BROWNIE BOY’S ROADKILL — RUN OVER BY THE SNEAKER STREAKER
Listen up, fellow octogenarians. If you feel the “walls are closing in,” that’s not fate — it’s wallpaper. Turn off the TV, stop figuring out your remote. REJOIN THE LIVING WORLD.
Becoming an elder isn’t for sissies. We’ve shed full heads of hair, the energy of caffeinated squirrels, and the mental acquity that once let us do long division in our heads. Our friends, our robust health and our careers powerbase have dwindled or expired. Future prospects? Either terrifying or lost in the trash bag.
But here’s the cosmic punchline: all those decades of “experience” were just training for this phase. Rain follows sunshine, debts balance credits, and eventually every hill slopes down. The lesson? Nothing lasts — not joy, not misery, not even your neighbor’s endless leaf blower.
So when Grandpa starts groaning like a Greek chorus on bad knees, maybe he should stop. Instead, channel that 10-year-old version of yourself. Peek into your grandkid’s world — a place you can’t even find on the map without Waze.
Case in point: my grandson Santiago. At 15, he’s not hanging out at recess hawking brownies for nickels like I did. No, he’s a sneaker-slinging, Pokémon-peddling, algorithm-armed mogul. While I counted pennies, he’s counting PayPal deposits. He flips $350 Nikes like pancakes, rents shelf space on Walmart’s cast-off website, and lets TikTok influencers do his marketing for free.
Meanwhile, I once stood in the rain, hawking brownies to fat kids with sticky fingers. My “profit margin” was a few cents and a stomachache. Santiago, on the other hand, runs a frictionless, global, Wi-Fi-enabled empire from the back of the school bus — employing FedEx, eBay, Depop, House of Profits, and StockX as if they were his unpaid interns.
So tell me: who’s the dinosaur here? (Hint: he’s the one yelling at the TV about “kids these days.”)
In a world that feels like it’s circling down the flush drain, these fledgling hustlers are building lifeboats out of Wi-Fi and side hustles. If you’re an old geezer clinging to your recliner, get over yourself. Book an appointment with your grandkid. Discover an exciting universe that doesn’t involve reruns, prescription ads, complaints about the drafts or organ recitals.
Because the truth is, Brownie Boy got flattened by the Sneaker Streaker — and it’s your best reality-based comedy-tragedy. You should be laughing along with them not at them.
Give that grandkid a call.
Categories: Humor
Now I have to google Depop…… Depop? Thanks for the educating.
my grandson is learning the plumbing trade and he has saved me several costly liability suits. Not only can he contort his body and maneuver his arms and fingers in the tightest of spaces under sinks and under trailers, where i get clumsy these days and things break off and cause floods, but he also remembers critical things like how dismantled parts go back together in the right order without getting lost as well as making sure water is shut off before cutting pipes and turned back on when the job is done and oh, where i forgot my tools. All this while he chats gayly with the customer or answers a call on his cell without losing his focus on the job. Yes Barclay , Grandkids, we need them.