This is not a political endorsement of any side, Sometimes we just have to laugh at ourselves and realize the sheer fucking absurdity of it all!
So here we are, 250 years into America's grand experiment in organized chaos, and I've come to a rather disturbing conclusion. The entire history of the United States can basically be summed up as one continuous spectacularly expensive exercise in fucking around and finding out. And apparently, nobody ever thought to read the god damned instructions.
It's 250 years to review, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
EVERYONE: "Hit it!"
Somewhere around 1773, a bunch of pissed-off colonists decided they were tired of paying taxes to a king who lived across an ocean, so they dressed up and threw a perfectly good shipment of tea into Boston Harbor and essentially told Britain to kiss their collective asses. Britain, understandably irritated at the destruction of its favorite national beverage, decided to administer a spanking. We responded by shooting back. Eight years later, Britain was packing its shit and heading home, and America was standing there with a smoking musket, a serious attitude problem, and the world's first documented case of national overconfidence. We fucked around, Britain found out.
Well, sort of. Britain wasn't particularly happy about that arrangement, so in 1812 we decided to have another go at each other. They burned Washington and we discovered that our brand-new national capital wasn't particularly fireproof. Yet, somehow, everybody declared themselves reasonably satisfied with the results, shook hands, and moved on.
Meanwhile, we were busy expanding westward and screwing over Native Americans, occasionally irritating the French and generally acting like the entire continent was a Monopoly board and we had just inherited all the hotels. Apparently deciding the continent wasn't giving us enough excitement, we picked a fight with Mexico in 1846. More fighting, more territory, more chest-thumping, finally deciding foreign countries weren't providing enough entertainment we turned on ourselves, the Civil War baby!
Nothing says "We're the greatest country on Earth!" quite like spending four years trying to beat the living shit out of your own countrymen. The result; slavery abolished, hundreds of thousands dead, half the country rebuilding, and enough unresolved social baggage to keep American politics completely fucked up for the next 160 years. Naturally, we learned absolutely everything there was to learn from that. Hah; right!
By 1898, we were sufficiently recovered to pick a fight with Spain. Well Spain lost and we collected some new real estate and discovered that being a world power meant having to maintain shit a long way from home. Excellent, what could possibly go wrong?
Europe started having one of its regularly scheduled family arguments. Germany, France, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia... Everybody was pissed at everybody, and somebody apparently decided the solution was machine guns, trenches, poison gas, and sending millions of young men to die in mud. We watched for a while, eventually decided we'd had enough of watching it and joined World War I in 1917. Germany lost and America came home convinced we were pretty goddamn good at this war business.
And what did we decide to do with our new found confidence? Declare war on fucking booze! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, prohibition! We had just helped fight a world war and decided the greatest remaining threat to American civilization was Grandpa getting hammered on a Saturday night, so we banned alcohol. Naturally this worked about as well as telling a teenager not to touch something. Organized crime exploded, bootleggers got rich, bathtub gin became an unofficial national beverage, and America discovered that making something illegal doesn't necessarily make people stop wanting it. Who the fuck knew?
By 1933, we finally admitted defeat and brought the booze back. Unfortunately by then the stock market had shit itself, banks were collapsing, and the Great Depression had half the country wondering where its next meal was coming from. So there we were, broke, hungry, homeless and increasingly sober. A terrible combination. Across the Atlantic, Britain was having trouble with a pissed-off little Charlie Chaplin looking asshole who'd decided the entire European continent needed remodeling. Germany was marching all over the place and Italy had Mussolini. Japan was expanding across Asia and the Pacific. America was standing there going: "Well, shit, we just got done with one of these."
Then on December 7 1941, Japan kicked us square in the balls at Pearl Harbor. Oh it's fucking game on now. Germany and Italy declared war on us too, because apparently somebody had purchased the deluxe World War package. So we called our old sparring partners in Britain.
United States: "Hey! Remember that little misunderstanding over the tea?"
Britain: "Unfortunately."
United States: "Water under the bridge! Wanna go beat the shit out of some Nazis?"
Britain: "Well... All right."
We headed into North Africa in 1942, fought our way through the desert, then went sightseeing in Italy. We stopped for pizza, drank some wine, ate some cheese and caught some rays. Mussolini discovered his career had taken a rather abrupt downward turn. Then we headed north, teamed up with Britain and a bunch of other Allies, and made one of history's most uncomfortable arrangements with Stalin. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Unless my new friend happens to be a paranoid Soviet dictator. We eventually helped beat Nazi Germany, liberated occupied territory, and carved Europe into competing ideological playgrounds. Oh, the Holocaust? Yeah we don't talk about that one. The Pacific was proving to be one nasty bloody island-hopping motherfucker. Japan was not interested in surrendering, so America unveiled the ultimate expression of "hold my beer", the atomic bomb, twice,
Bye Bye Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The human cost was horrific, the world had entered the nuclear age and suddenly everybody realized that the next world war might be the one to destroy the entire world. Victory! We established military bases around the world, helped rebuild former enemies and figured we might as well hang around. Besides, we'd made some new friends. Britain was cool with us now, France was back in the neighborhood, Germany and Japan eventually became major allies. And Stalin? Well, Stalin was looking at our new nuclear toys and saying: "Dah, I want one." Welcome to the cold war mother-fuckers!
In 1947, we decided we needed another military branch and carved the Air Force out of the Army. Because apparently having an Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard wasn't enough ways to spend money on uniforms and killing machines. Then Korea happened. North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. We showed up expecting another World War II style victory parade. Instead, we discovered mountains, more mud, freezing winters, Chinese intervention, and the rather inconvenient fact that our enemies were learning to fight back as dirty as we did in Europe. After three years, we wound up with an armistice, no peace treaty, and a heavily armed dividing line that still remains a problem today. Well that was fucking satisfying.
Next up, Vietnam! The French had already tried their luck in Indochina and gotten their asses handed to them. We looked at the situation and said: "Those guys obviously didn't know what they were doing. We got this!" But we did NOT, in fact have this. Jungles, guerrilla warfare, even more mud, political chaos, body counts and an increasingly pissed-off American public. Nearly two decades of escalating involvement, more than 58,000 American names eventually etched into a wall, and millions of Vietnamese lives lost.
By 1973, American combat troops were heading home and in 1975 Saigon fell. America was bitterly divided, and the veterans who'd been sent halfway around the world to fight came home to a nation that often didn't know what the fuck to do with them. Some were welcomed and others were ignored, blamed, or treated like the war itself was their fault. Baby Killer became a hippie battle cry. And America? Well, America decided the best way to handle all those uncomfortable memories was apparently sex, drugs, rock & roll, disco, muscle cars, and pretending everything was fine. Welcome to the seventies man! Vietnam veterans were trying to rebuild their lives, hippies were busy discovering new uses for plants, and the rest of America was arguing over whether bell bottoms were a crime against humanity.
In came the eighties! Ronnie Ray Gun, Gorbie, big hair, bigger shoulder pads, cocaine, Miami Vice, MTV, heavy metal, and action movies where one ridiculously muscular guy could defeat an entire foreign military before lunch! And what did we decide to do? Go looking for more trouble! Grenada, Central American covert operations, the Iran Contra Affair, Libya with Daffy Gaddafi and a war on drugs because Prohibition had worked so fucking well the first time.
Overseas our former enemies in Asia were busy manufacturing the televisions, cars, stereos, computers, and increasingly ridiculous consumer toys we couldn't live without. Japan made better electronics, Asian manufacturing expanded and American consumers went absolutely bat shit. We were partying like rock stars while the rest of the world was figuring out how to sell us the equipment to keep partying. I can see their logic, if we were too busy partying and too stoned, we would leave the rest of them alone. And somewhere in the middle of all this, Gen-X was growing up, without helmets or knee pads and without constant adult supervision. And without the Internet. We were busy building bicycle ramps out of stolen plywood, climbing trees, setting shit on fire with magnifying glasses, drinking from garden hoses, and learning physics by repeatedly landing on our asses. We didn't have a tutorial. We had scars. Fuck around, find out, rinse with aforementioned hose, apply band-aid and repeat. Frequently without anybody knowing where the fuck we were at. Our parents had one primary child-rearing strategy: Be home before the streetlights come on and the television reminded them at 10 PM: "It's 10 O'clock, do you know where your children are?" Did they usually? No! Our parents were watching MASH with Hawkeye, Trapper, BJ, Radar, Hot Lips, Klinger, and Colonel Potter. Speaking of Klinger, was that some early warning about gender fluidity? Nahhhhh, He was just trying to get a Section 8 discharge while wearing a lovely floral ensemble, right?
Where the fuck was I going with this? Oh yeah, The Cold War ended, The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Ronnie, Gorbie and George helped bring down the curtain on decades of nuclear dick measuring. World peace, FUCK YEAH! You adorable optimistic little bastards! Because Saddam Hussein had just decided Kuwait looked like a nice little addition to his real estate portfolio. We'd already spent years being pissed at Iran, especially after the hostage crisis, and now somebody else was messing with the oil supply. So we assembled a massive coalition, marched into Kuwait in 1991, and proceeded to deliver a high-tech ass-kicking. Operation Desert Storm complete with smart bombs, patriot missiles, tanks, night vision and laser-guided everything! The world's first really big 24 7 televised demonstration of what happens when American military technology meets somebody having a spectacularly bad day. We liberated Kuwait, beat the Iraqi military, and then; just stopped. Saddam was still in Baghdad. We declared victory and went home and America had rediscovered its confidence. We were back baby!
Then Somalia, then the Balkans, then one peacekeeping mission after another. In 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center. America looked around and said: "Did anybody hear something?" "No, probably just the hangover from the eighties."
And then... The internet. Oh, sweet Jesus, suddenly every computer nerd, college dropout, basement entrepreneur and guy with a modem was telling us the world would never be the same. And they were right! Humanity now had unprecedented access to the accumulated knowledge of civilization, scientific research, global communication, educational resources, instant access to libraries and what did we do with this miraculous achievement?
Porn! So much fucking porn!
We had invented a system capable of connecting nearly every human being on the planet, and roughly eleven minutes later somebody was figuring out how to download naked pictures over a 14.4K modem. And stopping mid whack realizing they forgot to disable call waiting when that porn image hit 99%! What a time to be alive! Then America got comfortable, we got rich, we got distracted and we took a nap.
On September 11 2001, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and murdered nearly 3,000 people. The World Trade Center fell. 343 FDNY firefighters ran toward the disaster while thousands were trying to escape. Those heroes never came home. The Pentagon was struck, giving our military a black eye. In typical American fashion, passengers and crew fought back aboard Flight 93 and America's collective mood changed in an instant. Somebody just kicked the sleeping eagle in the balls. We went into Afghanistan looking for al-Qaeda and the Taliban government that had sheltered it. Then in 2003, we decided Iraq needed another visit. Saddam was toppled while weapons of mass destruction became one hell of an uncomfortable subject. What had been sold as relatively straightforward military operations turned into years of insurgencies, roadside bombs, nation-building, political disasters and the horrifying realization that winning battles and winning wars are two completely different things. Russia was looking at us in Afghanistan and going: "Dah, We tried that." The Soviets had fought their own brutal war there during the eighties and they'd left in 1989. Now they were watching us wrestle with many of the same nightmares. IEDs, Ambushes, Mountains and Tribal politics for twenty years. Twenty, Fucking, Years.
In 2021, America withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban returned to power, and everyone was left arguing about who won, who lost and what the hell it had all been for. Another generation of veterans came home with bad knees, bad backs, busted bodies and memories that weren't going anywhere. We promised to take care of them, raised them up on pedestals and thanked them for their service, then handed far too many a mountain of paperwork and told them to prove they were broken. Oh look, another government program that requires an entire goddamn war just to navigate! But hey, at least the Internet had gotten faster! Now we had social media, smartphones, everybody could broadcast their stupidity in real time. Unlike Gen-X childhood stupidity, which generally had a maximum audience of six neighborhood kids and one horrified mother, now you could embarrass yourself in front of the entire fucking planet! And good God all the streaming porn you could dream of. Yes, Progress!!
Then Donald Chester Cheetah entered American politics. Big hair, big personality, big promises, Red hats everywhere. Make America Great Again! The country immediately started arguing over precisely which version of America we were supposed to be making great. The fifties, The eighties, The nineties, The version where gas was cheap, houses were affordable and the Internet hadn't yet invented influencers? Nobody could agree.
Enter COVID and lockdown! Suddenly humanity was trapped indoors, working from home in their pajamas, drinking at questionable hours, and desperately trying to remember which day of the week it was. People argued about masks, vaccines, where the virus came from and whether their neighbor's barbecue cookout represented the downfall of civilization. Everybody became an overnight epidemiologist usually immediately after receiving their medical degree from Facebook University, Wikipedia and Google. Save the planet now became save the bandwith. With so many people stuck at home streaming media, gaming, live streaming their boredom the internet that was designed to be nuclear hardened suddenly found out that EMP and the collective boredom of humanity were two entirely different conceptual design philosophies. My honest opinion, everyone was pissed off because their streaming porn kept buffering!
Cable television was dying. Cutting the cord was the new battle cry. Fuck yeah, no more $100 cable bills! Instead, we signed up for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Amazon Prime, and seventeen other streaming services. Each one only $9.99, or $19.99, or $49.99! Plus the $200 fiber Internet connection, plus delivery fees, plus service fees, plus convenience fees, oh and a tip for the guy who drove your taco three blocks while you completely ignored that you just paid $40 for that $3 taco! Congratulations, we reinvented cable, only now it costs more and we have to remember twenty fucking passwords and interrupt our doomscrolling to fetch a fucking 2FA code before we can get back to our mind-numbing noise. And now we have to pay an extra 5 99 for the priveledge of fewer ad interuptions!
And Hollywood? Hollywood looked at its enormous creative resources and decided: "Let's remake everything Gen-X watched when they were kids." Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Terminator, Transformers, a sequel, a prequel, a prequel to the prequel, another remake, another reboot, another reimagining and another beloved character completely rewritten by someone who apparently never watched the fucking original! Oh, and don't forget rewriting classic movies just for the sake of inclusion! Gen-X sat there staring at the television going: "Who the fuck asked for this?" Then, Spaceballs 2, fuck yeah! Spoiler: Remember that third Bill and Ted movie? Ok, we'll give Mel Brooks credit where credit is due, 100 years old and he's still a master of comedy. Uhm, wait, wasn't he responsible for History of the World Part II? Oh God, quiet, Hollywood will bring back Oh God Book 4. Damn, where's my weed, Cough, cough. Hey, pass that over here.
The kids were developing an entirely new relationship with reality. Virtual Reality, life simulation, job simulation, farming simulation, cooking simulation, diner simulation, house flipping simulation, thief simulation, and even a power-washing simulator! Wait! Let me get this straight, We have an entire generation that's exhausted from working jobs they hate, so they come home, turn on a computer and simulate working another fucking job? Gen-x was officially confused. We used to get yelled at for not washing the goddamn driveway, now somebody pays real money for the privilege of washing a virtual driveway? Oh, and simulated high definition virtual reality sex! Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ!
But somewhere along the way, Gen-X noticed something interesting. Remember those warning labels? The ones that say: do not operate while asleep, do not put plastic bag over head, do not place hand under running lawnmower, and a warning that the steaming cup of coffee may be hot. Those things didn't materialize out of thin air, somewhere, sometime, some magnificent dumb ass actually did the thing. And enough people repeated it that somebody in a corporate legal department said: "We'd better put a sticker on that." That, my friends, is the true legacy of fucking around and finding out and welcome to the "American Ride!"
Gen-X? We were the research and development department, the unpaid test pilots and the crash-test dummies. We were the generation that discovered you could absolutely launch a bicycle off a six-foot homemade ramp. Landing it though was a completely different fucking question. And now here we sit in our fifties, Some of us pushing sixty. Oh hey, speaking of pushing sixty, remember Iran? Yeah they're at it again. This time President Cheeto is developing new ways to ram drone guided smart missiles up their asses.
Uhhh, where was I going with this? Ohhhh, and listening to the same big hair bands we listened to in 1985. Only now we need Advil, Tylenol, reading glasses and a chiropractor after head-banging to the opening guitar riff. Weed or some variation of it is legal across much of the country, because the Advil isn't doing our already-challenged kidneys any fucking favors. We get out of bed and sound like somebody dumping a toolbox down a flight of stairs. Our knees pop, our backs crack, our necks creak, we sneeze and shit our pants, we walk into a room and forget why the fuck we stood up. Did I mention Iran already? Then somebody mentions 1982 and we can remember exactly how fast that goddamn Huffy was going when we hit the ramp with fond memories while screaming at the top of our lungs the perfectly remembered lyrics to the appropriate rock anthem! But we can't remember our 16 letter password, what was capitalized and what allowed special character and number we tacked on to the previous version of the password!
Where the fuck was I going again, oh yeah. See this scar right here? Got that in '82 when Tommy dared me to jump the drainage ditch. Wait, Where'd the scar go? Oh fuck, that's a wrinkle, when did I get this goddamn old? But then somebody puts on Queen. Oh yeaaah, Bohemian Rhapsody. Because nothing says 250 years of fucking around and finding out quite like an entire generation head-banging to Freddie Mercury while watching civilization descend into another spectacularly expensive clusterfuck!
And the absolute beauty of it?
Gen-X: "Fuck yeah! I see a little silhouetto of a man"
Gen-Alpha: "Hang on Grandma, I'm recording this."
Gen-X: "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?"
Boomers: "We warned you!"
Gen-X: "Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening"
Silent Generation: "We warned them!"
Gen-X: "Galileo, Galileo Figaro, magnifico"
Gen-Z: "Why are they singing about Galileo? Is this educational?"
Millennials: "Is this culturally appropriate?"
BOOMERS: "We bought that album when it came out!"
GEN-X: "We made it a religious experience in a fucking AMC Pacer!"
SILENT GENERATION: "Turn that down! Actually, turn it up I can't hear the fucking guitar!"
And then the guitars kick in, Gen-X is head-banging surprisingly in time to the music, their necks cracking, backs popping, somebody loses a bifocal, another throws out a hip and three people reach for the ibuprofen or weed or both. Cuz after downing two liters of Purple Passion, Everclear, Mad Dog and trashcan punch in our teens, the legal shit ain't cuttin' it any more! And suddenly the entire retirement community looks like the car scene from Wayne's World, except everybody's wearing orthopedic shoes and somebody's Life Alert just went off.
Somebody's grandkid is standing there wearing a faded concert T-shirt that's older than their parents, Grandpa squints through his quad-focals, "Yup, Been there, Done that, Got the T-shirt, but my grandkids wear it now." And there's your entire goddamn family tree in one picture. The Silent Generation lived through the Depression and World War II, Boomers inherited the aftermath and bought the records, Gen-X survived being raised by the survivors and learned to play those records loud and used the furniture as a stage, Millennials inherited the instruction manuals, Gen-Z turned the instructions into TikToks, and Gen-Alpha is busy peeling off the safety stickers because Grandpa told them the original version was a hell of a lot more fun. Somewhere in the background of all this glorious chaos:
GEN-X: "I can remember Jenny's phone number from 1981 but I can't remember my own goddamn password!"
GEN-Z: "Who's Jenny?"
GEN-X: "867-5309!"
GEN-ALPHA: "Grandpa, that's only seven digits. What's the area code?"
GEN-X: "Area code?! Back in my day we didn't need no fucking area code to call someone across town!"
MILLENNIAL: "You actually called people?"
GEN-X: "Jesus fucking Christ, where's my Advil?"
SILENT GENERATION: "Seven digits? Hell, I remember when the operator connected the call!"
Gen-X: "Get this, it will blow your mind. Jenny is Jessie's girl, Stacy's mom and her number is"
EVERYONE: "PUT DOWN THE BEER!"
Lou Costello is screaming: "Operator! Give me Alexander 44-44!"
GEN-ALPHA: "Who's Alexander?"
GEN-Z: "Is that his username?"
MILLENNIAL: "Can't he just text him?"
GEN-X: "Jesus Christ, It's Abbott and Costello!"
BOOMER: "Who's on First!"
GEN-Z: "Wait, who is on first?"
GEN-X: "Yes!"
GEN-Z: "What?"
GEN-X: "He's on Second base!"
GEN-ALPHA: "Can someone please explain the rules of this game?"
SILENT GENERATION: "Oh for fuck's sake, just wait until they get to the math!"
Because long before anybody invented Common Core, Lou Costello had already demonstrated that 7 × 13 = 28.
GEN-ALPHA: "That's not mathematically correct."
GEN-X: "No shit!"
MILLENNIAL: "We should probably explain the process using a more inclusive, multidimensional learning model."
GEN-Z: "I asked ChatGPT. It says the answer is 91."
GEN-X: "Congratulations, you and the fucking robot passed third grade!"
SILENT GENERATION: "Lou proved it three different ways!"
GEN-ALPHA: "But they're all wrong!"
GEN-X: "That's the fucking joke!"
MILLENNIAL: "Well, according to the Common Core methodology"
GEN-X: "Here we fucking go again!"
BOOMER: "We put a man on the moon using slide rules!"
GEN-Z: "What's a slide rule?"
GEN-X: "It's a fucking analog calculator!"
GEN-ALPHA: "Does it have Bluetooth?"
Somewhere, Pythagoras just punched himself in the theorem. Meanwhile, up in the heavens, Freddie Mercury is watching the whole spectacle, looking over at God and Jesus...
Freddie: "Darling, are those idiots still doing this?"
Jesus: "For 250 years."
Freddie: "Magnificent."
God: "I knew that free will thing was going to be troublesome."
Lou Costello is standing beside Freddie Mercury in the great comedy club in the sky, looking down at the spectacular intellectual dumpster fire humanity has become.
Lou: "Hey, Freddie! Seven goes into thirteen twenty-eight times!"
Freddie: "Darling, that's absolutely ridiculous."
Lou: "I can prove it!"
Freddie: "Oh, I have got to see this!"
Gen-X is laughing so fucking hard somebody collapses, takes out a folding table, three lawn chairs, and Grandpa's oxygen tank. Somebody call 911!
But nobody does; everybody knows the number but that's not the fucking problem. The problem is that forty-seven people immediately pull out their phones and start live streaming the fucking emergency on Facebook Live, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitch, X Formerly Twitter or whatever the fuck Elon decides to call it next Tuesday, somebody starts a YouTube channel, somebody else launches a GoFundMe, while Millennials announce they're raising awareness, Gen-Z starts recording a reaction video and Gen-Alpha asks AI to generate a dramatic reenactment before the actual event has finished. Grandpa is still on the fucking floor!
Somewhere on Reddit, a concerned citizen posts: "Uhm, has anybody actually called 911 yet?"
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where civilization officially shits the bed. Within minutes, the thread has 3,847 comments. Twelve people arguing over the proper abbreviation for emergency medical services, sixteen memes, a historical dissertation on the origins of emergency response systems, some asshole insisting that the Romans invented the ambulance, another asshole correcting him with a Wikipedia link, a completely unrelated argument about whether the British emergency number 999 is superior because it's three digits of the same fucking number, at least one link to a porn site, a dozen "+1" replies, another person demanding that everyone stop replying "+1" and just use the fucking up vote button, a moderator reminding everyone to remain civil, someone accusing the moderator of censorship, three people arguing about freedom of speech, another person posting a twelve-paragraph explanation of why this is somehow all the fault of the Boomers.
And then, some magnificent dumbass posts a completely unrelated question about whether his 1987 Camaro's carburetor can be converted to fuel injection, which immediately produces another 3,847-comments. Complete with abbreviations nobody understands, more memes, a historical dissertation on the invention of the internal combustion engine, a completely unrelated debate about the American Revolution, another fucking porn link, twelve more "+1" replies, and somebody demanding that everyone get back on topic!
Reddit User 1: "Which fucking topic?!?!"
Reddit User 2: "The original emergency?"
Reddit User 3: "The carburetor"
Reddit User 4: "Common Core?"
Reddit User 5: "Jenny's fucking phone number?"
Reddit User 6: "Is Jenny hot? What's her number, someone PM it to me!"
Reddit User 7: "Dissertation? Isn't that what the settlers died of?"
Gen-X: "THAT WAS DYSENTERY!"
At this point, somebody invokes Godwin's Law, Somebody else declares the conversation politically inappropriate, A third person posts a picture of a cat, The cat gets 42,000 upvotes while the emergency gets twelve, And Grandpa is still on the fucking floor! The original question remains unanswered. Nobody knows whether somebody called 911 but everybody knows that some guy named ActualMechanic1978 thinks the Camaro needs a new intake manifold. Mission accomplished! And then fifty years pass. It's 2076, America is celebrating its 300th anniversary. Gen-Alpha is now the generation complaining about its grandchildren. Gen-X, well, those of us still hanging around are either spectacularly preserved, technologically augmented or too fucking stubborn to die. Then some fourteen-year-old little bastard researching ancient Internet culture for a school assignment stumbles across the archived Reddit thread. She reads all 7,694 comments, the memes, the arguments, the porn links, the Camaro discussion, the locked moderator notices and then she commits the single greatest offense against Internet civilization. She necro-posts.
14 year old kid: "Hey, sorry to bring up an old thread, but did anybody ever call 911?"
And the entire fucking dumpster fire ignites all over again! Within six minutes:
Reddit User 1: "+1"
Reddit User 2: "This!"
Reddit User 3: "Source?"
Reddit User 4: "Bro, this thread is fifty years old!"
Reddit User 5: "Actually, the first emergency telephone number was—"
Reddit User 6: "That's misinformation; Check your facts!"
Reddit User 7: "Who the fuck is Jenny?"
Reddit User 8: "867-5309!"
Reddit User 9: "Wrong area code!"
Reddit User 10: "Seven goes into thirteen twenty-eight times!"
Reddit User 11: "That's not how math works!"
Reddit User 12: "It was a fucking comedy routine!"
Reddit User 13: "Who's on first?"
Reddit User 14: "What's on second?"
Reddit User 15: "I don't know!"
REDDIT: "Third base!"
Reddit User 16: "Anyone got 2 tens for a five?"
REDDIT: "Booooooo!"
And still somewhere in the great comedy club in the sky in front of a packed audience of the Gen-X who've managed to shuffle off this mortal coil, Lou Costello looks over at Freddie Mercury.
Lou: "You know, Freddie, I think these people might actually be stupider than me."
Freddie: "Darling, at least you knew it was a joke."
God looks down, shakes his head, and asks Jesus;
God: "Did anybody ever call the fucking ambulance?"
Jesus scrolls through the comments;
Jesus: "Hang on Dad, somebody just posted another cat."
FAFO 2076: Three hundred years of fucking around, finding out and still waiting for some asshole to dial 911!
Hallelujah, Holy shit, Where's the Tylenol!? Wow, that was a tangent, ok, back on track, right?
Gen-X clutching our Advil bottles and roach clips and smartphones like concert lighters, collectively screams the chorus from Bohemian Rhapsody, somewhere, a chiropractor just bought another fucking yacht. So yes, we're smiling, smirking and then groaning because every single word of it is so painfully fucking obvious.
FAFO 3.1 baby, now with orthopedic support and a classic rock soundtrack.
The Millennials are helicoptering their kids, Gen-Z thinks they invented rebellion, and Gen Alpha, oh, Gen Alpha is taking fucking notes. They're watching Grandma and Grandpa laugh at shit that makes their parents nervous. They're listening to stories about fireworks, homemade ramps, lawn darts, BB guns, and surviving summer afternoons without GPS tracking. They're realizing that Gen-X didn't actually have a childhood. We had an unsupervised survival exercise.
Now sometime around 2030, I fully expect Gen-Z to decide AI is going to destroy humanity. It's already happening, mention AI anywhere on the internet, then sit back and watch the shit show!
Gen-Z: "SkyNet! The machines are coming, the robots are taking our jobs!"
Gen-X: "Yeah we saw this movie in 1984."
Gen-Z: "You don't understand! Artificial Intelligence is dangerous!"
Gen-X: "No shit Sherlock! Arnold Schwarzenegger warned us about this forty-six fucking years ago."
Gen-Z: "But it's different now!"
Gen-X: "Of course it is, the robots can write poetry and screw up your tax return without ever leaving the house and generate porn. Wait, was that a two peckered billy goat?"
Gen-Z: "We have to fight the machines!"
Gen-X: "Great, then start by figuring out how to change a tire without watching a YouTube video."
GEN-ALPHA: "Grandpa, how did your generation learn anything without YouTube?"
GEN-X: "Wax on, Wax off."
GEN-Z: "Is that some kind of skincare routine?"
MILLENNIAL: "Actually, repetitive physical activity can be an effective mindfulness exercise."
GEN-X: "NO, YOU MORONS; MISTER MIYAGI; THE KARATE KID!"
GEN-ALPHA: "So he taught you karate by making you wash his car?"
GEN-X: "AND PAINT THE FUCKING FENCE!"
GEN-Z: "Was he paying minimum wage?"
BOOMER: "We called that WORK!"
SILENT GENERATION: "We called that CHILDHOOD!"
GEN-ALPHA: "Couldn't he just take an online karate class?"
GEN-X: "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!"
And somewhere in the great dojo in the sky, Mr. Miyagi quietly puts down his bonsai tree, looks at Lou Costello and Freddie Mercury, and says:
Miyagi: "Wax on. Wax off. Brain on? Apparently not."
Johnny: "Fucking puss—"
Daniel: "Johnny!"
Johnny: "What, They are!"
Miyagi: "Strong Wind, Strong Sea, Stronger Sake, Weak Brain."
Gen-Alpha is sitting quietly in the corner taking notes, studying the weaknesses and learning from Grandpa's scars or wrinkles; Grandpa can't remember. Gen-X is watching the whole fucking circus.
Gen-X: "Oh those little bastards are going to be dangerous."
Because they might eventually realize something no generation before them has figured out. The people in charge don't necessarily know what the fuck they're doing either. Just imagine it, the 2030s, Gen-Z is screaming about AI, Millennials are holding emergency meetings about feelings, Gen-X is sitting in the back yard drinking beer listening to Metallica and trying to figure out whether we can still safely build a ramp. Gen-Alpha adopts Grandpa's war cry:
Gen-Alpha: "We're going to Make America Great Again!"
Gen-X: "Okay kid, How?"
Gen-Alpha: "We're going to conquer the world!"
Gen-X: "Oh this ought to be fucking good."
First, they look toward Russia. Russia looks up from its own enormous pile of historical mistakes and says; "Go away little children, we are busy."
So Gen-Alpha looks toward Asia. But somebody points out that starting a major war with the countries making all the world's electronic toys would mean no more new smartphones, gaming consoles, or cheap consumer gadgets. Gen-Z immediately objects to that.
Gen-Z: "Wait! What about the iPhone 45 Ultra Sparkle? Now available in retro Harvest Gold and Avocado Green! Only $33,999! Featuring the new improved Lightning USB-GG." Charger sold separately USB-C to USB-GG Adapters expected Q4 2045. Also sold separately, not backwards compatible with previous generation cables. Estimated delivery: after the war.
So Gen-Alpha looks south. Mexico, That should be easy! Somewhere some asshole in duct-taped boots and an over-sized cowboy yells "Remember the Alamo!" Gen-Z asks, "Uhm, do we have to go on Monday? Tuesday will fit my schedule better." The Millennial generals insist on postponing for Taco Tuesday, Margarita Wednesday, an extensive cultural sensitivity workshop on Thursday which means all military operations are further postponed until Friday. But by Friday, everybody's hung over, the logistics are a nightmare, and somebody has leaked the invasion plans in a group chat. Yet on Saturday the grandkid has baseball, soccer, swim team and a play date with the handicap kid down the street. We can't fight on Sunday, Sunday is time for worship, It says so right there on the Chick-Fil-A sign! Gen-X is watching from the retirement home.
Gen-X: "Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! We invaded an entire country with paper maps and radios and these assholes can't even organize a fucking taco run."
Gen-Z: "What's a pogo stick?"
Gen-X: "Fuck this, I'm out of here!"
So Gen-Alpha heads north. Canada, Surely Canada will put up a fight! They march to the border, fully prepared for a glorious military confrontation. And the Canadians open the doors.
CANADIANS: "Oh, Hey there bud! Come on in!"
Gen-Alpha: "We're here to conquer you!"
CANADIANS: "Well, that's nice! You fellas hungry?"
Gen-Alpha: "We demand your surrender!"
CANADIANS: "Sure thing bud! Want some pancakes? We got BeaverTails too!"
Gen-Alpha: "Wait. What?"
CANADIANS: "Deep-fried pastry! Delicious!"
Gen-Alpha: "We want four or five new states!"
CANADIANS: "Well, we've got ten provinces, three territories, a couple of baseball teams, and a whole lot of beer. You fellas like hockey?"
And just like that, Canada wins the war just by being nice, the Canadian way, eh. Zero casualties, minimal property damage, everybody gets snacks and the Canadians even apologize for the inconvenience. Gen-Alpha is devastated, their Call of Duty skills are useless, their military drones are grounded, their carefully rehearsed victory speeches have been replaced with invitations to a backyard barbecue. Gen-Z is deeply offended while Millennials are scheduling a meeting to process the emotional impact. Gen-X is laughing so hard our dentures are falling out.
Gen-X: "You wanted a war and got fucking pancakes!"
King Cheeto is already commissioning new flags with thirteen extra stars on a field of orange; or is that blonde, no, definitely orange! Finally, completely bewildered, Gen-Alpha looks toward the heavens. Space, surely there's somebody out there worth fighting! They call the future fifth-term King Cheeto, now reigning over the Kingdom of the United States from a gold plated throne.
Gen-Alpha: "Your majesty! We need the space force!"
King Cheeto adjusts his retro paper Burger King crown.
Cheeto: "Let me tell you what King Cheeto is going to do for you. A Beautiful Space Force, A Tremendous Space Force, Nobody has ever had a better Space Force, The aliens love King Donald Cheeto, They really do. They say Sir, nobody understands space like you."
So humanity launches its newest, greatest, most spectacular mission to seek out intelligent extraterrestrial life, a civilization advanced enough to challenge us! An opponent worthy of our accumulated military knowledge! A chance to finally prove ourselves against the entire fucking universe! And then we discover the truth. Back in 1947, somewhere outside Roswell New Mexico; Thor, Loki, and a couple of their extraterrestrial drinking buddies had already stopped by. Apparently their hyperdrive broke down. They crashed, looked around, and decided to investigate. They found a species that had invented nuclear weapons before figuring out how to stop killing each other, a civilization capable of putting human beings on the Moon but apparently incapable of keeping people from eating laundry detergent, a planet where people willingly pay money to watch other people pretend to have jobs, a society that invented instant worldwide communication and used it to argue with strangers about whether the Earth was flat and a species that needed warning labels explaining that chainsaws should not be operated by the wrong end. Oh, and all the free porn one can handle.
Thor looked at Loki, Loki looked at Thor, they looked at the humans, then they looked at each other again.
Thor: "Brother?"
Loki: "Yes?"
Thor: "These people are completely fucking insane."
Loki: "Indeed."
Thor: "Should we establish diplomatic relations?"
Loki: "Absolutely fucking not."
Thor: "Should we report them to the Galactic Council?"
Loki: "Are you kidding? They'll want us to intervene."
Thor: "So what do we do?"
Loki: "Fix the hyperdrive, get the fuck out of here, and mark this entire solar system as a hazardous waste site."
Somewhere in an intergalactic travel guide, Earth received its first official review:
Earth — one star. Zero if I could! Interesting wildlife, excellent pizza, a period of fantastic music in the late 1900s, questionable leadership, extremely aggressive primates with nuclear weapons, do not make eye contact, do not discuss politics, do not accept invitations to gender reveal parties. Stopped to repair the hyperdrive and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Nice place to visit but wouldn't want to fucking live there. And the largest most amazing collection of porn I have ever seen!
We fought the British then became friends with the British, we fought the Germans then became friends with the Germans, we fought the Japanese then bought their cars and televisions, we fought communism then imported most our electronics from communist China, we fought alcohol and got drunk, we fought drugs, uhm, we're still working on that one, we fought terrorism then spent twenty years discovering that mountains don't surrender, we fought cable television then invented more expensive streaming internet television with even more ads, autoplay and an eventual are you still watching prompt, we fought misinformation then invented social media, we worried about computers replacing human intelligence then developed AI because apparently regular human stupidity wasn't getting the job done fast enough. And now we're wondering whether our kids and grandkids are going to repeat the entire goddamn cycle.
Of course they are! Because if 250 years of history has taught us anything, it's that humanity has an almost supernatural ability to ignore every warning label until somebody gets hurt.
Gen-X will be sitting on the porch wearing our faded concert shirts, with Bohemian Rhapsody playing in the background, because apparently our necks still haven't learned their fucking lesson, drinking whatever our doctors told us to stop drinking, complaining about our knees and laughing at the latest generation of dumb asses, occasionally yelling: "Hey, watch this shit it's gonna be wild!" Because we didn't invent fucking around and finding out, we just helped turn it into an art form and we've lived long enough to watch the next generation discover exactly why those warning labels exist. Good luck kids, we left you the instructions, you just have to figure out which fucking drawer we put them in because we can't remember where we put them in the first place!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is 250 years of American history and why the aliens won't fucking talk to us.
Concocted by a Salty Gen-X Smartass Who Wasn't Properly Supervised.
P.S. If any extraterrestrial intelligence happens to be reading this, please understand that not all humans are this fucked up. Some of us are worse! FAFO!
P.P.S.. Bring beer, Advil and more weed! And Get off my fucking lawn!
Gen-Z: "What is P.S."
Gen-X: "Mother Fucker!"
Professor: "Technically, that is one word."
Gen-X: "TECHNICALLY, YOU CAN KISS THIS AND I DON'T MEAN MY ROSY RED LIPS!"