© 2002 Brian Hodges - Please do not remove the copyright from this essay

can’t help but laugh whenever I see a teenager wearing an Atari T-shirt. Do they even know what Atari was? I’ve heard at least one person born after 1984 say, "Atari games were so much better than the games they put out today." I don’t know if they’re just trying to be retro-chic or what, but take it from me Scooter, Atari sucked. There isn’t a Gen-X’er alive who’s never said, "Damn, Pong is stupid." Pitfall Harry, Berserk, Pac-Man. Games upon games with no point and no end. You just played until you died… or until the console overheated. But, we still jumped up and down in suspense as the Space Invaders descended. We cursed out our mothers when their interruptions caused Frogger to get squashed. And I can’t tell you how many pushing fights we got into and how many joysticks we smashed against the wall over an Asteroids high-score competition.

And now, we’ve come of age.

This thought first occurred to me three years ago. The song, The Bad Touch ("Let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.") had just become popular. It was sung by the group The Bloodhound Gang. Now, for anybody who didn’t grow up on pre-Barney PBS, this means nothing. But, everybody my age instantly got the 3-2-1 Contact reference: "Whenever there’s trouble, we’re there on the double. We’re the Bloodhound Gang."

I was twenty-two years old. I was just coming to grips with the fact that my final growth-spurt – which I had been waiting for since high school – had somehow passed me by, leaving me eternally stuck at five-foot-eight. I was officially grown up. My peers and I had ventured forth into the Real World and were now "making decisions." This seemingly innocent song was like a trumpet, heralding our generation’s advent. Da da dommmm! PRESENTING: GENERATION… I forget, are we X or Y?

Sure, it was just a one-hit-wonder band, but still. My generation would soon be occupying positions of power. Already, many of us were assistants in Fortune 500 companies, associates in law firms, trainees in the governor’s office. Hell, some of my friends were partners in internet startups. They had stock options for crying out loud. Stock options! Two years earlier, they had been jamming in garage bands with names like Soul Carrot and now they had stock options! It was only a matter of time before our influence went beyond pop culture to issues of greater global importance.

We’ve been out of school, most of us, for at least four years now. We’re buying houses. We’re making contacts. We’re "schmoozing." Many of us have business cards with our own names on them because we’ve been promoted to positions like "Junior Executive." In five years we’ll be eligible to run for Senator. In ten years, President. The kid who’d once punched me in the nose during an honest-to-goodness argument over who was better, Hulk Hogan or Junkyard Dog, could one day be given control of a button attached to ten-thousand nuclear bombs!

As for myself, I fluctuate daily between worrying about my IRA, and pretending that my cell phone is a gun. I look down at my wedding ring and marvel that the state of New Jersey has actually entrusted me with a legally binding contract, no questions asked. I still find it odd that I have decision-making power at work, and that I’m not just taking lunch orders. I ask assistants to send my faxes. When people call the office, they ask to speak to me. Not my boss. ME! They spend thousands of dollars based on my recommendations and "expertise." They call me Sir!

What is wrong with the universe?

I have volumes upon volumes of memories involving tag, kickball and chocolate milk, but only four years of "guess-what-happened-at-work-today" stories. Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time seeing myself, or my peers as grownups. All I know is that I certainly don’t feel old enough to have even the responsibilities I have now – most of which simply consist of eating healthy and getting out of bed in the morning. But what about everybody else my age? How can anybody who ever threw a temper tantrum over Donkey Kong possibly be put in charge of decisions beyond where their much older boss does his dry-cleaning? I don’t know. But ready or not, the Atari generation is here. And I fancy, not even The Bloodhound Gang can get us out of this one.