If Ignorance is Bliss, Then You Must Be the Happiest Person on Earth...

This blurb is in response to my Facebook peeps wanting a little elaboration on my encounter this morning with Stephanie, my corner store gas attendant. As some of you may recall Stephanie is the little ball of sunshine that rings me up for my glutinous drive in pastry and overly caffeinated morning beverage. She has enlightened me with such gems as comparing the "scruffy man god" David Cook to that of a "young, vibrant" Sammy Hagar. Yes. I'll let that soak in for a minute for it only got better from there. She did not realize that Van Halen existed prior to Sammy bastardizing the once great band (not that shows my bias or anything...shit storm incoming.) Let me come to her defense here and preface this with the fact that she's only seventeen. (Too bad she's not a Winger fan...) To this I can give her some leniency. Musical tastes, like opinions, are like assholes. Some are just shittier than others. I'll give her that. Her closeted exposure to the outside world was only being shown to me in these weekly exchanges that tended to tap dance in the realm of pop culture. Until today. ME: So how are you ling that Diver Down I burned for you? STEPHANIE: Eh. I think David Cook is still the bomb. It's ok, but I have been really digging the new Miley Cyrus song. ME: Are you fucking serious? STEPHANIE: Uh. Yeah silly. It's like being played everywhere. Party in the USA! ME: That's her? (People start to come in, so we move to the closed register.) STEPHANIE: Uh yeah. Come on. It's on 104 like all the time. It's the bomb. ME: I think the last time I listened to 104 your mom was in her second trimester. STEPHANIE: Whatever (grabs Seventeen magazine) look. She's hot. Is she not hot? You'd hit that... ME: Dude. I'm thirty one. The only seventeen year old anything I'd hit would be the bottle of scotch I have at the house. And no. She looks like plastic midget. STEPHANIE: You're crazy. ME: If you say so. She looks like she should be wearing a big hat and making cookies in a hollowed out tree. STEPHANIE: What? That's dumb. ME: No seriously. I don't get it. What human trafficking cartel did all you kids come in on that were told this kind of stuff was cool? Were you all brainwashed? And then it happened. I got the look. Not the "screw you guy" look (trust me- I have a Masters in that one,) but the glassy eyed doe stare. She looked like the chip set in her head was trying to process the statement. STEPHANIE: Cartel? you mean drugs right? ME: Well yeah. there are those too. STEPHANIE: What do drug cartels have to do with the mall? ME: Mall? What the hell are you talking about? The mall? STEPHANIE: You know. Like Memorial City... well it's not as bad as, oh man- the Galleria. Oh their traffic is the worst. People just walking all which way and shit I hate that. It's like hello people we walk on the right side here in America. Hello! You know? Sweet baby Jesus on a pogo stick... ME: No. Trafficking... that's not trafficking that's just assholes at the mall. Trafficking is when people not of this country are brought in illegally. Big rigs full of people... sneaking across the border...sold into prostitution..anything? STEPHANIE: Oh that. That sucks. ME: Yeah. Yeah it does. [Silence bordering on awkward] STEPHANIE: Hey. I finished that Catcher in the Rye you told me about. I didn't get it. ME: That's ok. Read it again when you are all old like me. Gotta go. Tell your pops I said hey and give your mom a big hug for me. STEPHANIE: Will do. Be good. As I drove in to work I got to thinking about Stephanie. Not the fact that her blind devotion to her homogenized pop music was what is killing music as we know it, but her innocent facade that was teetering on sheer ignorance to things around her. Is it really ignorance if she is unaware of it in the first place? I'd assume you'd need to know about it in order to ignore it.