It shrieks. It shouts. It emits high-pitched screams that’ll curdle your blood and make your ears bleed.
You’re not at a haunted mansion on Halloween. But at the cafe down the street!
Every day is Halloween in the United States of America! Inconsiderate self-absorbed parents and mannerless kids are allowed to roam the streets and fill public spaces without license.
They’re free to wreck havoc on furniture, introduce mayhem to once-serene places and run amok under the adoring eyes of parents, grandparents and their friends.
‘Tis a world gone mad! An asylum run by the inmates! A generation of babies and youths pampered and spoiled and given everything they could possibly need and want — to excess. With never having learned to lift a finger or, sadder still, the value of working for anything.
Work is its own reward. And a dying — speaking of Halloween — art.
In these social horrors that surround us all in America, I’ve one body to thank. Without Pandora, I would not remain the sane person I am!
You see, many is the occasion when, like tonight, a child’s boundless shrieks have ricocheted off walls of a cafe, pierced my ears and caused aural hemorrhage.
Too, many is the occasion when I’ve looked point-blank at the parents in the eye. And they do nothing but continue bathing their out-of-control noisy creatures in adoring light.
Last but not least, many is the occasion when I’ve hastened through a meal or coffee, packed up the laptop early and bolted, with one last glare shot their way. But they very rarely notice. If they happen to, they don’t care.
Then sometimes, bridled by desire to finish up some project on the laptop, I plug in the lil’ earbuds that pair with my iPhone, load up Pandora, crank the volume to full and partially — only partially — drown out the monster and permissive “parents.”
A Band-Aid solution to what ails our society? Sure it is.
Yet as Halloween reminds of the monsters and the angels treading upon and encircling our Earth, too a visit to a public eatery.
The monsters be the little brats, bigger those who spawned them. And Pandora be the angel. Holy goons and ghouls, Batman! We live in a decrepit decaying society!
There’s one silver lining in the cloud. Always is. Blessed be that we not be vampires condemned to an eternal earthly existence.
Now THAT’d be a Halloweenish terrifying nightmare surpassing all indeed!
Allelujah, Arizona! 