Kids these days are so soft, lost in their little screen worlds. All Snoop-Chat and Instant-Gram, and other suspiciously-hyphenated applications that demand constant attention, all day every day. When do they get a break? It just never seems to let up, and it makes me feel tired just watching them.

If I were them, I’d have a designated phone-free day. Just to recharge from all that silliness, and maybe have a nice, face-to-face conversation. And then maybe they’d learn something new, rather than frittering away their time learning nothing except the dings of funny animals. Yes, it’d be a more equipped generation if something like that was put into place, because as it stands, no one can do anything.

My nephew down in Pakenham is having some ant trouble. Called in the Pakenham pest control people at the first sign of trouble, of course. Now, don’t think I’m disparaging all people running a business…I’ve never grown my own vegetables, I used to get a man in to fix the wireless and women back in my younger days certainly wouldn’t be allowed to do anything with automobiles. If you tried to do so much as pop the bonnet, the menfolk would sense it, like they were smelling it in the wind. Maybe some things have gotten a bit better.

Anyway, pest control was generally something you did yourself, unless your home was falling down. Of course, we grew up as paupers, so we couldn’t afford that kind of thing. That’s why my older brother at the first sign of termite trouble, would be down in the garden shed mixing up a brew from random chemicals and pouring it in the walls. Often we couldn’t wait for Papa to come back from the mines, since the ants were already tucking into our daily bread.

Anyway, it mostly worked. And now? You see an ant, and suddenly every Sorrento pest control agency is swarming around your home, more numerous than the critters. What if they have something more important to do? I just wish youngsters would use their heads, instead of running outside for help every time.

-Agatha