Robin Writes: Pranks for the memories
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Senior high school students have been doing it for decades. At the end of their final year, the class concocts a few elaborate, annoying, sometimes funny ways to mark their exit.
Well. We who are truly Seniors—as in, AARP eligible—should consider doing the same.
As a demographic, we are not the most popular group on the globe right now. Some students of life who trail us on the road toward that final graduation hold resentments toward we so-named “Boomers”. Many don’t particularly like us.
The age groups behind us are our children and grandchildren. The kids we clothed and fed and sent to school. Now, as we age, we’ve become a liability to some of them; we weigh down the workforce and enjoy living more than they think is fair.
Our generation refuses to go home and die. We continue to work and many of us enjoy the rewards of having done so all our lives. Times were different; we were fortunate to have job security and good investments.
When we retire, we depend on the Social Security we contributed to all our working lives. We’re depleting it. Sorry.
We will eventually go away. It may take us a bit longer than past generations because healthcare is better and we have been smarter about taking care of ourselves. But it’s inevitable that we will be passing our Senior status to the next generation in a decade or two.
It’s time to get together and decide on a few Senior pranks to leave behind as a reminder of just who we “Boomers” were and how we lived.
I have a few ideas:
1. It’d be great to change all written language to cursive. Just grab every text platform and graphic novel and blog and change them from printed font to D’Nealian Handwriting. You remember: the kind with curls below the line and loops that connect letters. Wouldn’t it be hilarious to those who can only handwrite their signature?
2. I’d love to see a power steering and automatic transmission ban on vehicles. Stick that third pedal in the floorboard and watch the next generations struggle with their coffees and phones while trying to wrench a steering wheel around a corner or finding that “sweet spot” on a clutch while perched on a steep hill.
3. Let’s get together and disable all remote-control capabilities on every TV. Imagine the cool chaos we’ll create. All that getting up and turning knobs and arguing over choices. Children will get exercise as official channel changers, too. Win. Win.
4. Here’s one every Boomer woman will love: Make all disposable diapers disappear. We can say we’re trying to help the environment on our way out. Cloth and safety pins. Dunking action. Non-stop soggy bottoms. Circus-sized plastic pants to cover it all.
5. This final prank would be cruel, I guess, but so epic. Phones on cords. On walls. In booths. Only available to grown-ups; sparse in rural areas and sprinkled with party lines and nosy neighbors’ ears.
Oh, and forget about texts. Only oral communication, kids.
After we make our collective exit, all our Senior pranks could be reversed, of course. Life would go back to the way the undergraduates of life are accustomed to. They’ll shake their heads at our feeble tricks and assume we became simultaneously addled toward the end.
But maybe the adults who’ll be the next ‘drain’ on our society will get the message. And—as a bonus—we’ll get the last laugh when they become seniors themselves and find their worth challenged by upcoming generations.
That’s the sweetest prank of all. Cool. Let’s all meet at the doctor’s office and organize.
–––––––––––––
ν Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].
