We're screwed

I had the pleasure of being home for the first half of this week to be with my family to celebrate Passover. Among other such inexplicable Passover traditions as reclining, dipping twice, and eating bitter herbs and matzah, I also of course completed the duty of Spending Time with Grandma.

Just by the numbers, my Grandma is a pretty amazing piece of work. She is 91 years old. For gravity, I'll spell that out: ninety-one years old. Instead of telling you who was president when she was born or talking about what wars she's lived through or how she was around before Tupperware, I'll just say that she was practically born a century ago. Will that suffice?

But Grandma Frances is with it. She likes to talk about how she's losing her marbles, or how you can't deny Mother Nature, but really, there is still plenty of light up in the proverbial attic. She's sharp enough to remind my mom to take something off the stove when it's been there too long, shrewd enough to diss on how boring the Seder was at our friends' house, and hip enough to wear high heel boots that she has from when they weren't retro, but new. Grandma is also mentally coherent enough to talk about how much things have changed, and this topic of conversation is always interesting.

It was the point of the day when everyone else in the house was busy and I sort of ended up solo with Grandma in the living room. We covered the usual bases like how I don't know what I'll do next year, explaining what the hell ultimate Frisbee is, and how yes, Grandma, I'm still single. After going through the cycle of Standard Topics, I decided to branch out to the rest of the family. I figured there might be some news from my cousin, Jessie, who is my age. "So, Grandma. What's up with Jessie?"

Bingo!

"I'll tell you what's going on with Jessie. She just moved in with her boyfriend. She's living with the guy and she's only twenty-three! I mean what the hell else is she supposed to do? Her mother just moved in with her new boyfriend -- so what's Jessie to do? And her father -- he's always having a new girlfriend practically every week! He's doing what he needs to be satisfied."

"Wow. So. Jessie moved in with her boyfriend."

"Let me tell you something. In my time, people didn't go around just moving in with each other. If you wanted to sleep together, you got married! That's what people did. Of course, the same things were going on then that are going on now, but at least it wasn't in everyone's face. At least there was some wool over the eyes. But now -- there are just no morals.

"Jessie went down to visit her mother in Carolina, and brought the boyfriend. It's a small apartment. There's only the one bedroom, but a pull-out couch and a sofa. So you'd think that Jessie would sleep on the pull-out couch and the boy on the sofa? No! They both slept on the pull-out couch. Together. In her mother's house!"

"Well, Grandma. Maybe they just went to sleep."

"Yeah, right. They just went to sleep. If they just wanted to go to sleep, they would have slept separately. I tell ya. That's just disgusting. In her mother's house. People have always been doing this kind of stuff, but not in everyone's face. It's just horrible."

I was left speechless after this. After all, I too have had my share of sleepovers to girlfriends' parents' houses, and we've been able to sleep in the same bed. Actually, it was me who was initially uncomfortable with it, but I've come around. But in many ways, my Grandma is right. Whether or not things have gotten worse, they've certainly changed. So what's going to happen when we all have kids? Our kids will be teenagers in the 2030s. The world won't even look the same anymore. If my grandma is losing it now over people sleeping together in the basement, I can't imagine what our kids will be doing.

Are my kids going to be borrowing the keys to my flying car for prom on the moon? Sending a hologram of themselves back home so they can stay out till all hours of the night? Using their brain-implanted cell phones to tell me lies about where they're sleeping?

Well, I'm sure they'll be doing all of those things, but the things that will cause the real hypertension will be the same things that are doing it for Grandma Frances. Being home with family gives me time that may seem like a chore at first, but there's always something to learn ... and be scared about.