Defects of a Generation...or Three

Today, at the fine American institution of Wal Mart, my dad and I were exiting the superstore after his futile search for an electronic, hand-held, Yahtzee game. I warned him that the company likely stopped production in the 1990's, and that he is the only person on the face of this earth who still even donates a brain cell to the world of Yahtzee electronics that was.

After settling for a hand-held Solitare game and I with my prize of Trident Layers gum , we were on our way. (The verdict is still out on the gum. It's been an hour and I'm still chewing it, so longevity is a plus. However, the odd mix between mint and apple falls between painless and somewhat enjoyable in the taste category.)

Anyway, to the main point. My dad and I walk up to a door marked with an exit sign. We both stopped abruptly, and stared quizzically with tilted heads at the door - aghast by the notion that it refused to open automatically.

Coming to the same conclusion that the door was clearly not meant to be used, we walked to the door next to it, and breathed a sigh of relief when it opened on the command of our mere presence.

Once we reentered the outside, I realized how sad and hysterical it was at once that we condemned what was likely a perfectly good door to uselessness simply because it did not open automatically. How many years did it take to train people into laziness - that indoor sidewalks did not require leg movement, and that doors should open without prompting? Clearly not long, if my own father, who, I must admit, does not belong to a generation close to mine, was as fooled - if not more fooled than I - by an ordinary building component.

Whether the fact that I set foot in both a Wal Mart and K Mart in the same week or the fact that I snubbed a manually operated door is more sad, I'm not sure. All I know is that Hawai'i is making me soft.