the time it took us to drive there the ground was almost completely white.  We couldn’t get the car all the way into the driveway. I managed not to fall into the snow despite my messed leg.  However I am still sitting here three hours later with a heating pad across my lap trying to thaw out and wishing that the concept of a “do over” really worked outside of fifth grade recess.

day ten: am I just here for the food?

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Today was a day my disability was thrown into harsh and rather unforgiving relief, as was most of my family’s (this excludes my mother) general inattentiveness to this sound of my voice.  I am beginning to wonder why I’m here if the majority of my family seems to see my voice to the words I say as mere sound, background noise which requires very little attention at all.  Am I really a person to them or mouthing more then a reoccurring obligation, a duty to be discharged, a burden to be shouldered?  I feel as though my opinions are thought of as frivolous and inconsequential at best and downright stupid at worst.  If that is the case what purpose do I serve?  Am I nothing more than a glorified ATM machine to them?  Is my disability nothing more than a convenient reason for them to stay at home and not have to struggle through the economic sludge of this current recession nightmare?  Though I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt the longer this goes on the shorter my temper gets.  How I supposed to believe that I’m being treated like an adult when all my concerns are ignored and my frustration is treated as nothing more than a five-year olds temper tantrum?  The truth is that if I believed that I was being taken seriously at all, these “tantrums” would not exist because I wouldn’t feel the need to scream in order to get my point across.