The Slice: Generational love/hate serves city

Spokane is a great place to be a young adult.

I mean, there’s so much to complain about. And let’s face it. Nothing makes certain twentysomethings happier than the opportunity to grouse about how unenlightened everyone else is.

I realize the conventional wisdom holds that young people tend to regard Spokane as Dullsville. You know, it’s a backward burg resistant to change and almost comically out of touch with pop culture trends and the proper way to live. Et cetera.

But maybe it’s time that we stopped thinking of that attitude as a bad thing. Because I have a news flash for you: A lot of young people are not happy unless they are moaning about the unbearable burden of living in such a benighted Hooterville.

That’s not a slam against them. It’s really the natural order of things.

You might even say it’s a 25-year-old’s job to be dissatisfied. Think abut it. Would you trust someone right out of college who said, “Oh, yes, I find Spokane adequately cool and appropriately obsessed with the issues that excite the imaginations of me and my friends”?

No way. People that age aren’t supposed to be complacent and apathetic. They’re supposed to be alienated and impatient.

Young adults have no monopoly on deriving pleasure from complaining, of course. Perhaps you have noticed that there are a few dyspeptic older folks around here, too.

But here’s the thing. Sometimes twentysomethings actually have good ideas. A few are willing to work toward change. It’s not all posturing and pointless disdain.

And in a not-too-big place like Spokane, they can make a difference. Well, once in a while.

So rage on, young brothers and sisters. Spokane is the perfect place for you.

•Winter forecast: Tomas Lynch doesn’t have a weather prediction. But he’s pretty sure we’ll be hearing a lot of “Oh, this is NOTHING compared to last year.”

•Kindergarten confusion: Teacher Anne Remien told about a young song stylist who has trouble distinguishing between “I’m a Little Teapot” and “I Like to Move It Move It” from the movie “Madagascar.”

•Clarification: When I asked about the dumbest things done by people working at your home, I wasn’t really looking for tales of incompetent workmanship or petty criminality.

•Warm-up question: Has buying clothes one size too small as a weight-loss inspiration ever worked?

•Today’s Slice question: If you had to guess, which Spokane TV news person with the obligatory vanilla on-air vibe is bodaciously R-rated off camera?