Kids These Days 86

Haven't done anything on this page in a while. I have a lot of blogs. This is my oldest and I wanna start posting stuff again. I work at a high school watching kids wear what was in style when I was in school myself except there was far less funk and perfume. I was talking to my lady about 1-900 numbers and how they existed when I was growing up. One day my parents confronted me and my older brother (three years older than me) about a bunch of phone calls that were made to Woody Woodpecker. Yeah. The cartoon bird. Back in the 80's they used to play these commercials where you could call Woody, KITT from Knight Rider, Santa Claus, and so forth. I am sure it is just someone imitating these characters but people would shell out money to talk to them. And kids. But not me. I wanted to. I got my ass beat and I didn't even get to talk to Woody! I would say about 75% of the times I got my ass beat as a child was because of something someone else did. My brother later admitted that he was the one that made the calls. This wasn't once or twice. It was a stack of paper receipts showing how many times he had called. I'm still mad about this and none of the people involved in that tale are even alive.

Since 1998, 915 children have died due to heatstroke in vehicles. More than 50% of hot car fatalities occur because a child was unknowingly left in a car. Heatstroke also can happen when a child is left in, or gets trapped in, a car on a hot day. When the outside temperature is 93°F the temperature inside a car can quickly reach 125°F raising body temperature to dangerous levels.

“Children are at particular risk because their bodies heat up 3 to 5 times faster than an adult’s,” says Heather Trnka, injury prevention coalition supervisor for Akron Children’s. “Also, very young children can’t exit the vehicle on their own or alert an adult that they are trapped.”

When I was little me and my brother got left in the car all the time. My parents didn't want us begging for candy and whatnot. I get it. So they would leave us in there with the windows rolled up and we'd be sweating like slaves. I would get fed up and roll down the window (it was the 80s and cars could still do that without power) or crack open a door to get some damned air. My brother would be like “We gonna get in trouble!” Man! I'm trying to stay alive! Over the last few months I have seen so many news stories of kids getting cooked in cars and I wonder “Why not roll window down?” or “Why not get out of car?” My lady pointed out how everything requires power to do those things. Hell, even my old ass has trouble trying to unlock doors in some Lyfts. At this point if you are leaving your kid in a car for any reason you probably shouldn't have one. Too many crime stories have a parent saying “I was gone for a minute!” and next thing you know I gotta watch a Hulu documentary about your child being taken.

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