The world is changing. The country is changing. The economy is changing. The dress code is changing. The civility is changing. Patriotism is changing. Sex is changing. Sometimes now it’s even between a man and a woman.
My mom wouldn’t have understood e-mail. Her mom wouldn’t have understood the iPad. Great grandma wouldn’t have understood 3-D movies. My great great-grandmum, having blown her top-deck king-size stateroom suite on the Mayflower and floating here on some raft from a shtetl in Russia, wouldn’t have understood television. And Marco Polo’s mommy? She’d have understood Lady Gaga??
Marriage? Unless it’s to get on “Bridezilla,” who bothers anymore?? Alone, stoking this ancient custom’s dying embers, are wedding planners. Until they find another way to make a living — besides becoming Verizon repairmen, whose specialty is ignoring complaints — nobody would get married. Only gays.
Electronics. Everyone’s messaging. Texting. IMing. Punch in Dial-a-Prayer and scrolling across your screen is: “Leave name and number. And pray we call you back.”
Take names. Infants are christened Moses, Apple, Lalletheta, Windcrest, Hofstra, Bongshtrudel. Mary? Jane? Kate? Tom? Sam? Dan? Forget it. Gone. Moms hang out the window and shout after their kids: “Montezuma-John, come inside with your sister Fragilista Hoohah.”
Go to a restaurant — if you can still afford it — eat farm-grown radicchio, heirloom tomatoes, soy milk, shiitake mushrooms, organic chick peas, vegan soup, no whey/no gluten/no salt/no starch/no flour/no pesticide/no MSG/no taste bread that chews like linen.
Drizzle your salad with 100 percent pure handmade olive oil squeezed with Purell-washed antiseptic fingers. Order Buffalo mozzarella. Always Buffalo mozzarella. Where live these bison who donate our melted cheese sandwiches, I don’t know.
Air travel. No food. No courtesy. No tickets. No skycaps. No stationary seats. No on-time schedules. Free schlep-on hand luggage only if you’re lucky. No deplaning when takeoff’s 10 hours delayed. No sane stewardii or pilots. The only fun part is the TSA pat-down, which lasts just long enough for buddies to shop in your luggage.
Ladies wear suspenders. Guys do earrings. Ladies wear ties. Guys do girdles. A cougar has an affair, and afterward the gent’s trying on things in her closet. I have nothing against cougars. Many put young dudes through med school — but a teething ring instead of a stethoscope? She’s wearing a bridal gown, he’s trying on Pampers?
One fellow dated a girl named Phyllis. She sported a fake fur. An exploratory session later he discovered it was really Phil. A fake her.
Somebody smiles? Implants. Hair ruffles in the breeze? Wig. Smooth cheeks? Botox. Her boobs heave with emotion? Fake. Silicone. His manliness heaves with desire? Fake. Viagra. Eyelashes. False. Fingernails have extensions. Eyeballs have lenses. Eyebrows have tint. Skinny stomach? Spanx. Chunky behind? Fat injections. Diamond engagement ring? Lotsa luck. A Spinel.
Flash a Vuitton bag? Oh, please. Canal Street. Serve couscous and hummus? Whole Foods. Crash a party in Chanel? Resale vintage. Crazy about George Clooney? Wait a few minutes, he’ll get to you. Hot for Alex Rodriguez? Wait a few minutes, he won’t remember you.
Take a scholastic test. Cheat. Have a devoted relationship? Cheat.
Didn’t our planet used to have a Middle East? Didn’t our nation previously have a standing? Didn’t our refrigerators abide by their warranty? Wasn’t there a semi-honorable profession called “contractor”?
Nothing except for CNN and Christie Brinkley peeing on that ex-husband stay the same. Alaska’s melting. Glaciers are becoming ice cubes. A tsunami’s replacing a tuna. Landlords demand such high rents, 57th Street is as barren as the Gobi. The lone productive thing is that, with kids being fat, schools are replacing delicious sugary yummy creamy cholesterol-logged crullers with tasty radishes.
Talk about TV’s new reality rialto. Close-ups of Kim Kardashian’s krotch? Dance shows, song shows, cooking shows that specialize in morning sickness, dating shows, fat shows, game shows. Non-journalist anchors with long straight yellow hair — fresh out of low-paying Iowa mud holes — mispronouncing every place but Main Street? To them, Roosevelt means an avenue in Queens.
A new profession is not unemployment. It’s robbing. Home-furnishing stores sell door stickers that say: “We gave at the office.” Ex-husbands no longer send alimony checks. Electronics suck it from their online banking. Doctors once cared. In 2012, after feeling a patient’s purse, the diagnosis is: “Nothing we can do.”
Demonstrations once meant department store cosmeticians shpritzing fragrance as customers negotiated the ground floor. Now every place has demonstrations. Riots. Fights. Marches. Signs. Cops. Mace. Pepper spray. Everywhere they’re picketing. College kids are all demonstrating. Learning science? No. Training to become mothers-in-law? Yes.
Ol’ Man River is probably now a creek.