I swear, people have truly lost their sense of humor. Remember silly? Silly: used to convey a process that is frivolous and trivial. It appears that no one can laugh at anything anymore. Recently, I was at the grocery store, blankly staring into the dairy section, looking for a small container of plain regular eight ounce size sour cream. Nothing added. How hard could that be, and yet. . . . There was light sour cream, there was non fat sour cream, there was sour cream with chives, there was the large size container of regular for a family of 20, but no small size container of regular sour cream. How can there be so many options, I mused, but no regular folk plain. While I stood staring, waiting for the unicorn to jump out at me, a young man, clearly a summer help kid, tall and lanky, perhaps 17 or 18 years old, sunlit faced and sparkly eyed, watched my bemused face as I bobbed up and down while attempting to read the small print, asked if he could help. I explained my dilemma and reiterated that I wanted just a small container of regular sour cream. He handed me the triple churned version and told me that that was the regular; although it was under a new name, but it was the regular. He was so sure of himself, but I still gave him the fish eye, while simultaneously staring at the lady standing behind us. Nodding at me, he again said it was the same stuff, looked me squarely in the eye and finished with a resounding “trust me”. I looked at him, then looked at the lady behind us and said “when was the last time a young man said ‘trust me’ and it turned out well?” Rather than laughing, or even smiling, her piercingly expressive look could have crushed rocks. What the hell, lady!!! It was funny. Was it so long ago, I wondered, that she was a teenager, confronted with a testosterone crazed young swain who whispered those very words in her ears? Even he laughed. Anyway, I took the proffered sour cream ‘cause, you know, I trusted him. After all, he was cute and had a nice smile and a clear complexion and I would undoubtedly have trusted him if I had been 17 at the time. Ha!!! The verbal exchange was comic and silly and it was fun to laugh.
Now, Scott and I, on the other hand, know how to laugh, at ourselves, at each other and at anyone else who might walk into whichever room we are standing. We had three DirectTV boxes in the house. One finally died so Scott took care of the details regarding its replacement which ultimately turned out to become a replacement of all three boxes. The young tech, “Gen Z” Evan, arrived; was very gracious and patient with us old geezers as he explained in small one syllable words the technology that he was about to bestow upon us. Scott patiently smiled and listened, while I stood there, lips pursed shut, but so wanting to scream that it was Scott who was behind most of that technology and could explain it in much greater detail than Gen Z Evan could understand ‘cause Scott is often much more polite than I am, but this time I held my tongue. Gen Z Evan piled the boxes on top of each other as he replaced them, then noticed that one was smaller and older than the other two, “more vintage”, he said. Yes, Scott related how it had come to him back in the 90s, then joked that it was the equivalent of a TV tube. Gen Z Evan looked at us with raised eyebrows and a bemused expression: “TV tube?” Scott tried to explain a TV tube, becoming more and more professorial while attempting to describe the ancient technology behind a TV set with glass tubes that could be removed and taken to the local hardware store for testing and/or replacement. Realizing that Gen Z Evan’s eyes had glassed over, Scott stopped. “It was way before your time”, he said, and further, that we well understood the rapid advancement of technology that took place before his life began. He stood decorously, somewhat miffed apparently, chin up and allowed as to how he was in his 30s and fully cognizant of today's technical workings. We nodded agreeably and stoically, silently wondering, could we even begin to describe the purpose of rabbit ears or the lack of a remote; when a person actually had to rise up from the sofa and manually change the channel, one of four, not 400. No. We gave up, stayed silent, work done, salutations all around, door closed and after he left, we laughed ourselves silly.
