This country sucks. I saw a microcosm of it all one Saturday last Spring while on hiatus.
I needed a fishing license renewed. Of course, the old Army-Navy stores are now as obsolete as the hula-hoop. Any small entrepreneurs left in the sporting goods business were crushed by an orchestrated shutdown.
So, I had to go to a big box chain who peddles Chinese garbage; should have been simple enough.
I had last year’s license. All I had to do was hand it to the clerk, let him load the same pedigree info into some machine and I would be on my way for like 35 bucks.
I walk through the checkout maze and see all this peculiar stuff for a place that is supposed to target active people and athletes for sale. Why does a guy buying dumbbells need a Twix?
I pay at the register, then find out a simple in-and-out it was not to be. The clerk couldn’t get the machine to spit the license out.
I wasn’t in a rush, so I went off to the side while he and his coworkers tried to fix the machine. As I stand off to the side, I watch the other customers pay for their goods.
It was April, so I am seeing a lot of people buying their kids baseball equipment. I am seeing what they are buying.
They must be spending a fortune. When I played little league, I think the fee was like $20-$30.
You needed your own glove (1-2 would cover your entire career), cleats, undershirt to match your uniform and sanitary socks, aka the white socks that went under your stirrups (remember those?).
Some kids had their own bat (which most were willing to share), but there was also a bag full of bats and another bag of batting helmets and catcher’s equipment. It probably cost less than $75 per year to play a minimum of 20 little league games and it was a blast.
Now these kids buy their own helmet because Johnny didn’t take a poison shot and the other kid’s parents don’t want their kid to share the same sweaty helmet with him before their poisoned kid goes for his 5th grade sex change.
So now instead of $75 per year, the trip to Xi’s Sporting Goods probably costs Dad about $300. Then as the kids pass through the impulse purchase items by the register, they order pop to buy them a 5lb tub of bubble gum.
When I was a kid, I would never even consider asking for a thing when my parents were buying me a pair of sneakers, or jeans, or a toy, or whatever. So now we are up to $325. You figure another couple hundred in league fees.
If the kid is any good, he is in at least 2 leagues, so we are looking at a cool G for the season. Youth sports dominate the family dynamic so much now that a family dinner is out-of-the-question.
So now almost every kid is on the chubby side. They would be the one fat kid on the team (who was only slightly overweight by today’s standards) when I was that age. But hey, what do you expect when you live on takeout rather than home cooking?
So now a half hour goes by before the 3 clerks playing with the machine come to tell me they cannot process my fishing license. Even though the clerks look like their intake of soy, porn and video games are far too high, they are nice enough guys.
I realize it is not their fault, but that of the communist blue hellhole government that controls my state. So after they graciously apologize, I steal a line from Steve Bannon: hey…elections have consequences. Stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.
They stare at me blankly, likely with visions of the Onlyfans chick they paid $100 to take her top off dancing their heads. In a half hour, I saw just how weak this country is.
Extreme consumerism, incompetence, obesity, low masculinity and the tail wagging the head: that’s America today. This is what we want to provoke serious countries like China and Russia with?
Jesus save us! Talk soon.
-Marksman