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I usually watch the local morning news while I'm getting ready for work. I figure that way, I have sort of an inkling about what's going on in the world -- or at least in Oklahoma City -- before I'm chained to my desk for the next 8-10 hrs.
This morning I was watching one of those pre-Halloween reports about the danger that certain costumes pose to children. The whole flammability thing and so forth.
I kinda didn't see what the huge fuss was about, because on the whole, Halloween costumes are way safer than when, say, most of us were growing up. I mean the world is super fucked up these days, but I think that youngsters are coddled and ill-equipped to deal with the rawness that is life.
Back in the day, if your homemade Batman costume went up in flames and melted to your skin...oh well...hope you stocked that utility belt with some good stuff, cause you were gonna have to just be Batman for the rest of your life. And you dealt with that...
I remember one time, I asked my dad to help wrap me up in masking tape because I wanted to be a mummy. Did he say, "No, that's too dangerous?" Hell, no. That fool grabbed a roll of masking tape, handed me the loose end, and held the roll, while I spun around in circles until I was damn near wrapped from head-to-toe in the stuff . Then he proceeded to laugh at my ridiculous-lookin self for about 5 minutes...then he said that if I wanted to get out of the masking tape, I'd have to take it off myself. The lesson I learned that day? If you're gonna do some retarded-ass shit, you better not act all surprised if you end up hurting yourself. That's some deep life lesson shit, right there.
Also, I learned that pulling lots of sticky tape off of skin and hair does not feel good.
But that was way back when kids used to eat gravel, go down slip n' slides covered in glass shards, and get 3rd degree burns on their asses from steel playground slides that were sitting out in the hot hot sun. Most of the "rules" were really more like "suggestions for your own benefit". Like don't run with scissors. Or wait 30 minutes after eating before you go back in the pool. If you broke those rules and ended up stabbing yourself cause you fell on the scissors or you got a stomach cramp and started to drown, someone would probably start laughing at your ass before they helped you. Then they'd say, "See? Now what did I just tell your dumb ass?"
And you learned that way...or you died. Or whatever. Ah...good times, good times.
Kids don't know shit these days. Oh they might "know" some shit...but they don't know shit.
And this is what I pondered for most of today. Ok, actually, I pondered that, while pondering the following (it was kind of slow at work):
About two months ago, I came across a link for a forum thread, where the topic was basically, "How many 5-year-olds could you take at once?" given the following conditions:
* You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.
* You are not allowed to touch a wall.
* When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."
* Someone else -- intent on seeing to it that you fail -- gets to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy...
* The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.
* There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
* The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.
It's quite a long thread actually.
Anyway, I think my point after all of this is that today's 5-year-olds are pretty bitchmade...and we could take 'em.
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