This novel is a fast-moving, entertaining story about Dave Knight, a kid growing up in a military family across many parts of the globe. Dave and his siblings have their share of hijinks, and they get in a fair amount of trouble, but when the rubber hits the road, they know who is in charge of the family. I would kill to get a tenth of the respect from my family that their father gets, and he is a wayward alcoholic! Maybe I should have sent my kids to military school - it might have straightened my son out, that's for sure. I mean, he may be a college professor, but what the hell kind of adult wears velcro shoes? Jesus.
And the next generation? Hopeless. I accidentally had a conversation with my grandson yesterday, and he treats me like a senile idiot. I had called to complain to my daughter that the chicken soup she left on my doorstep had kreplach instead of matzoh balls, and she knows damn well that I prefer matzoh balls and kreplach give me gas! But after 2 minutes of silence, Jackson told me that she was "unavailable," which I assume meant crying tears of shame for sabotaging my soup. So I tried to make some small talk with Jackson by asking what he was reading these days, and he says to me - I shit you not - "I don't read."
At that moment, I felt a brief pang of something which, judging from other people's descriptions, may have been empathy. So I tried to pick him up by telling him he was almost a goddamn adult already and couldn't he get Hooked on Phonics or something to sort that shit out. He clarified that he actually can read, but that he chooses not to because he is more entertained by TV and video games. What the fuck? I gave him a list of reasons why books are superior, including the fact that you can read them whenever you want and don't have to wait all day for your show to come on, and he called me an "ignorant Boomer" and said that you can watch any show any time. If that were true, I said, why do you get TV Guide? He didn't have an answer for that one, but he insisted that everything is now "On Demand" with no waiting necessary.
So, to prove him wrong, I demanded that he come over and show me what the hell he was talking about, and he had the audacity to use my own words against me! "Just yesterday," he reminded me, "you had said that the world is a disease-infested hellhole, and no one crosses the entryway into your house without a goddamn Hazmat suit, especially family." Fair point. I explained that yesterday, I didn't want to see anyone in my family (this is, of course, my default setting), but today, he had something I wanted, so my rules had changed. He did not find this to be a persuasive argument.
But, he agreed to talk me through it over the phone, which took no less than 90 minutes because for some reason I have two remote controls even though I have only one TV. I mean, give me a break, they can put a man on the fucking moon, but they can't make a remote control that operates both the TV and the VCR? Idiots. And, just an FYI, remote controls are unidirectional, and Jackson says that if you don't point it right at the TV, you will turn something else off. Note, it did not work when I tried to turn off my neighbor Margaret's goddamn yippy little schnauzer.
As it turns out, and as much as I hate to admit it, Jackson was right. You can actually watch anything at any time. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring this new, limitless world of entertainment, and you know what I learned? There isn't anything worth watching anyway! Worthless garbage, the whole lot of it. So I have refined my argument for the next time I talk to Jackson about this, which is to basically point out that books are good, and TV is shit. Next question. And Jackson, when you are ready to expand your mind a little, I will be willing to trade my advance copy of this lovely novel for some real matzoh ball soup.
