Scrooged!

This is going to be a bad one. You've been warned.

A few days ago, October 25th, 2008, would have marked my ten year anniversary with my late fiancee'. Hah! No, she's not dead (that I know of, although the girl I knew ten years ago died a slow and painful metaphoric death around 2003). I just thought I'd shock everyone.

Anyway, point is, we would have been together ten years the other day, and I would probably have been married with children, and possibly even divorced with children by now. Or worse, living in a quiet house in the suburbs, commuting an hour or so into work on the train, eating dinner every night with my wife and kids and dogs and cats, getting old and fat and watching prime-time soaps that we TiVo'd from the week before. Sound familiar to anyone? I'm sure it would have turned out something like that, anyway. Whew! I narrowly avoided that fate five years ago, and I feel like I've lived an entire life in those five years. Ah, good times.

That was the life that the Ghost of Christmas Future would have shown me were I Scrooge. It's a life I see many people living every day. I think, if I were Scrooge, and I saw that life, I would not suddenly become a caring, giving person. I would run out and get a vasectomy as my gift to everyone. Peace on Earth, in other words.

Please, don't be offended. Have your kids, and love and cherish them for the rest of your life. But don't yell at me if I look at you with the same pity that most people reserve for me. You may think my life is sad and barren, but I look at your life and think to myself, "My God. If I had to be like that for one day, I might go insane."

Before you think I'm just a bitter asshole, think of it like this; in the 50's and early 60's (or in other words, on Mad Men), women were simply baby factories, put here so men could breed, or have affairs with, and cook and clean and take care of the children. Women working in offices or doing much of anything else were looked at as really strange people, or at the very least hussies, (if they were having sex out of wedlock, that is). That was less than 50 years ago. Is it irrational to think that in another 50 years or so, people's philosophy will change again and we will produce less children? I believe at least the smart ones will continue to put it off, if for no other reason than the simple fact that the planet can't hold all these new people.

See, let me again quote the great Heath Ledger as The Joker: "I'm not really crazy. I'm just ahead of the curve."