Olde Tyme Games Take Children Back to Simpler, Lamer Times

You know, I used to actually enjoy reading the "Fashion and Style" section of the NY Times. Not only was it a way to get my Louis Vuitton/Marc Jacobs/Van Cleef and Arpels advertisement fix, but I could scan through some stupid photo montage of people in the city who were sporting the color mauve that week and not look completely illiterate and uncultured in public*

But what is with the rash of completely idiotic articles lately? Take for example, this little gem.

It's all about how kids are regaining interest in retro games! How quaint. But seriously, the only time I want to read about kids and marbles in the newspaper is if it's an article about how some 8 year old shoved two glassies up his nose and the totally crazy emergency surgical procedure that followed.

The article goes on to talk about the resurgance of games like hopscotch and red rover. Correct me if i'm wrong, but hasn't every game of red rover pretty much ended with at least three broken wrists and a block-wide gang war in which that one asshole kid from the house two doors down fills his super soaker with red kool-aid and totally ruins your favorite Garbage-Pail kids t-shirt? I'm sorry, but that's not the kind of values I would want to teach my children.

But the icing on the cake is how oblivious the parents are to the fact that they are setting their little rugrats up for years, nay decades of mockery and abuse. Take Corey Abate Shen, who taught her twin sons and their friends to "leap through hopscotch courts [and] shimmy in hula hoops". Whoa, whoa whoa. All I can say is, these kids have a one way ticket for the social pariah express, and that thing ain't making any stops on the way. I mean, shimmy-ing? You might as well tell them it's totally cool to wear socks and sandals and eat tomato sandwiches for lunch every day.**

So really what I want to do is to send a word of warning to today's kids: Be careful, because some day soon your parents may subject you to a game of stickball. If this happens, run as fast as you can to the nearest Best Buy and play a round of Fight Night on one of those giant flat screens they have set up there. Thank you.

*Usually when I am in possesion of a NY times in public it is when I am horribly hungover and the raging headache and double vision prevent me from doing anything really but rustling the pages to make it look like i'm actually reading.
**there was a kid in my elementary school who did this all the time, and trust me, he had NO friends.