Gerbil nutritional pyramid. Take and bake pizza information was not available by our publication deadline.
Not every gerbil path is exactly the same. For example, most drop out of high school but some actually hang tough and barely graduate. Either way, though, the paths taken can still have remarkable similarities.
Most live at home as long as possible. Most avoid jobs, effort and all forms of responsibility like the plague. Most get into things like drugs, smoking, energy drinks (Monster, Red Bull) and expensive coffee stand drinks as quickly and as deeply as possible. Most are extremely poor, becoming adept moochers, yet still maintaining the most expensive of tastes. Some rely solely on mooching skills, others may turn to petty theft and crimes to maintain their standards of living.
In terms of avoiding jobs, most gerbils go one step further and begin customizing their appearance. Things like tattoos, tongue piercings, lip piercings, ear piercings, ear lobe gauging, bizarre facial hair, nose rings, and long dirty unkempt hair are routine. Strange clothing completes the ensemble. Not wanting to be limited to the dimension of sight only, most smell bad as well.
The net result is a life form that it almost unemployable in every way shape or form.
I’ve covered most of this before, however. This is really nothing new.
Our GRIPE scientists recently made another startling breakthrough in measuring gerbil behavior. Within a single herd they successfully identified three males sharing a surprising characteristic: They have all applied and been approved to receive food stamps!
The GRIPE scientists wanted me to pass along a message regarding this finding: “We are not shitting you.”
Details are still sketchy, more field research is needed, but here’s what we know so far.
Three gerbils, including our own son and two of his herd, have applied for and received food stamps. Yes, they’ve had a rough life and need help from a system they’ve never fucking paid into. Dropping out of work, avoiding your GED, refusing to look for a job, and turning your physical being into a fashion accessory is hard work.
So these three lazy 21-year-old assholes who have underachieved, dropped out, and never really held down a job are all pulling in food stamps. The food stamp money can even be used to pay for their “take and bake” pizzas!
Oh … my … God. What does a motherfucker living at home still need food stamps for???
I think the pyramid produced by our GRIPE staff sums it up nicely. Pot, smoking and drugs all come first. Then non-nutritional edibles like candy, expensive coffee drinks and the primary nutritional source for gerbils: lots and lots of Monster and Red Bull energy drinks.
If you have no job, live at home, have a medical marijuana card and are on food stamps, nothing less than $4 coffee drinks will suffice. Obviously.
–Tom B. Taker
It’s obvious why their is a need for food stamps. They do actually use the food stamps to buy some groceries, thus they are able to divert the remainder of their cash money to the things they really want that are really useless. The other day the gerbil stopped by and tried to borrow money from us because, he said, he only had 43 cents to his name. Yet he is never without his expensive smokes. Funny how that works.
Really, I want to know. What, if anything, are we teaching the youth of this generation and how in any way, shape or form are they being prepared to deal with the real world? I fear for them.
Shouts from the Abyss 
Hmmm, my gerbils are 23 and 27. The older one did the tattoo piercing thing to eliminate any meaningful employment. He’s was “profoundly gifted” which meant school bored him to tears. He quizzed out at 16. I’m happy to say he finally took that huge plug out of his ear, but it hasn’t closed entirely. He refers to it as his second asshole. Also when he caught on fire on New Year’s Eve, the burns did not erase all his tats, so his left arm now has a Jackson Pollock look. But the good news is he’s a hard worker doesn’t sponge off of us though this has meant that he’s lived in his car at times. He’s now moving to Idaho and has a Pell Grant to study Green technology. When he told us I thought I’d have a heart attack. I never thought I’d live long enough to see him come round.
The younger one is still at home, but pays all his own bills and when his OCD kicks in, he’s hard to beat as a housekeeper. He’s extremely mature and plans to pay his back for his rehab – eventually. My sons would rather eat off the land than collect food stamps, but then we live in California. I think the state should just start issuing them all Starbucks cards with a wifi allowance.
At least my younger son, who was stoned through most of high school, finally got it together and has paid his way through community college. TBH I think I would have been a much better parent if I’d been a teacher BEFORE I had kids. But I have high hopes (oh, that was the wrong word choice) that I’ll live long enough to see the fruit fall closer than I’d hoped.
LikeLike
Second asshole? That is classic. I’m so jealous. I wish I had thought of that. I’m going to begin numbering the holes on their bodies immediately. A whole new branch of research has just been opened up to us thanks to you! 🙂
Did you say one of your gerbils plans to pay back his “rehab?” REHAB?!? What a concept, to be that young and already have a rehab under your belt. Wow. I have to say, though, in my situation I’d consider that a win, since it would at least represent some form of progress.
I think you are onto something there. With the state facing budget woes, perhaps they could offer different “plans” for assistance. For example, you could take the standard food stamps program OR opt for the Starbucks/wifi plan worth 75% as much. In exchange for getting exactly what you want you get a little bit less of assistance. The state ends up saving 25% on the transaction. Before you know it the state will be rolling in dough again.
I sincerely and honestly don’t think your teaching experience would have made much difference. We tend to blame ourselves but in reality I don’t think parents are the problem. New research shows that peer groups have much more influence than parents ever did. Freud put parents at the center of a child’s universe, but not too surprising, I guess, it turns out that peers have much more sway. Gerbils are pack animals and follow the herd. The follower instinct dominates almost every aspect of their existence. Here’s an excellent article on the topic.
Thanks for the wonderful comment!
LikeLike
When I was young I used to judge parents when their children turned out badly. Little did I know that whether you do everything right or you do everything wrong, they can still wind up doing their own thing and walk away from everything they’ve been taught. Two years ago my son, who was 17 and had been brought up in church all his life, came to me one morning and said he did not believe in God and he wanted to become a Buddhist. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I didn’t handle it too well to say the least. He’s sort of come around a bit since then. All we can do is stand on the verse in the bible that says, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.’ Of course, you notice that it doesn’t say what happens between the time they are young and when they are old. 🙂 It’s so hard when they get to adulthood. You have no control anymore over them. I pray that your son will wake up and see the error of his ways and begin to take responsibility for his life.
LikeLike
While this was written in a thoroughly entertaining manner, it has deeply disturbed me. I am seriously at a loss for words.
LikeLike
I think I’m going to call it The Gerbil Cycle.
* Drop out of high school
* Never work
* Get a medical marijuana card
* Take up smoking, drinking and other drugs
* Modify your appearance to be unemployable
* And, for the pièce de résistance, get your ass on food stamps
Lovely, eh? 🙂
LikeLike
[…] The Gerbil Research Institute for Parental Edification published the Gerbil Nutritional Pyramid. […]
LikeLike