by Benn Ray
News-wise, it's been a crazy few weeks with a lot going on.
We have the Trump Administration pushing a constitutional crisis by interfering with congressional oversight by refusing to let people go to congressional hearings and by refusing to turn over documents.
Then Trump claimed executive privilege over the already released Mueller Report. And that Report clearly shows obstruction of justice and the Trump campaign's interest in working with a hostile foreign nation and that that hostile foreign nation interfered with the 2016 election and worked to help sway it in favor of Trump.
Meanwhile, the idiot president is trying to get us into a war with Iran.
On top of that, some states in the south have outlawed abortion outright, Constitution be damned.
Did I mention trade war?
And Game of Thrones ended with a nearly apocalyptic, cartoonish confluence of fan entitlement and identity politics where people seemed to think they had agency over the fates of their favorite characters in a corporate TV show.
But with all that on the table, the thing I want to talk about, which is of much greater importance. I got called a "grandpa" for the very first time.
It was last week and I had just gotten a sharp new haircut. My beard was freshly trimmed. And I was feeling pretty good as I stepped out of Old Bank Barbers on a beautiful weekday afternoon.
I remembered that Chad from Food Market had just opened a new snowball stand, so I figured I'd give it a shot - in fact, I was in such a good mood, I was gonna buy snowballs for everyone working at Celebrated Summer Records and Atomic Books.
So there I was, standing in line at the Quality Snowballs stand on 36th St. (EXCELLENT snowballs by the way), with a twentysomething woman in line behind me. A few minutes later, her friend shows up, singing goofy made-up songs, dancing around and generally being loud and attention demanding. I was ignoring her, checkin' my tweets.
I hear her ask her friend, "So what are you doing."
The friend answers, "I'm waiting to get a snowball."
To which the loud friend responds, "So you're in line behind grandpa here?"
Referring to me.
It's amazing how quickly an awesome day can be sent spiraling by one mean girl comment. I may look like a grandpa, but emotionally, I felt like I was still in middle school.
I weighed my responses.
I thought about turning around with tears in my eyes and looking at her and just mouthing the word "Why" and walking away. But that required more acting than I'm capable of.
I thought about saying, "I'll never offer you a Werther's Original!" But I was pretty sure she wouldn't get the reference.
I thought about saying, "I'm not the grandpa, YOU'RE THE GRANDPA!" But I realized that made no sense.
So instead, I ignored her, waited patiently, and finally ordered a round of skylite and egg custard snowballs for everyone. I chose to walk away and quietly wrestle with my own mortality.