Ah, youth. A time of growth and exploration. And a time to test limits and boundaries. A time to express yourself in all sorts of unproductive and unhealthy ways. A chance to act without any fear of consequence or concern of others.
I wax poetic about what I assume is youthful indiscretion at my local convenience store. Framing the behavior in flowery prose is about the best I can do in the situation. Certainly can’t catch them in the act; certainly couldn’t smack them in the head if I did. And in some ways, I even hesitate to address the problem. Not that my post is going to raise awareness of the problem and cause a rash of copycat actors, but sometimes it seems that just giving thought to problems seems to make them multiply.
So what’s the big, huge problem likely instigated by young hooligans upon my poor, local convenience store? Well, there’s these cookies, you probably know of them, Fudge Stripes. Shortbread cookies with chocolate stripes on one side and a chocolate back. I like them. I buy them every once in a while for breakfast. Don’t judge me. Tell me how cookies for breakfast is any worse than donuts. It’s the same thing.
Anyway, these cookies. At my local store, the cookies in the Fudge Stripes packages are always crushed. Crushed into tiny crumbs, so eating them is an experience more like eating cereal than eating cookies. And it’s not just a random thing. It’s also not attributable to shipping problems. Every pack is crushed. Once I came in and the box was brand new and full. I checked the lower layer. All broken.
As maddening as this is, I do actually get it. Breaking a shortbread cookie does have a measure of satisfaction. It has a nice firm, but silent, snap to it. I can understand why an ignorant child would be attracted, and maybe addicted, to doing something like that. It still doesn’t make it right, or good. And as an older person, I feel it’s my duty to express that these miscreants are going to be the future anarchists of the world. The "Jokers" of their generation. And I also have to comment on how bad the world has gotten compared to how it was when I was a kid, shoplifting candy from my local drug store. Wait – scratch that last irrelevant (although true) comment.
Is the world worse? Hell, yes it is. But it’s only worse because there’s more of it. More people, more opportunity, more stores, more products, more cookies. The suck grows in proportion to the size of our environment. And it’s this expansion that also feeds the proportional movement to create small, insular communities that attempt to keep out what is perceived as bad. A poor solution – completely unsustainable.
So again, I reach the conclusion I’ve held for ever so long. We need less people. Sorry, fewer people. We need to conserve everything we have – resources, sanity, cookies.
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