I guess I could call this entry Social Sentry as it includes many recent observations.

Lost Opportunities. The other weekend, I watched as my neighbor worked on his son’s car. The boy is likely 17 or so. I have no idea. I don’t talk to these people. We tried, mind you, when they first moved in, but it turned out we were just different people with different tastes, hobbies, and interests. The fact that they have a stupid barking dog didn’t help either as I’m constantly telling the dog to shut the fuck up, or throwing rocks at the fence. The latter seems to be the most effective as the dog runs inside as soon as I step out onto the deck. Mission Accomplished.

At any rate, the kid and his car. This is the second vehicle for the youngster. He beat the first one to its untimely death a few weeks back. Ours did too, to his first vehicle, but that isn’t my point. The “man” of the house, I saw, was changing the brakes on the car. He probably did not want to pay for it even if the kid would have been tasked to repay the debt. And certainly, the kid can’t afford to pay someone to do it for him. So, there was dear old Dad doing it. It was a warm enough weekend, but the kid was nowhere to be seen.

What a wasted opportunity. Dad could have transferred valuable knowledge to his offspring for later in life. Not just the ability to change brakes, but the powerful gift of self-reliance—to know that he CAN do something mechanical. Nope, Dad did it himself while the kid was either smoking pot (which he was caught doing by us last summer) or busy on his Facebook.

I remember my own father fixing my first car, a 1971 Gremlin. He did the work, but he made me watch. I was mostly a tool fetcher, but I couldn’t go play with my friends or otherwise screw off. (No smart phones back in the mid 80’s). I was made to watch and learn. Lessons were passed down knowledge was learned, and life lessons were ingrained.

Small Business Entrepreneur? A little later the same day, I saw a young girl, likely 9 or 10 selling girl scout cookies. She had a small table set up and her cargo of wares in a small red wagon. And right next to her, the helicopter Mom sat doing all the math, handling all of the cash, and transferring all of the cookies from vendor to buyer. Meanwhile, the girl scout, played on her iPhone, probably three generations newer than the one my wife owns.

Now I partially get it. Kids are snacked up by psychos a lot more often these days than when I was a kid (and available for kidnapping). Kids need greater protection from the societal perverts and rapists that roam about and are protected against public knowledge (Predator Registries) by liberal politics.

But why not let the girl handle her own business? She’s the one in the Scout troop, yes? She should be there handling the money, doing the math, and transacting the exchange. How else does she learn? Lost are basic arithmetic skills, banking skills, and handling customer service tasks. The girl isn’t selling the cookies. Mom is.

Diversity versus Customer Service. I went to a Wal-Mart and asked a lady (at the beginning of the China Virus panic buying) where I might find little travel packets of Handiwipes. Her name was Doris. Not Chambukra, or something unintelligible like that. But she was utterly unable to converse with me in my native tongue. She had no idea what I was looking for, and thus, no idea where to find it. I walked away and left her to straightening boxes on a shelf. She wasn’t stocking. She was facing shelves. Wal-Mart is getting zero value out of the labor hours they spend on her.

Wal-Mart as a non-banker. While at that same Wal-Mart, I ventured into the customer service area. I wanted to break a twenty dollar bill into two ten dollar bills. The smarmy recent high school grad haughtily informed me that they don’t carry ten dollar bills at the store. Just ones, fives, and twenties.

I was stunned. “Really? It is one of the four main bills of currency that the public in general uses. Granted, the hundred sees more use now as things are more expensive. Do you carry dimes? It is one of the four main coins we make change in as a society. Or do you load up on nickels and pennies?”

With each visit to Wal-mart, I am reminded that they really are not interested in meeting my needs as a customer. They just want to separate me from my money.

There you have it. Four observations of our American culture in a steep nose dive decline. If we don’t reverse course soon, we won’t have to wait on a pandemic to end us. We’ll gladly do it ourselves.