Left Behind Pt. 2

We are the left behind. We're the people that have too many credits to stop going to school but not enough to earn a degree. Some of us have one though and some of us are even working on new letters to put behind our name if only to put off paying back loans or figuring out how to be a grown up. We're the people who know about Shakespeare and Charlie Sheen. We know how to not only use iPod's and iPad's but we can control the temperature of our homes and volume of our Pandora station with them. We also could cite some of the major tenants of Marxism. We're told to vote but usually we don't because the local VFW is somewhere we haven't visited since Brownies or Boyscouts nearly two decades ago. We're still driving our 2005 Ford Taurus and 1999 Jetta. We would rather take the train to Chicago, get a cool new tattoo and know more about Belgium beer and organic chocolate than show up to some office at 9 and stay until 5. We love reading books. We love drinking coffee. We love wearing retro glasses and dying our hair many different colors. We live paycheck to paycheck and often jump from job to job all in the same town following friends or promises of more money and opportunity to have a better schedule or better manager. The jobs usually turn out to be the same as the last. We are the educated low-lifes. We're the offspring of Justin Timberlake, Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawkings and Bill Gates. We pump one fist at corporate America while slurping from the signature green straw in a Starbucks frapp clutched in the other. We consume more soy and hummus and supplements than any generation or culture has before. We are left behind because we're floating. We're uncertain of the economy so we don't get a real job. We've seen too many of our fathers, cousins and big brothers and sisters laid off, let go, "rearranged". Our place in this torn country and waring world is now to remain under the radar. We earn our keep but do not invest. How do we invest in something that looks like it's about to self destruct at any moment? No, it's better for us, the left behind, to remain behind. Let others venture forth and make babies and mortgages and hope that tomorrow isn't worse than today. We'll pour their coffee and sell them shoes. We'll arrange the shelves at Barnes and Noble and take your car to its parking space. We'll live without the worry that we'll need to lead someone someday. We'll be fine. We'll figure it out. We'll hope that someday we have a job that's more important than your waitress. But then again, who will serve your food? Who will serve our food?