National High

Getting off the Blue Line Subway this evening at Division I was assaulted by a little kid almost as wide as he was tall, a crusty little snot ring lining his right nostril, wielding colorful little sticks.

"Would you like to buy a Pixie Stick?! Would you like to buy a Pixie Stick?!" he repeated over and over, almost too fast to understand, to everyone who came up the top of the staircase leading to Ashland Avenue. I looked him in the eye and said, defiant and snide, "No."

He just kept on blathering at near light speed, almost shaking, his pre-teen rolls of fat jiggling under his stained yellow polo shirt. He and his cohorts had obviously eaten more of the candy than they had sold. I looked over to the right and saw his guardian or whatever watching over the supply of goods, doing nothing to teach his kids one iota of manners, or salesmanship, for that matter. At one point, three of the little bastards took off running, while he just looked on, and I swore they were going to head right into traffic on Milwaukee Avenue.

Is this how low education as a national priority has sunk? That at 6:30 on a Monday evening, a kid must sell candy at a busy intersection so that his baseball team can afford to buy uniforms? Those kids should have been home eating a nutritious dinner and then doing homework.

Somebody please tell me again why the Pentagon eating up almost half of our national budget is a good thing?