Oh, Kids These Days; or Maybe One of Them has a Cold – But Which One?

I thought it was just a rumor, but it’s true.

The rich are different than you and I.

Some of the differences are obvious. The shoes, for example, seem to be of a better quality. The haircuts, too, have a casually coifed, perfectly tousled aspect.

Devil-may-care hair, if you will.

And the food. The food’s definitely better.

It's my experience that the bulk of the wealthy, like us, the working class, walk upright, sometimes two-fist their drinks, and allow their children to play games after dark.

It is Friday night. I am helping the chef clean up/tear down following a graduation party. We tke apart the large portable gas grill, take turns walking the chafing dishes, hot box, tables and other cater-ly accoutrement up the hill.

My love of the heaving, hauling, and hoisting aspect of my job is well-documented.

And all of this gives me time to observe a gaggle of children.

Ten o’clock at night, the adults drunk and frenetically “networking”, this particular pack of children ranges in age from, say, six to eleven.

“I’m gonna karate kick Mark in the chest,” says the biggest one.

Ahh. The karate kick. My brother, King of the Nunchuks, was good at this.

Our favorite childhood after-dark game was Ghosts at Midnight, comprised primarily of us running between the trailers making appropriately ghostly noises and trying to scare each other until an adult threatened to put us in the house.

I wonder if kids still play “Ghosts at Midnight”.

In the failing light, just beyond the lighted tents of laughing, shouting adults, a child shoots by, narrowly missing the cooler-shaped pile of melting ice cubes I have just dumped into the grass.

“Hobos! Hobos!”

Hobos? Is that kid yelling “hobos”? Visions of men in baggy pants, their belongings tied up in a bandanna on the end of a stick balanced on a shoulder, possibly in need of a shave, springs before my eyes.

Hmm. Well that’s certainly different, shouting about hobos. Why, in my day we didn’t concern ourselves with –

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” screams another kid, shooting off into the bushes and out the other side, scaring up flocks of still smaller children. “Homos! Look out! Homos!”

They say that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

That might be true, but still…

I don’t recall playing “Homos at Midnight”.