My Headstone

People who know me well understand that I love absurdity. We regularly pass pictures around at work with those overtones. Today one of my co-workers sent me a picture of (I cannot even believe I am letting this pass my lips) "Diabetes Barbie." Well folks I can officially say now that I have seen it all and you can feel free to have that engraved on my headstone.

Barbie is pictured in workout clothes, a long braid, and a glucose counter attached to the back of her left bicep. The counter is in the shape of a crown, outlined in gold, and bejeweled. Because we all know how important THAT is! It amazes me that Americans can take any useless inanimate object, line it with rhinestones, and all of a sudden it becomes priceless. And we all realize how much it ups the ante when said stones spell out one's initials. This is the red neck equivalent to having your name spelled out on the back of your belt. This was a phenomenon that was everywhere when I was a kid, and even though I grew up 50% redneck I never really understood it. Everything from cell phone covers to flip flops these days seem to be covered in cubic zirconium, or as they are known in the child labor trade, CZ's. The people in those trades might as well have commercials depicting children under the age of twelve working in sweat shops with the slogan "we keep cracking the whip on the poor and defenseless so you can continue to buy stuff you will push to the back of your closet and never wear again." And while we are discussing absurdity in the trade, I should ask this next question: "why is it strippers name themselves with things they aspire to own like, Jade, Saffire, Diamond, Porche, and Mecedes?"

Now, where were we? Oh yes, Barbie. Shouldn't it be pointed out in seriousness and in jest that maybe if she has diabetes, she should not be the picture of health, with glowing skin, and a figure that could stop a clock? Maybe she should be 25 pounds overweight, in a recliner trying desperately to reach the bottom of a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream where she thinks her self-esteem is hiding. She should likely also have a tramp stamp across the small of her back where (let's be honest) for most intensive purposes it's not really a tattoo at all, it's just a bullseye. Daddy issues cannot ever be solved unless women work them out with their actual daddy. If your starter is out, you don't replace your battery. Otherwise, it's just a sweaty exercise in futility where the male counterpart is just the recipient of some pent-up female aggression in which he (usually) couldn't care less about her mental well-being. But that is just another sad state of affairs we have reached in this country that may have no recourse.

At this point in the blog, you may be asking yourself, "Okay sir, what's your point?" I'm glad you asked, the point is this. The next generation learns to negotiate life by watching our lead. We should at the very least see them leave home with their heads screwed on straight. Is this the kind of lessons we want to pass on to someone who could (in theory) be tasked to change our diapers in a rest home 25 years from now? If we teach them to aim high as a society, they probably will. If we don't, they will just become a reincarnation of the kind of folks we saw on the Jerry Springer Show. Poor white trash doesn't usually ever break out of their pathetic mold; they just keep generating more of the same and perpetuate dysfunctionality. It's hard to believe that my generation's good intentions of allowing participation trophies could have landed us in this quandary. This is to say that NOT just the current generation is to blame for the madness, we all own a piece of the difunctional pie.