Fun Conversations With Co-Workers - "Back When Women Knew Their Place" Edition

"The surge is working," said Co-Worker #1.

"I'm in the middle of something and don't have time for your nonsense," I said.

"The surge is working," he repeated. "Does that bother you?"

"The surge is not working," I said. "Violence has been reduced because the other side is waiting us out. When we leave, sooner hopefully rather than later, the place will be a complete mess and then eventually we'll have three states over there. But they've got to figure it out. Not us. Now run along. I've got minds to mold."

"You know what I think?" he said.

Co-Worker #1 doesn't listen to me. On any level.

"I think," he continued, "that this world of ours is in a downward spiral, morally, and nothing is going to fix it."

I waited, expecting to hear, "...except the light of the Lord."

But Co-Worker #1 wasn't espousing religious dogma that day. Co-Worker #1 had a bit of the blues. But since he's so completely full of sh*t, I decided to engage.

"As a society, I don't think we're getting worse," I said. "There is plenty of room for improvement, but we're getting better as a people - morally speaking."

"We are not!" Co-Worker #1 said. "We're getting worse."

"Okay," I said. "When were we better than today?"

"Well, let's go back to a time when there wasn't the kind of crime we see today, women were respectable, music wasn't deplorable-"

"The 1950s?" I asked. "You're complaining about rap music and low-rise jeans while romanticizing the decade when black children couldn't go to school with white children? Blacks were made to sit at the back of the bus, use separate bathrooms? Legally. That kind of thing?"

Co-Worker #1 shook his head and said,

"Fine, let's go back further."

"When those same people were lynched for trying to vote? Or should we go back to the time when immigrant children were forced to work in unsafe factories rather than go to school."

"Ummm -"

"Or even further back when slavery was legal, before that when children were made to fight in wars and or do you long for the time when strong-willed women like me were burned at the stake?"

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"Those were the days right? For white men like you, I mean."

(Long pause while Co-Worker #1 prayed for something to fall on me.) I started to sing,

"'Cause the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems..."

Co-Worker #1 looked at a student and sighed, wearily,

"History teachers are fun."