Must be great to be a straight, white Boomer dude. These men were born into the greatest economic moment in our nation’s history and raised by parents traumatized by World War II and the Depression. Of course their parents spoiled these kids. Imagine if your first pair of shoes were given to you by Uncle Sam, or if he borrowed your husband, brothers, father and friends. You might spoil your kids too.

But the Greatest Generation sure created some monsters along the way. Obviously, #notallBoomermen, but I can give you a good profile of the type. Usually they’re the ones who didn’t get drafted or volunteer to serve during Vietnam. But they sure act like the world owes them a living and its obedience. And now they’re old, cranky, unhinged and off-leash.

My Dad was Silent Gen. He was born during the Depression and was voluntold to Korea during that war. My Mom, however, is a Baby Boomer. And I notice subtle differences in their attitudes towards us kids. But mainly my Dad was just happy to be happy, have a home, food, family and feel safe at last.

But beware the Boomer Male and his eternal sense of being aggrieved! They are somehow both the most important and persecuted people on the planet, according to them. They’ve never seen a boundary they didn’t need to vault over. And I’m sick of dealing with them.

They see others gaining rights as a threat to theirs as though there were only so many rights to hand out, like Monopoly money. They either don’t understand, realize and/or resent that we can create more freedom and equality for others without taking it from them. They play all life like a zero sum game in which others have to lose for them to feel like winners. And don’t dare tell them otherwise or they start throwing their toys out the pram and need a timeout.

Case in point: this guy who moved in next to me. (Not who you were expecting? Mox nix.) Well, I don’t know about you all, but when I move into a community — a thing I’ve done many, many times — I actually try to be friendly with my neighbors. Crazy I know, but it seems to work out well for everyone.

Well, not so this fella. In typical and literally boundary-challenged fashion, he came out guns blasting, barging into my yard through my gate without even introducing himself. He brought other people into the yard. He’s convinced the property lines are wrong because he wants to put his HVAC in our yard. Apparently putting it behind his house was suggested, but then he’d have to hear it from his bedroom! The horror.

Long story short, I told him that he had to ask to go back there, and the man proceeded to call the police on me. The police obviously couldn’t do anything but tell him to ask permission to go into someone else’s yard (surprise!). So then he somehow discovered that I had the trash bin with the SKU number assigned in 2017 by the city to his house. So he made a huge, angry scene to the police and neighborhood about getting his exact trash bin back, as if I were an inveterate bin thief. They must’ve been mixed up since before I lived here because I’d marked it. But Baby needed his special trash bin! Wah!

I pointed out that he was harassing the home of a combat veteran Marine on 9/11, pointing to THE GIANT RED FLAG (with the globe and anchor) I hang purposefully outside where I live. But these guys have zero shame. They think kindness is weakness and that people who serve are suckers and losers. And, as John Oliver recently pointed out, the school bully who wants your lunch money will keep coming back for more if you cave even a little.

I had tried to reset the relationship by talking to him, shaking his hand and get us properly introduced. I gave him my number to call me if he needed to get back there for whatever valid reason. Then it was just constant. He needed back there all the time. Eventually I realized he thought he deserved half the side yard of this house.

So, he got a survey. It showed my yard was my yard. Argued with the guy with the theodolite that uses satellite positioning technology. He kept screaming, “I’m from Ohio! This can’t be right! Oh, now I’m the bad guy!” This is an old town. Like 1600s old. It’s not like suburban Ohio. Old towns often just sprout, and then things eventually get formalized. There’s a lot of sheds blocking alleys etc in this town. You live with it.

But I knew this guy wasn’t going to quit his side HVAC dream just because a man whose seal needs to stand up in court told him so. Sure enough, this morning he was in my front yard with a measuring tape, checking the survey. Like he was walking on the grass and hosta and hunching over as if to avoid my cameras. He looked ridiculous because he is.

So, I did what I warned him I’d do if he kept on threatening to call the police on me for not letting him trespass at will or otherwise acting like a dickhead. I wasted my day getting a Peace Order against him. In my state that’s a recourse if you’re being harassed or stalked.

Now I’m expecting a hissy fit that will likely register on the Richter scale when that Sheriff’s Deputy serves him with the order. He can contest it, and I’m sure he will. But when you’ve been abused, harassed, stalked or all of the above, you learn to keep a really good records of events.

But it seems to me that this Boomer-man is just a version in miniature of the demented, self-centered and angry type of man-baby we’ve all been subjected to for far too long. His wife can’t or won’t control him. Laws don’t apply to him. He can belittle people and abuse them at will. Your time belongs to him. He thinks he’s going to live forever, and his favorite note on the scale is “me me me me me!”

You’d think this breed would be about ready to shuffle off their mortal coils, but apparently modern medicine works too damned well sometimes. If you’re a privileged ass Boomer with a “pen-shun,” seems like you get the best medicine money can buy, while the rest of us can rot.

Anyway, it’s inevitable that the dinosaurs’ hour will come, in the meantime, remember what John Oliver said to tell bullies. Maybe I’ll send him a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. He certainly isn’t making any friends in this community unless he gets all the way over himself and learns how to say “I’m sorry.” And I don’t see that happening. So I guess we have to wait these guys out. Mon dieu, they’re exhausting.

How are you holding up, my legendary friend? Drop a comment below describing your favorite Boomer encounter of the turd kind.

Namaste,

J.Lakis

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