John Hattaway

First things first. I spoke to my boss and on my own volition and with Erin‘s support, I have cut back my hours to nil or next to nil with the possibility that I might return to work in three or four weeks or not until the end of the semester when I come in to say goodbye. But that as a result of some family needs, and that the job was not appreciatively helping us out financially, and if we needed the money it would be Erin who would have to go to work because my job didn’t allow enough money to take care of anything,

Well, the weekend was a good one. I slept. Erin slept. codename: CAMPER slept and ate. Erin started to feel worse, physically, and after a trip to BYU Urgent Care we discovered that she had mastitis. This is an infection and has flu-like symptoms. Fortunately, she was not running a fever on Saturday; but by last night the visible signs of mastitis had gotten worse. The outcome was my running to a pharmacy to fill a prescription of antibiotics and to Smith’s to pick up a cabbage (we hear that cabbage leaves naturally reduce swelling and help with pain) to help with the infection. Not a lot to report on that front at the moment.

While at the pharmacy I heard some rather nasty music being played and looked up to see a rather tacky looking white boy doing a weird upper-body jig to the song as he let his phone ring (the ring tone was the song) and had a goofy look on his black-wanna-be outfit that didn’t work for his white bread body. Had that been the only passive interaction with the dude I probably would’ve forgotten about him. But, within a few minutes, he was back to the general proximity of where I was waiting for the prescription to be filled and talking to a group of people: boy-girl-boy-girl. He was one of the boys. The other boy had a baby that was between three and six months in arms. The two girls were less than attractive, and at least one of the girls was rather awkwardly overweight. As I tuned in to the discussion, and apparent reason for the call and the nasty music, was a discussion and search for an apartment for all five individuals (I am county baby as one of the individuals) and that they were having trouble coming to a concensus about which apartment they’d looked at (so far) to take.

I could probably ignore a discussion about apartments by people who are old enough to be talking about apartments or who have reasonable requirements for apartments; and forget about the whole thing (even though I would’ve still listened in), but the white bread dude had some requirements for an apartment (something like walk in closets or a pool or reasonable access to the curb or something inane) that he had to have. This resulted in the group not coming to a decisions about what they would do for an apartment. The result was white bread dude stating something like, “I hear Springville has cheap places to live.” This comment then caused the boy-boy combination in the group to discuss how far that meant the one holding the baby had to travel to get to work. The consensus was 40 miles one way. Honestly, I don’t know where in Utah County he would have to go to make a trip even from Springville 40 miles as from front door to front door, my house to the REI at 106th south was less than 26 miles. However, 40 miles was important to guy holding baby (not white bread, by the way) and as a result may have (allegedly) eliminated Springville as a possible location to live.

What caused me to listen and pay attention and then become annoyed with the conversation was not where the group wanted to live, or that Springville had cheap places to live, or that one of them would have to drive one way 40 miles to get to and from work. Rather, it was that every member of the group looked to be between sixteen and eighteen and at least two were relatively new parents. What was annoying and obnoxious and caused me to feel that these kids were destroying their lives was all of the previous annoyances stated and the fact that not a single one of them appeared to have the sense God gave a dead gnat to take care of what needs to be taken care of first. This was (in part) indicative of the way they handled themselves and the little child (for whom they were in the pharmacy and who also needed the medication they were trying to fill).

I can’t control what and how people are allowed to make decisions in their lives. I also have to assume that the ages of the majority of people in that group were at least eighteen since eighteen is the legal age of adulthood. I know thath eighteen marks the beginning of emerging adulthood where decisions take on real world consequences. As a result, no one can technically tell these kids they are being complete duffuses. For those under the age of eighteen, and in direct opposition to what it appears is the trend in Utah right now (and among the LDS faith), a teenager should not have the right to keep a baby and that baby should be put up for adoption; and that adoption should be completely anonymous. Neither the child nor the teenage mother should know about the other. And yes, I understand that the teenage mother will now she had a baby, but she should not have the right to make the choice about whether or not she keeps the baby. If I were to make a law, the only exception would be the teenagers parents (or the father’s parents) adopting the child and accepting full financial and legal responsibility under the proviso that the teenager does not have any legal rights over the child.

What makes me happy is realizing that even though I’ve been pretty bad at a lot of things over the years, and spent most of my twenties being rather irresponsible about some of the decisions in my life. At least, on the surface it appears that my choices didn’t have a lot of thought going into them. Truth told, I was focussed in a singular area and as a result the outcome was that I made choices that allowed me to get to the point I am now. However, I don’t think I would change the twenties for anything. I am happily married, I love my wife, I love our son, and I am pretty certain, knowing myself, that I would’ve screwed up any other relationship before now.

Real Heroes Fly