Seriously.

I've noticed in the last ten years the sudden... bluntness, shall we say, about the fact that younger Americans have been trained to NOT think for themselves, but to let OTHER people do the work FOR them if they just WHINE long enough and hard enough.

It seems to be getting WORSE, though. More intense, anyway, in that now it's a whole bunch of attempts at guilt-tripping.

Personally speaking, guilt-tripping doesn't work on me. Guilt is one of the most useless emotions humans have invented. 9 times out of 10, something is done with the person DOING the something in FULL KNOWLEDGE of what they're doing... yet, when they get called on their thing-doing, they're suddenly guilty? Hah. Yank the other leg; it plays "Smack My Bitch Up."

Recently, there seems to be a trend amongst the teeny-boppers that stumble onto my page. My stories are set at "MATURE" levels because, hello, a mature (mostly age-wise) woman is writing about mature concepts. Shocking, I know.

So, granted, in my story Time and Again, the first three chapters are readable, but the last requires the reader to have an intelligence higher than a can of cold ravioli. Specifically, in noting the "mature" label and realizing that if they're underaged, they ought to probably try to find a way AROUND that little obstacle if they want to read the rest of the story.

That's what those of us with Common Sense (which ain't so common anymore) would do, anyway.

But, no! These precocious little fluff-bags leave me a message typically stating their age and how sad they are that they won't be able to read the rest of "Time and Again" and what a shame it is and blah blah have some of Cloud's angstmuffins.

It's an interesting sensation to be amused and insulted all at once.

Amused because these idiot children can't figure out how to get around a simple age blocker and insulted because these idiot children are trying to make ME feel bad for accurately labeling my work.

Still, it's a liberating feeling to point, laugh, and tell the whining snotballs "Oh, well, too bad" and get on with my life, unencumbered by guilt.

Now, if I can only do something about this gnawing need to cleanse the human gene pool that doesn't equate to a genocidal bloodbath.