these kids today (a sunday sixer)

so in less than a month i turn forty-nine…

…the last one before fifty. yikes.

i can honestly say my forties have been my favorite decade so far. i met the love of my life, got married, got my best pup (any dog i ever own will be named some version of “budnik” going forward unless female) and i started driving BMW’s.

i recently read an article called “polite behavior that not everyone seems to understand” and it wasn’t what i expected. for some reason i read the title as “polite behavior that’s been going away these days” but that wasn’t it. in fact, most of it was social media terms i was unfamiliar with (this is when i feel old AF, by the way – but at least i know what “AF” means). so let’s revisit the classic sunday six pack as the list i thought i was gonna read, about how this generation coming up doesn’t seem to realize…

you need to, like, let the word “like” go – in 1982 moon zappa (daughter of frank zappa, who’s music popularity is even before kramer’s time) dropped the song “valley girl”, and the overuse of the word “like” was born. but the current crop of, like, teenage girls, are, like, really into, like, using the word, like, several times in a, like, sentence. it’s a “brain pause” word. it’s something that leaks out of your mouth while your mind tries to catch up with what you’ve said and, like, come up with the next part of the, like, sentence. like, let it go. and speaking of…

it ain’t all historical – your every thought, move, song listened to, etc, etc, etc doesn’t need to be public record. have a little mystery in your life. i don’t care what you had for breakfast, or if you feel cute today…and by “i” i mean 99.99999999999999999999999% of the planet’s population. just let that go, too.

it’s not saving you time and it’s getting on my nerves – i used to say if your age doesn’t start with a “one” you don’t need to use text abbreviations in actual, out loud, spoken conversations. if you leave a room, you can say, “be right back” instead of “B-R-B”. in text form it saves characters, and when you’re trying to hold your phone below window line at a red light and mash that out while a cop is in the next late the fewer characters, the better. but verbally it’s the same amount of syllables and takes just as long to say, so just speak english. i’ve never liked “tat” in place of “tattoo” (even though it shaves a syllable) and i’ve (for some reason) always been annoyed by “san antone” instead of “san antonio” even though that shaves two syllables by shaving two letters AND i’ve never lived there. but it bugs me a bit – the text speak in verbal situations? even more so.

(also, just say “random” instead of “rand-o” – again, same time to say either word. promise.)

it’s in its fucking title – you call it your “phone”, so lets acknowledge it can make calls. and receive them. my area, like many others in the country, don’t like you staring at your phone when you should be looking at the road. as a result we have cars where we can flip through our phones, find a number, and call it – all while keeping our eyes on the road and our hands on the wheel. let’s use this tech to our advantage, and stop sounding annoyed when you text me four questions and then i call back. surprise – it’s called an iPHONE, not an iTikTokYouTubeSnapTexter…there’s a reason for that. and for that matter…

LAY-TER – say it with me…”LAY-TER”. or “SEE YA”. or just fucking SOMETHING. i swear, one of my many annoyances with generation z (that’s what’s after millennials, right?) or whatever the fuck their called now is they don’t know how to properly dismount a phone call. they get the info they need and just fucking hang up. no salutation. no farewell. the first time the boy did this for me, i called him right back and lit his ass up (verbally) and more parents should do that. it’s literally one of the most annoying things they do. and to that end…

THAT’S how you used that word – that was proper use of the word “literally”. it is used when that’s actually what something is. it’s a synonym of the word “actually”. so when i say “it’s LITERALLY one of the most annoying things they do…” i mean that is ACTUALLY something gen z does that annoys me. if you say you “literally died” and you’re alive to say it, you failed at english. not the course in school – the language you claim to speak. i refused to use “they” as a singular pronoun for trans folk forever because that’s not how the word was used when i was a kid, but when the dictionary changed the meaning, so did i. i get it – we have to adapt language and society evolves, but this one can’t happen. it would literally mean the word has to mean what i meant AND the opposite of what it meant, which would cancel it out of the language, i believe. or create a linguistic black hole from which no logical thought could ever escape. and we’ve already got that in the white house.