Hey Mom! Mom, Look At The Monkey In The Cage!

Maybe be rough, haven't done edit work. Just a thought that came to my head as I was typing.

So, you want to know why no one cares about you? Ok, I'll tell you. Let you in on the world-wide social secret. But just to warn you, it may be too formidable an opponent for you to mentally tangle with; it might just send you into a self-aware, self-conscious, self-loathing, self-fearing downward spiral. It's the reason you were broken up with; the reason your boss hates you; the reason the cabby gave you the finger and wouldn't pick you up. It's the essence of why your life is so terrible; exponentially miserable; it's the reason you are so socially unaware of your own ineptness. So, here we go...You. Are. Just. Like. Everyone. Else. There, that simple enough for you. No one likes a carbon copy of the festering filth that infests the earth. All those jocks and cheer-leaders, they hate themselves and spend all their time wishing they were different and that their parents weren't rich and didn't send them to prep schools that they'll flunk out of. All of you, and your Aero-Holli-Finch or whatever the hell kind of store you buy seventy-five dollar t-shirts at, suck. No one likes you, and you don't like yourself, even more than everyone else. The punks and hardcore kids don't like you; the goth kids don't like you; the metalheads despise you; most of all: you hate yourself. In high-school you treat other kids like crap. In college you destroy what few braincells you have trying to "fit in." After college, you work in happy, over perfumed retail stores playing terrible pop music far too loud over the speakers and sell the kids you were clothes that look bad and fit worse. Finally you find another bleach blond, pre-torn jean wearing, sports car driving, unhappy waste of family money and you get joined in oh-so unholy matrimony. From this union, you have several kids who you swear won't grow up the same mind wasting way that your parents so inadequately raised you, only to fair and follow in dear old mom and dad's footsteps. Years later, once the little rascals have milked you for all you're worth in their "search for social acceptance" the same way you did to your parents, you and your spouse will have issues and once you're caught cheating without a high-school sweetheart, your marriage will end in a crushing divorce battle over child custody, finances, real estate, and the ol' Mustang. You'll both grow old, get fat, and melt away into a mental and emotional cesspool of misery and loneliness, constantly wishing you'd chose a better motel to bang out the former prom royalty, or even just kept it in your pants. Maybe, just maybe, both of you will even end up sorry it ended in such a catastrophic way...But, odds are you'll just drink and screw all that into the back of your mind while you remember going to the mall as a fourteen year old and standing there, looking into two different stores -two different futures- where the one on the left is bright and filled with beautiful(ly fake) people, and the one on the right filled with loud aggressive music where kids wearing combat boots and lip rings are decided which Black Flag CD to purchase. And when you're there getting drunk, laid, or high, you'll wish you'd gone against daddy's suggestion, against mother's nagging, against money and beauty and popularity: you'll wish you'd gone into the store on the right, where the kids were scary. You'll wish you loved your life like they might.

So! There it is. You are a copy, a clone, an unbroken mold. You have been, are, and will be: the same as everyone else who wants to fit in. Ouch.

Reviews

[cest la vie]

What to say on this.. Painful to read, important to read and definitely enthralling. My hope is this is fiction, but if not then kudo to you for having the courage to put voice to your thoughts and feelings this way. This kept me interested from start to finish. really a great write!!