As a former latch key kid, I like to give post-Gen-X'ers grief about being coddled in their childhoods. Car safety seats? Pfft. As a 4-year-old, I rode unrestrained in the back seat of a '70 Mustang from Maryland to California and back again. Contaminated garden hoses? In the heat of a South Mississippi summer back in the '70s and '80s, those same garden hoses were local watering holes for all the neighborhood hooligans.
Ironically, it was probably my generation that was responsible for the utter saturation of warning labels and safety devices that are now so pervasive in our society. The very definition of a Gen-X latch key kid was we didn't have constant parental supervision. I recognize that this may have led to some questionable behavior.
I once saw my college buddy jam two stripped ends of a power cord into opposite ends of a hotdog. He then casually strolled to the nearest outlet and plugged in the whole assembly to cook just as nonchalantly as nuking a bag of popcorn. It then made sense when he later told me about making soup from grass and dandelions from his front yard when his parents weren't home.
Remember lawn darts? Today's kids will never know the death-defying fun of lobbing a spike-tipped projectile across the yard at their playmates. They're nowhere to be found today because at some point, back in the day, Little Johnny had an unfortunate accident with Cousin Leroy.
Childproof medicine bottles? That was us, also. Over this past summer, one of my classmates was reminiscing about an incident from her childhood. Apparently, as a toddler, she got a sweet tooth. Knowing where the "candy" was stashed, she pushed a chair over to a counter to climb up to the cabinet and grabbed a bottle of orange-flavored Bayer children's aspirin. She wound up having her stomach pumped, but her sweet tooth was sated.
When I was around 3 or 4, minding my own business on the back stoop, some neighborhood goon came over and demanded something to eat. Being a good host, I went inside and grabbed a bottle of Flintstones vitamins. We wound up polishing off the whole bottle. A few hours later, for some reason, that punk started complaining about a tummy ache. In a memorable chain reaction, he told his mom, who then called our house and read my mom the riot act. I was confused. If they were actually bad for you, why were they shaped like cartoon characters and taste like candy? Looking back, it could also have been the half-dozen raw hotdogs we put away after the vitamin appetizer. Whatever.
Regardless, those child-proof caps? You're welcome.
"I Want Candy" - The Strangeloves
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