Kids Today

I once had a wireless air card, so I accessed the Internet through my IE, which brought up the yahoo home page. However, there were major complications, and now I'm using AOL dial-up (shudder). The neat thing about this is AOL's homepage. I just spent like two hours looking up these articles and reading the responding posts. The article that first caught my attention was one about rules of etiquette at concerts. Most of these rules were common sense, but I couldn't believe how ignorant some of the responses to these rules were. Maybe one out of ever 15 posts made it through the whole thing without a cuss word. About half of them were nothing but profanity with a few ands and buts thrown in for good measure.

Maybe I'm just too old for my age. I'm sure most of the people responding to this were minors, but I'm not that much older. Still, I can't see how they think all of that vulgarity helps them in any way. I've always heard that profanity is a sign of stupidity. If the only words you have in your vocabulary bank is cuss words, you need to pick up a book (preferably a dictionary).

Perhaps I'm just on the edge of being middle aged. You know, that awkward time where you still think you're young, but you're really not. It's kind of funny in a way. As a kid, I dreaded getting old. At eight, eighteen was old. At fifteen, twenty one was old. At twenty five, thirty five was old. As I get older, the fine line between youth and experience keeps moving further away. My twenty seventh birthday is coming up in a few short days, and my question is this: When does the line stop moving? Do you just wake up one morning and think, "I'm old. It crept up on me last night while I was sleeping!"

I still consider myself a kid. Not a little kid, in the minor sense, but a grown kid. I've grown physically as much as I will. I won't get any taller and puberty is a thing of the past. I have kids of my own now and a butt load of responsibility to go with. But, in the larger scheme of things, I'm still young. Now, eighty is old. I just can't help but wonder if I somehow crossed the line and didn't know it. I no longer fear the aging process like I once did. Now I fear being that ridiculous adult who tries to be the perpetual youth.

I think this would be easier if I knew how to tell that I was finally old. Is it when you start quoting your parents? Is it when you start talking about "kids today"? How do you tell? Maybe they should give some sort of vocabulary test to determine when you've nose dived into adulthood. If most of your vocabulary can't be spoken aloud over the radio or in a church, you're still a kid.