Boo-blog: Wait 'til he hears about messenger bags

February 18, 2004

Wait 'til he hears about messenger bags

So Girl-E is waiting at the dentist today, sitting next to an ancient professor and his ancient wife who are endlessly schvitzing about the wait. Between schvitzes, the wife reads excerpts from the New York Times outloud, mostly about Howard Dean and breathalizers. A staff person enters and calls the name of a young man seated across the room, who gathers up his things and disappears through The Door. Staring at the young man as he exits, the ancient professor turns to his wife and says, full of vigorous disapproval, "have you noticed that all the young people are wearing those... back--packs? It has really become the fashion!"

Now while acknowledging that it is impossible to flawlessly keep up with the times, particularly as one gets older, there are times when it does seem appropriate to grab the elderly by the shoulders, shake hysterically, and shout "Are you fucking kidding me?!? Does it really come to this? How do you even feed yourself?!? How many fingers am I holding up? Jesus!!!"

Etcetera.

Posted by The Twins at February 18, 2004 12:40 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/218

Comments

yeah. if you're going to let go, you might as well just go whole hog and say things like, "why in the hell are you wearing some flapdoodle knapsack on your back, you god-damned hippie?"

Posted by: bryan at February 18, 2004 02:20 PM

Did he want the guy to have, say, a nice kate spade clutch purse?

Also: "schvitzing" is a fantastic word.

Posted by: nikita at February 18, 2004 05:12 PM

OMG, they sound intensely annoying. I cannot stand it when I have to wait longer than I want to (which is any amount of time) and someone else has to accentuate the aggravation by vocalizing about it.

My favorite old person comment - I was bustling through a bustling lobby once and a very old man was sitting on a bench and said to his wife "they all move so fast these days." Being that old must be a little like smoking dope.

Posted by: Sue Magoo at February 19, 2004 01:28 AM

next thing you know they'll be talking about those new fangled CD players everyone's toting about.

Posted by: snowy at February 19, 2004 09:29 AM

Young whippersnappers, with their backpacks! Carrying around their books and their wallets with them everywhere they go! They'll be the ruination of us! In my day we just carried a money clip, and it was EMPTY!

Posted by: stennie at February 19, 2004 01:12 PM

"Dentist?"

What is this "Dentist?"

Posted by: aaron at February 19, 2004 01:45 PM

How old are these people? Backpacks have been a thing with us youngsters for at least, what, 20 years now? Since Adidas bags went out in about 1982?

Posted by: Derek at February 20, 2004 03:03 AM