2022 #1

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“I don’t either.”

That’s the thing about us. We don’t need to say it in order to make it known. They recently started calling us the “Sandwich Generation.” Why would we be known for sandwiches? We made fun of the McRib even when we might have reminisced about the Happy Meals. Did anyone (*I love my friends in Texas) even taste it? I mean, we smoked a lot of pot and ordered Domino’s or Pizza Hut. But those aren’t sandwiches.

Crunch Berries. Also not sandwiches.

Quiznos came later.

Subway, I guess? The hot peppers on the turkey? I mean, yes, we ate Subway, but it hardly defined our generation.

I learned that the “Sandwich Generation” was a term coined by out of touch pandemic newspeople who all forgot that we’re called Generation X.

They meant that we are “sandwiched” between taking care of our elderly parents and raising our kids in this shit hole of a pandemic.

Period.

Us Gen X’ers; we don’t have room for exclamation marks (except for in emails in which we actively make fun of others in our own heads by letting them think we’re enthusiastic about what they are saying). *We are enthusiastic about nothing and never have been.

“I can’t wait for the Sales Meeting in Tampa!”

“Let’s grab a coffee soon!”

“Your kid is THE CUTEST!”

The only thing that has changed is our obligation to write back, including the explanation point, and all of the adulting. I don’t know who made up the word “adulting,” and I assume it was a Millennial, because that group is so introspectively judgmental and obsessed with feedback, that one of those little well-groomed geniuses decided to turn the word “adult” into a verb. It certainly makes it less scary. One can engage in “adulting” on the weekend without actually being an adult.

Unfortunately, it’s not a verb.