Did you see the news reports this weekend about Jamie Lynn Spears wanting to meet with Elon Musk about the national emergency that is Telsa cars being too quiet that they are claiming the lives of an unknown number of cats?
This humanitarian crisis, which Britney’s younger sister launched into the national spotlight via social media, has led to a lot of questions. Why doesn’t Spears look where she’s driving her vehicle of death? Exactly how many cats has she killed? I mean, is she the Cruella DeVil of the feline world here or what?
I’ve become enthralled by the story over the last few days. It’s so dumb and out of left field, but that is the point. It’s something mindless and menial (except, of course to the legions of cats that are apparently losing their young lives) that I don’t have to worry about it. I can focus my attention on this instead of everything else going on in the world.
Here’s the thing, being a millennial is tough – I know, cue the world’s smallest violins as you hand me my participation trophy. But it feels like every few years we end up living through a once in a lifetime something or other. I graduated from college right as the 2008 economic collapse was happening. I was still in school when 9/11 and Columbine happened. Now, we are living through whatever we want to call this shitstorm of a presidency has been and a worldwide pandemic… oh, and Philadelphia just had its highest homicide rate in over 30 years last year. It was only five murders shy of the record. Our new slogan will be unveiled this week: If the COVID doesn’t get you, the guns will! I really think it will be a boon for tourism.
Needless to say, I’ve had my fill of once in a lifetime experiences and would like to exchange my frequent customer club card for my free ice cream, please. Can we just go a few days without something monumental happening? Is it too much to ask to be able to just have a few days to catch up on Bridgerton before the next cataclysmic event happens?
Maybe if things were spread out a little bit more, my coping mechanism would be better. The world has sped up from the way it used to operate. It feels like as soon as we recover from one of these events, it’s time to head right into another. I once heard someone describe childbirth as the most painful experience and one that no woman would want to go through a second time if they remembered those aspects instead of focusing on the positives that came from it.
We are like that as a country. We remember the resilience and strength of how we overcame these events – the 7 p.m. clapping for front line workers, how the country united after the terror attacks – rather than thinking about the horrors that occurred and divisiveness that usually follows. Then, like some horned up housewives, we just let our government drive us right into having another catastrophe.
With so much happening, to keep my brain from melting down I have started to seek refuge in the most frivolous things. Tika the fashionista with the (I think) Spanish accent? Sign me up. Exercising to the old Cher work out tape? Send me the link, because even being outside isn’t completely safe anymore.
So, while Jamie-Lynn Spears might be a serial cat killer, I am going to leave you with the hopeful cliché about her sister that my fellow millennials like to share when the going gets tough. If Britney Spears can survive 2007, we can survive this one.
Padraic Maroney hails from upstate New York, suffering from middle child syndrome. His writing career began after moving to the Philadelphia suburbs while in high school. He wrote for The Bucks County Courier Times’ Reality section, written by local teenagers, and has the distinction of writing a weekly gossip column for a college newspaper at a school he didn’t even attend! His love of pop culture led him to intern at Teen People, where he met Janis Gaudelli, and realized he could turn being a millennial into a career. Since then he’s alternated between writing and marketing, but always focused on Millennials and everything they bring to the table. Padraic is a lover of shenanigans, 80s music, and the movie “Scream.”
You can follow his additional adventures on Instagram: @padraicjacob