"21st Century Blues"

     “21st Century Blues”                     

 by Terry Stolz

Dear Son,

 It seems like it was just yesterday, maybe not? My memory isn’t what it used to be. I spoke with my doctor… no I spoke with my butcher, Oh Hell! It doesn’t matter who he was. What does matter, he suggested I get a job to keep myself active. I had enough activity on Saturday to last me a lifetime. I accidently rolled out of my bed onto the floor during nap-time. I looked like a beached beluga whale in paisley pajamas. It took two orderlies to get me back in bed. I don’t know how many old farts Walmart can afford to hire. You know I have been 70 years old for several years now.

It has been decades since I was a member of the workforce. The landscape of the corporate world has changed so much. Over the years, I have re-invented myself several times, always utilizing traditional methods to get the job done, but Tradition has been exiled to the Theatre in the Round.

           Technology with all of its’ newfangled contraptions is the driving force in society today! Never before have changes occurred with such frequency and influenced by trends that are as fluid as a Kohler Super Flush toilet.

 Joe my doctor... butcher arranged an appointment for a job interview for me at the Blue Tooth Company where his son works part-time. I couldn’t help from thinking, “Blue Tooth?” What will be the next self-defacing act the youth of today will inflict upon themselves? When you consider the body piercings, the twelve inch Mohawks, hairdos dyed pink, blue or slime-lime, Why not blue teeth?

Joe told me that I should fill out the application Online before I go to the appointment. My meeting was scheduled for 9:00am… I was so excited to get an opportunity to get out amongst the workforce again. I arrived an hour early. Old habits are hard to break. Remember when I gave you your birthday present for your 6th birthday a week early? Your mom was so upset with me. It wasn’t bad enough that I had the date wrong… You were only going be 5 years old.

           I was thrilled that no one else had arrived yet. You know how I hate standing in crowded lines. I had my best suit on, wearing my favorite tie from last year’s Father’s Day, Tweety-Bird really popped against the navy-blue background of my silk tie. I had my Day-Timer, my resume and a calculator clutched in my hand waiting outside the office ready to fill out the employment application, “On-line.”

I had started perspiring from the angst of worrying about, where were the other people? I was spritzing like a seltzer bottle at a nightclub on Saturday night.” No one was standing on-line, but me!” People had been walking past me for forty-five minutes. Not one individual stopped to join me. It was bizarre how many people talk to them- selves today. I had not noticed before that morning how many people wore hearing aids. 

“The poor souls must have lost their hearing due to a measles’ epidemic.”

 Nine o’clock was approaching, but I was apparently the only one who got the memo about the job interview and the instructions to fill out the application on-line.

I tried asking three, or was it four passer-byes for assistance, but they were engrossed in moving their thumbs up and down like the needle on Grandma’s Singer Sewing Machine.

One gentleman… I use the term “gentleman” loosely, stopped long enough to give me direction… “You crazy ole fool! Can’t you see I’m on the phone? Go back to the home!”

To this day I still don’t know what he was talking about. What phone? I remained on-line for a while longer. I kept on hearing what that young man said to me, “Go back to the home.” I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head. I watched a new world pass me by, there were cargo shorts displaying the words across the backside, Kiss my Ass, hair colors of the rainbow, 3D tattoos of Betty White, and thumbs the size of xylophone mallets, individuals who seemed perfectly contented to be moving about aimlessly in their own worlds of solitude.

Frustrated and disappointed I thrusted my hands above my head, palms to the sky, thinking to myself, “What has this world come to?”

Son, I thought I would write you to let you know I have decided to retire.

Love,

Pop.