Ponder this: can you legally text your eulogy while in a self-driving car? Will my vehicle’s undercoating really work as promised? Are we alone in the universe or are there beings out there who are a lot smarter than us but are just holding back before we finally decimate our planet so they can re-organize it into some Daliesque art form and enter Earth into a galactic beauty contest?
These are the questions we ask ourselves as we try to get a handle on the ever-growing speed bumps that distinguish our lives today.
Trigger warning!! If you do not wish to see how marsupials drool when excited, do not read further! Also, in this movie, there will be scenes with teens rioting against the meat loaf served in their cafeteria.
Thank goodness we’ve got warnings for life. How would we survive the inequities if someone out there didn’t warn us about something? Since becoming sensitive to almost anything anywhere, we’ve now got to protect ourselves against ourselves. When did we start to desensitize about every little bump in the road?
Did it start with that ‘Baby on Board’ sign which ‘warned’ other drivers you have a child in your car? We don’t care who’s in your car and that’s why we’re driving the way we do. Why you would take a child out in this traffic is beyond me. We’ll only care when that child distracts the driver more than their cell phone or lunch at 75 miles an hour, and even then….. Social media makes it easy to dis any number of situations from the comfort of your own basement or vehicle.
Movie ratings have been warning us to their content, but lately there are some strange warnings on the silver screen.
Movie Ratings: G: General audiences – All ages admitted unless they’re triggered by anything with hair that moves furtively: Rated PG: Parental guidance suggested – Some material may not be suitable for your children unless you wish to scare them straight. Anyone else’s children should not be bothered. Rated PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned, unless they want to mentally scar their children – Some material may be inappropriate for under 13’s, but suddenly and without warning, when they turn 14 everything is on the table! Rated R: Restricted – Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian who will be on their phone throughout the movie and not get all the life draining nuances in the presentation.
When you finally get to see the movie, there are indications you’ll want to be aware of, like ‘mild violence’. Can’t make this stuff up! Violence is violence. Mild violence would be yelling at the dog for peeing on the carpet. That’s not something that would prevent a movie visit. Mild violence means there will be occasional gory moments permitted, provided they are justified by context and not prolonged or detailed, so when the vampire is about to get the stake driven through their heart, it should only take one, maybe two thrusts to accomplish, instead of the gore that could ensue when one gets sloppy with the thrusting including spittle drooling from any participant.
Then there’s the food pyramid, which warns us not to eat all the foods we love, warning us about over-doing foods that are allegedly not good for us. Don’t worry about fatty foods, just buy the ‘puffed’ version with almost one calorie, no taste and plenty of air. Let’s face it, the money America spends on snacks in one week could balance the budget and have enough left over to buy every man woman and child a health club membership, of which they would almost never take advantage.
Closer to home, didn’t our mothers tell us to eat all the food on our plate or she would send it to children who didn’t have as much? Of course, it was a lot less expensive to ship Brussels sprout goulash to a goulash free country back then.
