I Want Answers

Because I have the post of Creative Director at the agency where I work (yes, that’s what Don Draper does), I lecture occasionally on the Creative Process to local college students. One day I tried something new. I walked in, introduced myself and asked, “Does anybody have a great story or maybe know how to sing a song for us?”

They were appalled. They looked at each other like they had been tricked into participating in some bizarre reality show. After I kept silent for about a minute I had every eye.

“What the hell has happened to you people,” I said. “What have they done to you?”

More looking around.

I waited for the words to sink in, then I continued. “You realize that just 5 maybe 7 years ago if I had walked into your classroom that most of you would have your arms in the air, waving them wildly, asking to be the first one to share something.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Who beat you down, stole your fun, told you it was better for you to sit there and be quiet?” I waited. “I want a name!” They knew I was serious. “I mean it, somebody tell me who did it? I want to know who’s responsible.”

One hand rose.

“What?”

Meekly she asked, “Our teachers?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” I challenged.

“I think it was our teachers,” she said, more resolute, more certain this time.

I agreed. And I asked them how they felt about that. Some said, it was okay the way it was, and others - a minority - said it wasn’t right.

But that’s not what this story is about. It’s about the TSA.

And it’s about Obamacare. And it’s about eminent domain, Afghanistan and estate taxes and same sex marriage, and abortion and people picketing funerals, and unions that screw a company into the ground and end up buying it with our money, OUR MONEY, and corrupt governments that get handed dollars by the same lying looters who tell us we should pay more taxes because America has too many unemployed, and it’s about paying farmers not to grow crops and paying the UN to promote a Marxist redistribution called a carbon tax and your damn head should be exploding.

What the hell has happened to you people? Who did this to you?