Judgemental to Infiniti & Beyond

I know that this post is probably gonna have people calling me a Judgey McJudgerson, but you know what?  I'm gonna let it slide off my shoulders.  Not that I don't care, because I do (okay, not really).  But because this is where I post my thoughts, whether they are right or wrong.  So here goes.

My son got off of the school bus on Friday and we immediately left to go get him a haircut.  What used to be called hair on his head could now be called a mop....or something similar.  Upon pulling into the parking lot, I was waiting for someone to pull out of a parking spot, with my blinker on, when someone pulled in from the opposite direction and slid right into that parking spot.  Okay, so yes....I was pissed that they did that.  Absolutely pissed.  What pissed me off even more was that it was a little Infiniti....what topped THAT off was that it was a little Infiniti driven by a teenage boy, accompanied by one of his friends.  Okay, so you have to give me kudos here, because I didn't curse them out, only because my children were in the car and I try to teach them to use their heads when they are angry and not spout off at the mouth, like mommy does.   You know, do as I say, not do as I do......So, I found another parking spot and brought my son in to get his hair cut.  But I couldn't stop thinking about that jackhole and his little Infiniti in the parking spot I was waiting for.  Then I got to thinking.....why in Sam's Hell was a teenager driving a goshdang Infiniti?

So....I posted a question on my Facebook page, asking, what was the first vehicle that you had to drive when you first started driving.  The answers weren't all that surprising.  Buicks, Hyundais, Dodges, Chevys, Nissans....the list went on and on.  71 comments worth.  There was only one car that I deemed "fancy" that was listed and I only call it fancy because of the type...I don't know the condition of it.  But for the most part, they were all older cars, or cars passed down from parents to kids.  I don't think anyone said that they had a brand new vehicle when they first started driving.  But what most of them DID say was that they had great memories of that car.  I know  mine was a 1986 Ford Ranger with a stick shift, that had A/C, but no power steering and no radio.  We used to put a little portable cassette player on the dashboard and everytime we would turn a corner or curve, you would have to hold your hand up on the dashboard to keep the cassette player from sliding back and forth.  I have great memories of that truck.  I drove that truck my junior and senior year of high school, then sold it and bought a 1989 Toyota Celica that I jam packed even MORE memories into.  It wasn't until I was 22 that I bought my first brand new car....a Mitsubishi Galant.  Why did we have such good times in our old jalopy cars.....well....probably because they were old jalopy cars.  They had character and even though most of them were crappy....they were ours.

Getting back to the kid in the Infiniti.  I'm sure there are a dozen reasons why he could have been driving it.  He could have been borrowing it from his parents ( who I don't begrudge having a nice vehicle, after all, they earned it.) , but I don't even remember being able to borrow my parent's car, once I had my old truck. "What's wrong with your truck?", they would ask. "No gas in it.", I would say. They wouldn't just give me money for gas either. I had to figure out a way to earn money....usually washing their car would get me $5 bucks and back then, $5 gave me three fourths of a tank and I could drive all week.  He could have been borrowing it from his grandma (who, I also don't begrudge owning a luxury vehicle, as, she too, probably earned it).  It could have been....I shudder to think....his (okay, here is where I begrudge).  I'm just gonna go with that last option.  Mainly because I'm being Judgey McJudgerson and he pissed me off, so I'm gonna think the worst of him. If this WAS in fact HIS car....what are his parents thinking?  First off, I don't care if you are the best dayum teenager on the face of the Earth.  No kid deserves to drive a luxury vehicle.  No kid.  It's just stupid.  "Here, Son.  You haven't worked a day in your life, but here are the keys to a $55,000 vehicle, you deserve it.  Take good care of her."  Now, I might could see giving them a decent vehicle for graduation, but decent is not Infiniti.    Decent is like, Toyota, Honda, Ford or Nissan. 

Still going on the assumption that it was his....what happened to the days of having to work, really work, for nice things?   I don't know what a 17 year old could possible do to earn that kind of car.  I can not even fathom purchasing a vehicle like that for my future 17 year old.  My feeling is that he needs to grow and work his way up to being able to get something like that for himself.  I feel like that is a lot of the problem with most of today's kids.  They are given way too dayum much, at early ages.  They tend to not appreciate it nearly enough and they come to expect more and more things like that in the future.  It is setting them up for a lot of disappointment in the future.  Then they tend to expect things of luxury to be given to them in the future, without earning those either.  (Or I don't know, their parents COULD continue to give them stuff the rest of their life, I reckon.)  Then they become the asshole teenager who slips right into a parking spot even when he sees someone waiting there for it.  Then, years later, they become the asshole adult who parks his luxury vehicle in a handicap spot because he will "only be inside for just a second".

And so yes....all of this judginess comes from a hypothetical ownership of a car, totally made up in my head.  I even had the kid into adulthood, becoming an asshole.  But you know what....if he hadn't been an asshole teenager, yanking up the parking spot I was waiting on, maybe I woulndn't have thought twice about it and created this whole stupid scenario in my head......but then it again....it WAS a teenager driving a goshdang Infiniti....I probably still would have thought all of that, anyways.  So yeah...my judging him is all his fault, or his parents fault, I reckon.  Not mine.  Never my fault.