Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

You know, I cruise Youtube a little before I head for bed, and watch as it dons its digital Inspector Clouseau hat and tries to nail me down for the next salvo of relevant content, and, you know, they’re really good at that.

But eventually they run out of European underwear ads that I can neither pronounce nor spell (but speak to me through my retinas), and a clip pops up from Carol Burnett or Johnny Carson that takes me right back to high school.

By the magic of the internet time machine, I’m watching a clip that my parents might likely have watched live, and it’s like I’m sitting with them 50 years ago watching with them as their smoke fills the rec room my dad and I built together in the basement, and fills the ductwork up to my room where I just might be forming a nascent separation strategy.

Years of their lives melted away punctuated by Ed McMahon’s subservient guffaws, but before anything like a judgment can form I realize that I’m looking at a digital funhouse mirror that reflects the same thing right back at me, only with better production values.

No epiphany or call to action, just observation.