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.

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I was talking to my cousin the other day about oatmeal. This is something old people do. We talk about eating healthier and things from our youth. A food called Undercover Bears that came out around 1990 popped into my head and I remembered my mother buying this and loving it. I hated eating oatmeal for the most part except for apple and cinnamon, so seeing one that had pieces of damn candy floating in it appealed to my diabetic family having ass. 

I know kids got a newer version of this that was dinosaur eggs but I got a bootleg McGruff the Crime Dog in bear form sticking Gummi Bears in oatmeal. It was very weird but made eating this way more enjoyable. They need to start making more foods like this for kids. I know they say there is too much sugar in stuff these days, but, whatever. I grew up eating every cereal as a child and I turned out fine...ish.

Looking at that oatmeal above made me look up this other one called Oatmeal Swirlers. This was some nonsense. In the ads you see them swirling what is pretty much the red syrup I used to get from IHOP on top of some regular oatmeal. They making tic tac toes, art, and covering the whole bowl with swirls. Nope. This barely had as much covering as a packet of ketchup. There was also a sea creature one I didn't try. 

This came out in 88/89 around a time where there was this weird ass health kick going on in this country. Weight Watchers was huge. People were eating rice cakes and pretending they were delicious (they are to me oddly enough). When looking up images and such for some of these things I write about they are usually written by people who weren't even born when it existed or hacked their own version. No. If you didn't have the original ask an old person. Like me.

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I am so glad I don't have or want kids. A lot of it is because I know that I could not raise a kid in this insane ass world or keep them away from using the internet and likely trying dumb shit like this Skull Breaker Challenge. I guess if the intent is to ruin someone's life it could be considered a challenge. There have been so many that I don't keep track of and write about and stumbled upon this bullshittery. This is not a challenge or a prank. This is assault. I'm not someone who cries wolf...often. But if I had a kid that participated in this I would leave them at a fire station regardless of how old they were or treat them like a parent in the 80's. Translate that however you want.

This ”challenge” consists of having three people standing side by side. The one in the middle, let's call them the victim, jumps up in the air and has their legs swept from underneath them while in the air. They are told they will all jump up at once because you are likely doing this with friends and believe that your friends wouldn't try and change your brain chemistry. I watched a video showing multiple examples of this and I had to stop it. This is coming from someone who watches MMA, wrestling, and boxing. Seeing people hit the back of their heads makes me super cringe because I have done it so many times. The most memorable was chasing someone around a pool and landing back of my head first. There is no other feeling like that. Thankfully I was not knocked out. That happened running into a door face first playing tag a year prior.

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They out here dipping their balls in soy sauce. I can't even remember how I heard about this in the first place which is almost as disturbing as the fact that I know it exists. So this seems to have started after a TikTok user named Regan said in a post “Did you know that when a man puts his testicles in soy sauce he can taste it? HE CAN TASTE IT. I wish I was kidding but I am not. If you have testicles, please dip your balls in something – it's for science and I must know.” I have written about so many challenges done these days and even some that were so dumb I haven't written about. But since I allegedly have man-balls I decided to chime in on this nonsense. Years ago a research named Bedrich Mosinger stated “The function of taste receptors and signaling proteins outside of taste system is still unclear. In some areas they seem to be part of the chemical sensing of sugars or amino acids. For the most part, though, full function of these extra-orally located taste receptors is unknown.”

Taste receptors have been found on other parts of the body like your stomach, brain, and booty hole. Yeah. Please don't make that a thing you all start doing. The study says that these weird ass taste receptors taste proteins for umami and sweet flavors that are in mice balls. They also removed the receptors and mice could not have kids and got weird shaped balls. Another person far smarter than me named Dr Kieran Kennedy said “The study or any that have followed hasn't shown that any animal can actually 'taste' via these receptors like we'd taste something from the mouth. There is no scientific or medical evidence to back up any claims that men of any species can actually taste things through their junk. So while the fact that there might be taste receptors in the testicles is pretty damn interesting, it unfortunately doesn’t mean there's any evidence they can actually taste things.” There. So cut that shit out. You can not dip your balls into sauce and smack your lips saying you can taste it. And if you can go see a doctor immediately.

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I know in 2019 I should not find the behavior of a mother who behaved like she was in the 1980's admirable but I do. Because I am ratchet sometimes and would love to do hoodrat shit with my friends. A mother, Christina Tinsley, has a daughter that goes to a school in Orange County that was being bullied. She had contacted the school about handling this situation and when they did not to her liking she went full 80's on them. She stormed into the building like she owned the place and gave a speech that sounds better in print than the actual video. Yes, there is video of this. Kids video every damned thing.

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I don't know if you have heard me bitch about how difficult it is to find a good consistent barber being Black and living in West Hollywood. If I had a long beard and wanted that Macklemore haircut my ass would be in heaven. There are like eight of them places within five minutes walking distance and I'm not trying to walk into one of them and have the scene from Blazing Saddles when the new sheriff arrives play out in real life. So today I was looking on the internet and came across someone getting their hair done in a way that should be illegal. Probably isn't...but it should be. This dude was using fire. Like for real ass fire! My biggest concern use to be dirty clippers. Now its flames. See, when I get my hair cut I close my eyes and start singing A Secret Place. But now I'm gonna be listening for the sound of a can being shook and butane being lit on fire! 

How do you even learn to do this? Its not like one guy does this either. Turns out there are a bunch of fools out here cutting folks hair using fire and even more getting it done. How does one even practice this? Not on themselves for sure. Its been millions of years and our asses have not managed to tame fire. Fire hurts us all the damn time yet people are going “I need a haircut and this seems legit.” No. Don't get your hair done with fucking fire you freaks. If you are over 30 and doing this you need to get your shit together. If you are below 30 and doing this you need to go to the other room and talk to your parents and ask them what they did wrong. I love how fire became the thing. We went from ice buckets to fucking flames. Stop that.

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A couple of days ago I was talking to my friend and randomly we started talking about Hostess pies and I remembered that there was a damned pie based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My parents weren't the make a lunch with a nice dessert kinda parents so when there were new candies, cereals, or snacks I tried them. Ask me about any cereal available in the 80's or 90's and chances are I ate it. I was powered by sugar, salt, and chemicals that are now banned in many countries. “Hostess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pies: One of the rarest TMNT food products was made by Hostess from 1990-1992; it was the 'Hostess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pie' - with a green glazed pie crust and 'Vanilla Puddin' Power' inside. A commercial for the pies featured all four turtles, performing a rap song with the memorable line, 'Fresh from the sewers to you!'”

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I was talking to H. this morning and we got on the topic of Lunchables. When I did an image search there appeared all manner of Lunchables that I didn't know existed. Here is a short history of them. “Lunchables was designed in 1985 by Bob Drane, Tom Bailey, Jeff James, and Deborah Giarusso as a way for Oscar Mayer to sell more bologna and other lunch meat. After organizing focus groups of American mothers Drane discovered that their primary concern was time. Working mothers especially were pressed by the time constraints of fixing breakfast for their families as well as packing something for their children to eat at school. This gave Drane the idea of creating a convenient prepackaged lunch featuring Oscar Mayer's trademark red meat. Crackers were substituted for bread because they could last longer in grocery coolers. The cheese was provided by Kraft when Oscar Mayer merged with Kraft in 1988. The design of the package was based on the look of an American TV dinner.”

So they wanted to sale more meat and decided to give kids high blood pressure. When you read the nutritional facts on these things you see that you get almost the daily recommended amount of salts and sugars from one serving of these. Granted, back then people didn't know as much or care as much about health. I think folks were still getting used to the fact that kids were living past years old and the bigger they got the more you had to feed 'em. So while these were created in 1985 they didn't go international until 1989. So I was 10 years old and ready to get my meat, cheese, and crackers on! That is the perfect age to start shaping kids for good or bad. When you are that age you don't consider yourself a kid but know full and damn well you aren't a teen so every decision you make seems important. 

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If the Sad Hulk song had a visual image this would be it. When I first heard about this I didn't feel bad for this kid Teddy Mazzini because they invited a bunch of kids from his school to his 6th birthday party and no one showed up. I'm damn near 40 and have had only two in my life. I felt bad for him because one of his parents was pretty shitty for taking this picture and posting it online. I get it. People like to overshare their kids lives online. A lot of times its shit that does not need to be documented in photo form but it is, like the shame of having a party and no one showing up. This is the kinda stuff that people can end up in therapy over. Seriously. In the next twenty years there are gonna be a metric shit ton of folks in their early 20's in therapy because their parents posted some stuff of or about them online that comes back to haunt them let alone the stuff they post themselves that'll keep them from being employed because for some reason kids think its cute to be racist online. They say that the Internet never forgets. It does. Then it remembers again. Just ask James Gunn.

His dad said “I was bummed, I was bummed out for sure. Teddy, the biggest thing for him was having his classmates there, so not seeing them show up an hour into the party was disappointing. He's 6, so he was distracted by the arcade games, the pizza, he got over it quick. He's tough. But when Sil (the mother) told me she was posting the photo, I told her not to do it, but she did and it took off. It's pretty wild.” Teddy's mother said “I was kind of shocked and then at the end when I had to pay for it, I was upset” regarding the $130 bill for the pizza. “That's why I wrote a message. But I never expected any of this, for this to go so viral.” Ah. So she skipped right past petty which would have been emails to every individual family she invited to messy by making it public. That is the difference between the two by the way. Messy is public. Petty is intimate.

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I was talking to Cam a few days ago about things that were around when we were little and I thought of the vacuum. Yeah, they still make them these days but not the way they did when I was little. Probably because hundreds of children were devoured by them. My Grandmama had one that had to weigh about 40 pounds and had a spotlight on the front because...reasons. Maybe for vacuuming in the dark or under couches in which case your couch is too damned high if this could fit underneath it. If the weight was not enough you had to worry about all the different components. I also need to point out that it sounded like the apocalypse when it was on. 

Today if the vacuum is full you just take out the convenient compartment and dump it out. Groovy. Back in the day you had to throw out a bag, eat some of the dust whether you wanted to or not, and put on another bag. Simple. But not at all. After attaching the bag you would have to secure it with a black band (which after working in a porn shop realized looked exactly like cock rings) and hope you did it right. There was also a belt that made the brush turn. It was a whole thing that was not fun and I'd wait until someone else changed the bag because I liked cleaning but hated set up.

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There are certain news stories I see pop up and it makes me think “What, that's illegal?” or “You weren't supposed to do that with your kids?” I'm not saying that the way I was raised was properly handled. For sure I'm not saying that. I'm not even saying it was terrible. It was just different. In this Kids These Days post I am gonna talk about some concerns parents have today and how I handled them growing up. Meaning how I ended up all fucked up and weird.

Left in hot cars. When I was little I got left in hot cars all the time while my parents went shopping. It wasn't seen as a bad thing for me such as a boring thing. There ain't shit to do in a locked car but sweat and attempt to talk to a sibling. After twenty seconds of no success I'd start looking around for shit inside. But under no circumstances were we allowed to get out of the car. “Why didn't they roll the windows down?” you ask. Probably fear of someone stealing the car. I guess. Or I was being slow roasted in the worst way.

I remember vividly the smell of hot interior and sweating my ass off in the car until my parents got back. Ah, the feeling of a car door opening and fresh air coming in and the wind on my face as the car began to move...followed by the terrible car sickness I used to get when I was young. Reports say that on average 37 kids die in hot cars a year. That is a lot of hot kids in cars. When I see stories about it nowadays the cops are called and windows are bust the windows open, pulling a sweaty child out while the parent is like “Uh...I was only gone for a few minutes!” No, you wasn't! You got receipts from four places and a smoothie!

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When I was a kid shit was different. Way to start off stating the obvious. In this post I am gonna write about a few things from when I was little that you don't see much of anymore or hear about. Like this goddamn floor furnace. I didn't even know what it was called. I called it the floor heater aka The Jump Across The Room Maker. I swear, I should have the longest long jump in the world because of this thing. 

It wasn't like it was in the corner where no one had to walk. This shit was right in the living room just outside the hallway door. I wouldn't even know it was on unless I turned it on myself or just happened to step on it which I did dozens of times. There is nothing that will wake your ass up like stepping on a 200 degree piece of metal. I haven't even mentioned how big it was. It was about five feet long and maybe two and a half feet wide. Just big as shit and right there for me to step on when it was on fire or get my toes stuck in at other times. This thing was the devil and I don't know why it was made the way it was. It sounds like a joke that went to far. “Hey, crazy idea. What if we put a huge heater on the floor?” No wonder my ass walk looking at the ground. I got post traumatic furnace disorder! 

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Kids these days are missing out on some great candy. Specifically bubble gum. When I was little I would always have something sweet in my mouth which is why my teeth were weak as green tea and rotted away or were easily knocked out. Dubble Bubble probably accounted for 30% of my tooth rot. These were cheap as hell and available anywhere. If you had a quarter which was hard to come by unless Grandmama was feeling generous you had five pieces and these things would last forever. I would chew these all day and fall asleep with a wad in my mouth and wake up looking like a spider had its way with my face. I would even take the wad out and stick it in my headboard and wake up and pop it in my mouth. Dental care, schmental care. I love chewing this cheap shit. Open up that package, lick some of that dust off (whatever the hell that was), and get to chewing for the next eight hours. Do kids even chew gum anymore? Like regular ass gum?

Hot Dog Bubblegum was not one of my favorites but for some reason I would end up with these tiny dicks in my mouth. They weren't hot or anything and the flavor went away faster than a Black father but I still liked them. You know that disgusting Fireball drink that folks like? They tasted kinda like that but without the horrible aftertaste and questionable sex. They had a slightly crunchy outside and suddenly cinnamon was forced into your mouth. These were not one of the cheaper gums so I didn't get it too often.

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I have written about candy from my childhood before (click here to check that out). This time I am going to write about some more. One of them I forgot existed for good reasons because it tasted like Satan's pantyline. When I think of my childhood and all the candy I consumed it is shocking that I'm not 300 pounds and the owner of all the diabetes. There are enough candies that have been discontinued for whatever reasons. They probably caused long since gone diseases or something. Who knows? Either way I still want 'em back. Mostly. 

Cherry Clan. Nothing like good ol' fashioned racist candy, right? These were fucking delicious. Of course they could never release something like this with that packaging even if they changed it because of old assholes like me. This was in the same family of candy as Lemon Heads, Johnny Apple Treats, and Alexander The Grape. Yes, these were all candies that once existed and you won't get to try unless you like in Bumfuck, Tennessee or buy them off of eBay and I assure you they'll be covered in dust and those diseases that no longer exist I mentioned. 

Just thinking off these is making my mouth water. I'm not sure what they were coated in but your hand would be deep red which was kinda cool because it was like having extra candy when you licked your hand clean. We didn't wash our hands in the 80's which we all know is the cause of AIDS. Its science. It didn't really taste like cherry so much as, well, sugar. It was white on the inside just like the candies I mentioned above and colored on the outside. Top ten no longer around candies.

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I saw this video the other day and immediately wanted to see this guy get arrested. Didn't care about race, age, location, previous life experiences. Nothing. Just arrest him. This 16 year old kid named Leon Balfour was at a pool party when this 68 (some places say 69) year old lady named Nancy James in North Lauderdale, Florida asked them to turn down the music at a pool party. There is video of all of this so you can see how many people, about 200 of them, are there just making a shit ton of noise. This isn't at a park or club. Its an apartment complex. So while she is there with her two dogs this kid comes up behind her and lifts her off the ground. They fall and she lands on her shoulder. No one steps in to help or stop this. Way more important to film and post it online. Leon then picks up the old lady and throws her into the pool with himself while everyone cheers.

You can say he slipped and dropped her. An accident because he went down as well. But, and this is the important part, he shouldn't have even touched her. This kid had absolutely no business touching this lady let alone lifting her off the ground for any reason. And the fact that he didn't stop at dropping her and then tossing her into a swimming pool makes it that much worse. Nancy suffered bruises on her shoulder and thigh and has been released from the hospital. In an interview she said “No one should ever, ever, ever, ever, have to go through that, you know? It just shouldn't happen. The kid has not evolved yet into what you're supposed to be as a human being.”

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When I first heard this story I was like “So what's the big deal?” I saw so many fights in school growing up and was in a couple. Hell, seeing a fight in school was one of the most exciting things that could happen. You remember what it was like if you missed a day at school? People would be like “There were three fights yesterday! Miss Aberley threw Tamika across the hallway! It was crazy!” It always happened like that. When you were there the fight was wack or would be broken up before it really started. These days kids are fucking savages and there are no one on one fights. Also, they record it. There is no evidence of fights from when I was growing up unless some kid got beat so bad they look or act different till this day. 

This fight happened at Cheltenham High School in Wyncote which is somewhere near Philly. These two girls started fighting and then two more jumped in because kids are kids. Everyone starts screaming and then some teachers try to break it up. There is a way to break up fights, you know. These teachers didn't and one of them tried to catch hands with her face and went down like a sack of bricks.

As you can see from the video provided she took a dive. I've watched boxing damn near 40 years and I know a dive when I see one. This was some Vladi Divac level shit. Some FIFA shit. That was a glancing blow at best. In all eight teachers were hurt. This shit started at 7:30am which means the shit talking started the previous night. Three of the girls were charged as children while one of them who is 18, Amber Lewis, was charged as an adult. Isn't the law weird? She was locked up on $10,000 bond. Goddamn. People beat up cops and get out for less than that. The school has offered counseling for students that are weaker than that teachers' jaw if they wanna talk about the fight.

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These are the kind of stories that just piss me off. Not at the kids involved so much as the parents of these kids. A 13 year old girl in some part of Scotland that sounds like the type of place you'd make up to sound Scottish got wrecked because she drank too many energy drinks. Her name is Caitlin Fraser and she loved to pound down two Emerge energy drinks a day at school because school is hard and you have to be sure that you are awake and alert...in case a shooter shows up. I know how kids are these days.

She left class to go do something for her teacher and she says she started to feel numb on the right side of her face. A few minutes later she says her hands started going blue and the right side of her body did the Truffle Shuffle and stopped working. “The right side of my face dropped and I was wondering what was going on then two minutes later my full right side had dropped and I had no sensation down my right side. I was really scared, my friends then told the teacher who went and got a first aider and the school contacted my mum and dad and then phoned an ambulance.”

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Sometimes there are stories that I find out about and it just makes me want to interview the perpetrator or the parents of them and just ask “How come? What can I do to make sure none of my friends kids turn out like you?” I also think there are some crimes where instead of jail I suggest an island where they are given backpacks with various weapons and they fight for survival. A “battle royale” if you will. Either way, this 17 year old girl Lestina Marie Smith is a great candidate for my island idea. She is charged with raping a man. You hear that? It was the sound of thousands of men and women rolling their eyes. Yes, it makes a sound.

So Lestina—by the way. Watch what the hell you name your kids. Anyhoot, Lestina, from Michigan, raped a guy 19 year old guy at knife point. At knife point she made him give her oral sex and regular sex. She has been charged with two first degree felony criminal sexual assault charges. If she is convicted, which she should be, she can get life in prison. Even if she gets off on one charge she can still do life. Of course ignorant ass people are questioning whether or not a man can be raped. Let me just grab some random comments from people on Facebook and the dumb shit they are saying.

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Kids getting sent from school for wearing something or having a style that the school didn't agree with isn't new. My cousin got sent home when we were little because he had one of those shirts that said “Crack Kills” and the image was a skinny dude stuck inside a big woman's ass. I can see why the school would do that and why his mama shouldn't have let him wear it. But there was no rule that said he couldn't. A 13 year old kid in North Yorkshire, England named Chenise Benson was sent home after showing up to school with braids. Yeah, the ones you see above. Some reports are calling them dreadlocks because they have never seen dreadlocks before. She got them for her birthday during a break in school and her dad Darren Benson is pissed because he wasted $170 on 'em because he expected the braids or his daughters interest in them to last a year.

“One of her friends at the school, who has Jamaican heritage, has the same style of haircut but with a red stripe in it rather than white, and she has been allowed to remain. I've read the policy regarding haircuts, and I can’t see what rule she has broken.” Ah, the good ol' fashioned “they did it so why can't I?” defense. The school has a policy against kids thinking their opinions matter.

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Whatever happened to just telling a punkass kid “No”? The new Finding Dory movie is coming out and pet stores and people that care about fish in general are worried about a bunch of parents that are controlled by their children will show up in droves buying these expensive and hard to take care of fish because they can't tell their kids to stop being stupid and go clean their room because it smells like fruit and ass and the laundry hamper looks brand new because clothes are never put in it. Years ago this same thing happened with clown fish after Finding Nemo came out. Same with turtles after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Dory is based off of a fish known as a blue tang. I knew nothing of this type of fish and had to find some basic information. Turns out that the blue tang fish ain't nothing to fuck with. I just made that up and if you hear it anywhere else you'll think of me. You're welcome. 

These are known as surgeon fish and are important to reef control. They live in spots between six and 131 feet deep which is a bit different than that shitty little tank you have in your living room. They live in waters all the way from New York to Brazil and can live between right to 20 years. Read that again. That is a long ass time to have something that is gonna just swim in circles watching you sleep and wondering why its in this tank watching you grow up from a spoiled brat to a heathen that rubs its genitals against any hard surface before forgetting to feed it for a few days because life happened. Oh, and they get about a foot long. I would never have thought that. I would have guessed maybe five inches tops. Like dicks.