What am I going to do when I run out of old men? in anticlimatic

I know I say this like once a week, but I just can’t with my own generation.

Millennials, to me, are a people largely broken- mentally, spiritually, emotionally- yet they have great taste in things. They appreciate the arts, science fiction, nature, gentle things, cultural history (to an extent), healthy living, civic duty, etc.

So while things that I enjoy are suddenly popular, and therefore less under threat of extinction, they are also suddenly popular, and therefore overrun with the same mentally, spiritually, and emotionally broken individuals that love them like I do. Not that they’re at all obnoxious in large numbers like other generations (looking at you, Woodstock 99 crowd), but the large numbers alone can ruin a vibe and an aesthetic, and ironically many such vibes and aesthetics of the millennial culture hinge on an element of solitude. Solitude that is never found on these overrun hiking trails with lines to scenic vistas.

If only they had some balls. Some audacity to them. Instead they mostly seem captivated by anxiety, chasing other people’s novel ideas without any of their own, falling over themselves to conform to a collective while hyper fixating on a repressed “genuine self” as though the concept of having your own thoughts and opinions is some kind of spiritual ascension that is borderline impossible.

Today I had to put a not-very-large but too-large-for-one-person-to-move ice maker into winter storage. This thing sits outside at this golf club I have as a client, and every winter we move it 10 feet into a heated office where it can be protected from the sub zero temperatures. It’s awkwardly heavy, with the weight primarily in the rear, and to withdraw it from its normal mount requires lifting it at least a few inches straight up, so the legs can clear a lip.

Normally I do this with Rebecca, the manager of the club, who is close to 6’ tall and has massive guns- but she found a “man” to help me instead, and he was a completely useless twat. Poor attitude. Couldn’t lift the unit high enough to clear the lip, so his leg kept catching on it, turning the entire fairly straightforward exercise into a massive exercise of patience AND arm strength for yours truly. Rebecca looked on, I presume, with disappointment, and eventually had to take over for him. He sulked off.

Ten minutes later and I was pouring a cup of coffee at a gas station while an old dude in his 70s was operating on the soda machine. He had parts stacked up on the ledge where you would normally place your cup before pushing the button, and as he reached for something he brushed something else- sending it rolling for the edge. He stopped that, but then caused another slide- and a large clear hose that was on top of the parts starting rolling off- just as both of his hands were full with other falling parts.

I caught it for him and stabilized his parts. He didn’t even know I was standing there.

“Parts are running away from you…” I grinned as he looked at me.
“Oh, they can’t get too far…” He chuckled back. And went back at it.