This time of year never fails to catch me off guard.

Perhaps it’s bearing witness to the cycle of rebirth, as life, that fecund thing, can be found in those sprouting flowers. Why, you can even see it in the joyful flitting of birds and the adorable buzzing of bees. However, you won’t find it in the spiteful embrace of poison ivy, nor the disrespectful petulance of the wasp. There lies naught but raw spite and sour apple hard candy.

Perhaps it’s that old chestnut, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Where once we saw the kids and their Boomtendos and their Ninboxes and their TikTalk dancing (how about one for the hereditary shoddy joints crowd, aren’t I right?), they have been masticated by their slowing metabolisms, and that, at least, is partially digested by that thing you do in your twenties when you realize you’re becoming your parents.

And there before you? The remnants of your youthful vigor, and your snappy trousers, and you wave goodbye to the last time you would ever sneeze without thinking about Sammy Sosa and what happened to him that one time. It’s a small step in sensible shoes from there to find yourself utterly and completely as cool as a good pair of backup sneakers.

(Some of you might be thinking to the effect of “What could be cooler than a good pair of backup sneakers? What if you get stuck in a heavy downpour, huh, what then, funny guy? Why don’t you think about that while I’m enjoying dry shoes LIKE AN ADULT” and I’m sorry, but it’s far too late for you already.)

The wise man knows he knows that his nose is his own to blow, as my third cousin, Brody Brocienzo Coolidge, was known to say. He was also known to insist that drinking turned milk helped keep his immune system “robust”, and I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the latter ties back to the former.

I don’t mean to disparage Brody, though. He’s been one of the finest teachers in my life. One could argue that Brody has taught the greatest lesson of all: You can never undervalue having a terrible example of being a human being so readily available, perhaps never worse than in the springtime. It is with great discomfort that I recall him saying, “The sap is running and so must I” when he would leave a family event.

If Brody is anything, he is technically an educated man. I know this, because I watched him accept his diploma upon graduating with a BA in Finance, and also because he likes to open most of his arguments with, “Now, I’m just a guy who graduated in the top 98% of my class, so what do I know about…” and then he, as the kids say, goes off.

Brody has also been a great example in how you should always apply for a job, no matter how qualified you think you may not be. His successes in life, of which there are multitudes, have occurred typically in spite of any forethought he’s managed to muster up. Honestly, it’s uncanny.

(I can’t name names, largely due to a slight tongue-based paralysis that resulted from a tragic incident at a Christian Youth Breakdancing competition, but a certain multi-billionaire may or may not have suggested talks to study possible effects Brody has on probability on the quantum level. In the same way that the scorpion must sting the frog, Brody calls this possible effect Brody’s Big Chance, and abbreviates that with reckless abandon.)

In his own way, Brody is a great example of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Once, Brody was a young man with the spirit of a middle aged conservative. Now, he is a middle-aged conservative with the spirit of a middle-aged conservative.

I’ve got to give it to him, though. He is truly coming into his own, in this, the upper middle class act of his life. From what I hear, he’s been musing over investing in a backup pair of sneakers to his backup pair of sneakers. Silly me, thinking he had peaked for having a rotation of mowing sneakers.

Still, it’s been an evolution that’s more than sneaker-deep. You can see it in the pride he takes in filling up his gas tank before predicted snowfall “for the added weight and traction”. Or the way he can estimate the nitrogen levels in his lawn by the way it looks in the 5 pm sun on an August day.

But the most profound change has been his strange fascination with youth culture. Specifically, those things he perceives to be obvious symptoms of a moral deficit. So often, he’ll lament at the degeneration of the youth today, and how it weighs so very heavy on his heart to see their unfettered potential cut short. Too soon, he cries!

What, you ask, could be so immediate a concern as to monopolize the raw mental might of one of the finest minds that lower middle management has ever known? What could keep a man from focusing on his men’s only book club?

(No, seriously, I need to know. His book club is surprisingly labor-intensive to prep for. I’ve been trying to help the fellow out, and for the life of me, I cannot find 2000 pill-shaped hard candies, “RED ONLY” per Brody’s note. I’ve tried three different stores and they’re all sold out, to the last one. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but one of the employees at Checklist told me there is a Jordan Peterson convention going on, whoever that is. I tried to search for information, but I only found videos of babies throwing tantrums.)

The grievous wound that consumes Brody is none other than “those super ridiculous TikTalk dances.”

Some of you may know full well the rage Brody feels towards this. After all, how can a grown man be expected to withhold judgement on popular trends of the day? In his defense, it’s hardly the type of popular trend that Brody experienced in his youth.

What could some dance trend offer that could possibly surpass JNCO jeans, or POGs, or pet rocks, or cramming dozens into a phone booth, or asymmetrical haircuts, or getting only the right ear pierced for Very Serious Reasons, or mullets, or getting a New VW Beetle, or a military grade Hummer for personal use, or driving trans youth into spirals of despair with no conceivable escape?

It’s a strange and confusing world out there. Time being so very relative, it’s understandable that Brody would feel upset upon realizing that he is no longer relevant. But less understandable is his need to be. Between you, me, and the wall? It’s a little disconcerting to see a grown man put so much of his time and energy into the latest teen scuttlebutt.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to work on The Woah.

Paul Wartaug is a Nashua native. His column appears periodically in The Sunday Telegraph.

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