The boys say this to me a lot. I’m constantly retorting, I’m not that old! Yes, I had a TV. Yes it was in color.

Brats. #2 was fascinated by a modernized rotary phone Verizon had. And then they saw a record player. Fine, I’m that old that we had both in our house.

There are a few things we did not have that they do now.

When I was a kid, we had tornado drills. Remember those? I remember finding the whole ordeal a waste of time and ludicrous. We live in Chicago. When was the last time we had a tornado? Although I decided that, who knows where I’ll be later on, so it could be useful.

Boys don’t do tornado drills. They have lock down drills. Shooter in the building drills. All schools now do, and I’m having a hard time with that, with the reality of that. Maybe I shouldn’t have complained when I was a kid. Let them do silly tornado drills in a region that doesn’t get them. Much better than the new standard.

The other thing is also entirely new and would never have crossed my mind. My mom mentioned it in passing yesterday- as it happened in our new area- which is supposedly safer and better than Chicago- and yet I hadn’t heard a thing. Someone drilled nails into the bottoms of two slides at a local park. Driving home last night, I had to struggle with the words to tell the boys, to ask them to be mindful of things. This is not the situation where our First Rule of Batman should apply. Not in this manner. Does anyone routinely inspect the slides for nails before allowing their kids to play? Swings? Upon looking up the story in the news for verification, it mentioned another case where a three year old was badly injured from razor blades attached to the monkey bars.

WTH?

How is it that we’re declining in such a way?