You ever wonder what your grade school YOU would think about your ADULT you?

If not, lucky you, because I did the other day… And, it was unpleasant if I was completely honest with myself and maybe not for the reasons you would think.

So, sure, hindsight is 20/20 right? But, if we are honest with ourselves, I think we might look back and realize that we may have gone so far the other way from our grade school selves that we are unrecognizable. In my head, my grade school self had a full overview of everything I’ve done since becoming an adult, and this is how my conversation went with my grade school self…

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Child me from the 80s vs Adult me from 2024

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Adult: “Holy crap! This is nuts, how you doing, little buddy!”

Child: “Better than you…! What’d you do!”

Adult: “Well that escalated quickly… Calm down kid, what are you talking about!?”

Child: “I ain’t gonna calm down, and I ain’t your kid… I’M YOU!”

Adult: “Yeah Yeah Yeah, right… What’s your problem, Chief!?”

Child: “Well played… but what are you doing cowering to everyone, not saying what you really think, just generally being a sis!

Adult: “YOU WANNA GO LITTLE MAN!!!” “Sounds like you’re little mouth is writing checks your body cant cash!”

Child: “What? That’s stupid, I don’t get it…”

Adult: “Oh yeah, you don’t know what a check is… Regardless, get to it little man”

Child: “Well, I don’t think we will have enough time to go through it all, but , why don’t I just start with last Tuesday huh?

Adult: “What?”

Child: “You know, that dude at your work that said he was a cat? Demanded a litter box in the bathrooms, and cat naps throughout the day. Don’t think I didn’t see you laugh, but then the guy got ticked off. You cowered down, backed up, and began to agree with him, this dude was serious! And instead of calling the principle and reporting it, you just awkwardly agreed, and I can tell you didn’t agree. I kinda know you a lil bit…”

“Remember when we did that to dad? Well, I do… We were 5yo, and dad went along with it for a bit, even looked like he was having fun with it. Every answer was a meow, but then he told us it was time for a bath, and we started licking our hand getting a “bath”… Ha, good times. Dad laughed and said

Dad: “Now, seriously, its time to get a bath, then its bed time”

Child: “Remember, we meow’d again and switched hands… Dad got that look and his voice went down a level, and said

Dad: “Thats enough, It’s time to get a bath and get ready for bed… Now…!

Child: “Remember what we did?”

Adult: “I really don’t buddy”

Child: “Yeah, we answered dad, yes sir, then we got a bath and got ready for bed… game over.”

Adult: “I imagine so… That’s nuts, I don’t remember that at all.”

Child: “Yeah, I bet you don’t. With all that crap in your head now…”

Adult: “Alright, Alright, I get it, but you don’t understand how it is now, a lot has happened since I was you…”

Child: “Apparently… So, you’re telling me, when I get stupid old like you, I can be a race car? I remember telling dad when we were 4yo”, “I want to be a race car when I grow up…” “He just laughed and said… You remember?”

Adult: “Not even a little”

Child: “He said, that’s ridiculous buddy, you cant be a race car when you grow up… Jokes on dad though right?! Apparently we can!!!”

Adult: “No, that’s not how it works chief… Its completely different…”

Child: “The heck it is! Bro… Dude can be a cat, we can be a car! Its only 1 letter different even!!!”

Adult: “I get it, but its completely different…”

Child: “Oh yeah? How…?

Adult: “So…. Well, the thing about it is…. Like, its like this…. Ummm….

Child: “T… T… T… Today junior!

Adult: “Enough! You just wouldn’t understand!

Child: ” Calm your jets nerd… I’m just playing with your beans, don’t get all stalk…”

Adult: “What?? What is wrong with you! Me… Us… or something…

Child: “No, WHATS WRONG WITH YOU! There is no “US” anymore, you’re stupid, and I don’t have to claim you! Do you even hear yourself?!” “b… b… but i… its completely d… d… different…” “ya big sis… You of all people know, I’m not stupid.” the statement “You wouldn’t understand” “means the one saying it really doesn’t understand, or they don’t want to be embarrassed, so they wont explain it and loose the argument… So go ahead and take your ball and go home, CHIEF!”

Adult: “I don’t remember being so obnoxious when I was your age…”

Child: “It’s okay…” “You Wouldn’t Understand!” “Heh, got em’!”

Adult: “Alright! The deal is, if you call it out for the ridiculousness it is, you will be labeled and possibly even canceled!”

Child: “Canceled? Like killed?”

Adult: “Noooo… you are so irritating… Like they put you on public blast and you get “shamed”, social media shunned, publicly shunned, and so on…”

Child: “First off, what exactly is social media? Second, “shamed”? Who cares?! So crazy cat guy shames you, what do you care? Dudes nuts…!

Adult: “It’s not like that, its not just that dude, its a whole lot of people… The label you things”

Child: “What, like call you names? Cause I got called a turd on Monday… Dude, get over it, seriously…

Adult: “Its not like that, its much worse… More like a Racist, Bigot, Xenophobe, well all the phobes…

Child: “Not sure what those are, but bro, a turd is much worse, seriously… You know what a turd is, don’t you?”

Adult: “Yeah, I do”

Child: “Poop… Its poop…

Adult: “Yeah, I got that…”

Child: “So, get over it and stop screwing up our lives!”

Adult: “I wish it were that easy buddy, Its everyone falling in this trap, no matter where you step, you fall in…”

Child: “No friggin’ way! There are more sissy’s out there like you?! It cant be, this cant be happening! Does Mrs. Brown feel the same?

Adult: “What?! Who is Miss Brown?”

Child: “Oh Lord, don’t tell me you screwed that up too!!! Mrs. Brown… 5th grade?!”

Adult: “Holy crap! Miss Brown! Dang that’s been a minute… She was quite something right?”

Child: “Yeah, something hot!… gimme some knucks on that! So, how long have we been married… Was it when we started 5th grade, or did we wait til’ after so she could dump her husband?

Adult: “HA… Sorry buddy, it was probably the family and 2 kids she had with her husband… But, it could be possible, that it was the slight age difference…”

Child: “So you grow me up to be a sis with no game?!!! I cant believe this, I just cant believe this!”

Adult: “Buddy, believe me, this is not all my fault. Infact, I am a casualty of war at best. I’m not going too begin to get into the ridiculousness that is going on right now. “Being” a cat is the least of it. Trust me…”

Child: “So, does this work like Terminator? Can I kill you and then go through and fix this?

Adult: “Look at me… Focus…”

Child: “Yeah.. Yeah… Okay. So I don’t want to grow up for this. I’ll just open my own business so I don’t have to deal with this crap… I got this!”

Adult: “Weeeelllll… Thing is, they will seek you and your business out and take you down if you don’t bend the knee to their every whim. And when you don’t bend the knee, you will be rendered irrelevant. None of this will matter though, because 2019 marked the death of the small business anyway…”

Child: “I’ll never bend a knee, ever…”

Adult: “You know buddy, the more I talk to you, the more I agree… But sadly, not much we can do about it. Too many people wont stand up, and just fall in line… You are right, but it may be too far gone. You wont understand how messed up it is until you get here.”

Child: “Wait… Did you say 2019 was the death of small business.”

Adult: “Yeah buddy, the government killed small business among many things by shutting down the country and quarantining all of the public to their homes…

Child: “Oh man, so they did drop the nuke then…”

Adult: “No, no… It was like a really rough flu called covid 19, and without knowing anything about it they just shut down the country and everyone’s immune systems went to nothing. Now we have all kinds of problems from it and we only know the surface effects from the, so called “vaccine”. Good news though, all your tax dollars will go to the big pharmaceutical companies that jammed them out, and we are supposed to praise them for that. Not to be confused with the same pharmaceutical companies for creating and jamming out narcotics that we hate them for, I think. Its hard to know what we are supposed to love and hate anymore… The whole thing is a mess…”

Child: “I’m not sure I understand much of that… But, when I get the flu, I just take some meds and sleep it off.”

Adult: “Yeah, I know buddy. Well, there is no money to pad the lobbyist and politicians pockets with that. I’m sorry for that, society and government have failed all of you, and by you, I mean our grade school versions of all of us. If it gives you a rough idea, we live in a rougher nightmare than Biff Tannen’s version of Hill Valley (Back to the Future II if you need the reference)…”

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I had to watch the vision I had created in my head of my conversation with me, slowly fade away at that point…

When I thought about it, it was kind of depressing, but even more, embarrassing, how much different a perspective could be from grade school me. Even though it is all in my head, much like Dumbledore told Harry, just because its in your head, doesn’t mean its not real…

I think if many of us could think from the perspective of our jr versions, they would probably brow beat us for being so childish. Everything done for attention, money, or the pursuit of “fun” at all cost. Oddly turning everyone into angry, depressed, robots… At what point did the term “the adult in the room” become this guy:

Hell, my grade school me was more grounded than our society is right now… Childish things that my 8yo self put behind him and grew out of as childish, are being reborn, even worse embraced or at a bare minimum shamed into being reality! The power and control that has been relinquished screaming few is embarrassing. What happened to just get out of my way and let me handle me, you can handle you, I don’t need your help and you don’t need my approval. We will go on about our lives and enjoy them.

My biggest regret is believing that common sense will prevail as it has in the past. Because, common sense seems to effectively been irradicated… Well, that, and not taking that chance with Mrs. Brown… 22 years my senior but you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

If you’re out there Mrs. Brown, my 8yo self says