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Watch your words
Don’t wait for the world to change
by Regan White
regan@thecharlotteweekly.com
Since it is spring, I wanted to make this column about good things – all raves and no rants. But like the fickle fluctuations in the weather, I could not pull myself away from ranting – just a teensy bit. I promise some glowing raves in the future; I just had to get a couple things off my chest.
Waiting on change
I’d be remiss if I didn’t address John Mayer and his recent hit “Waiting on the World to Change.” It has been out for a while and the longer it’s on the charts and the airwaves, the more aggravated it makes me. For those unfamiliar with the song, here are some lyrics.
Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could.
Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it.
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it.
So we keep waiting,
Waiting on the world to change.
We keep on waiting,
Waiting on the world to change.
It’s hard to beat the system
When you’re standing at a distance.
So we keep waiting,
Waiting on the world to change.
Aside from the blatant Southern construction of “waiting on” something, a touch which makes the song catchy and casual, Mayer should be ashamed. I get it. It’s difficult to feel that you can make any change in the world. You’re not happy with the current administration and you want the war to end but you don’t feel you have the means to do anything about it.
Do it yourself
That doesn’t mean you rest on your laurels and wait for the world to change, buddy. Do you want to know why everyone says you, your friends and our 20-something generation stand for nothing? It’s because you’re waiting for the world to change instead of making some change yourself.
It would be one thing if Mayer were 10 or even 15 years old. But he turns 30 this October. Come on, man! Step up; make some change, Mr. Mayer. Do something more than pen a little ditty about how you’re waiting around for things to change so you can take action.
What gets me even more steamed is that the song is so soulful and swingy that I find myself singing along in my car until I realize that I’m singing about feeling apathetic and I change the channel. Sure, I feel powerless at times. Yes, I get discouraged that I’m not effecting great change in the world. But does that mean I give up? No. The great don’t sit around and wait.
I thought this was something Mayer understood. Then again, the generally creative, tongue-in-cheek crooner is now dating the decidedly vapid Jessica Simpson. I’m sure their conversation is stimulating while they sit and wait for the world to change.
The Great Mulching
I was buying bags of mulch this weekend for a Mother’s Day tradition. As part of the thanks I show my mother every year for carrying me around for nine months, enduring a 72-hour labor before an emergency C-section, raising, pampering and generally putting up with me, I help spread lots and lots of mulch. Last Mother’s Day found me making a trip to Lowe’s in the family minivan picking up a back-breaking load of hardwood nuggets. This year we started early. Thirty-two cubic feet down – countless more to go.
The endeavor never fails to remind me of the quandary that confronts every independent, self-sufficient woman visiting any hardware store. You know what I’m talking about, ladies. You’re cruising through the lumber area at Lowe’s, proud you’re even cruising through the lumber area. You pile a whole mess of two-by-fours on your cart and glare down the aisle at the guys who work there who are comparing their lumbar-support belts. You think, “I don’t need their help, but it would be nice if they asked!”
This is something that my mom, when she comes along on the mulch-buying extravaganzas, now shrieks just loudly enough for employees to hear over the blare of their iPods. They shrug and it riles up my mom even more. “Would it kill them to just ask if we need help?” she mutters. “It is their job!”
Ah, the catch-22s of being a woman – wanting to appear self-sufficient but still wanting help offered because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do even if, as an independent woman, you’re bound to reject any help that is offered. Such is a dance most men don’t even try to understand. Trust me guys, just offer to help with the mulch. We’ll say no, but we’ll appreciate it. Or at least Mama White will.
No luck, no good
But I’m getting off topic. What really had me ranting this weekend was seeing a mom and her four children in the garden section. What would have been an idyllic scene of family bonding was broken by the shirt her son was wearing. He might have been 12 years old (and that’s stretching it) and was wearing a green shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch that read “I’m not lucky, I’m good.”
Sure the T-shirt could mean many things – he’s great at sports, good at school work. However, given the company’s ads, which feature barely dressed tweens and 20- somethings rubbing up against each other, it’s no stretch to imagine A&F is hinting at luck of a different kind.
A quick stop at Abercrombiekids.com reveals that this T-shirt is part of a collection that features sayings such as “I’m not allowed to date unless you’re hot” and “School is for learning how 2 pick up girls.”
But these are literally child’s play when compared with the “grown-up” Abercrombie.com site that features “humor tees” that read “I’ll make you an All Star on the walk of shame” and “I’m a nice guy, I’ll finish last.”
What mother lets her 12-year-old son walk around with a shirt like that? And while the shirt I saw was not offensive, that kid is only a few years and a couple racks away from graduating to a shirt that brings sexy back with all of the suave, understated verbiage of frat boys everywhere.
It’s one thing if your son goes off to college and nabs himself some trash-talking T-shirts, and you, as his mother, threaten to burn them if he wears them in your presence. It’s another thing entirely when he lives under your roof and you purchase the ratty tee with an even rattier message for him.
But who am I to speak of such things? I guess I’m just waiting on the world to change.
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