Alexandra Petri: ‘I am a millennial … I am sorry’
Before we move any closer to the end of the planet, I wish to get this off my chest: I am a millennial, and I am sorry for killing everything.
Yes, it was me, and I did it to get vengeance on the boomers. They did not want me to have nice things. They insisted that I valued experiences more than possessions, while denying me the disposable income that would have permitted me to try having possessions. They forced me to live in my parents’ basement, then mocked me for living there, calling me “self-obsessed,” “entitled,” “lazy,” “narcissistic.” I could only bear so much.
They would be made to suffer. I would murder everything they loved. First, the nuclear family. Then, golf. Then, the American dream.
At first my only motive was revenge. It was when the boomers insinuated that I was bringing back the monocle (?!?!) that I snapped. I killed their precious wine cork without a second thought. I watched the life ebb out of it and felt – nothing. Only emptiness, and a sort of relief.
Diamond rings I dispatched with no pain whatever. I am under far more stress than a pitiful piece of carbon ever has been.
I must live with what I have done. At night, I can still hear the screams of Home Depot. But it had to be done if I wanted my vengeance. Destroying the nuclear family brought me no particular pleasure. Relationships were a messy kill, and I am not entirely sure that they are dead. But I could not stay any longer to make sure. I have no leisure. I killed it, too. I hope it did not suffer first, as I know the Canadian tourist industry did.
I cannot look you in the face and say what I have done, because I have slain face-to-face interactions, too.
I remember how the workweek begged and pleaded for its life as it writhed in my vise-like grip. “Don’t you understand that once you destroy me, you will have to work all the time, without stopping?”
“I know,” I said. “But I do not care. I am a millennial. Work is my only joy and source of creative fulfillment.”
I remember the look on department stores’ faces when they realized I would not spare them. They tried to plead with me, remind me of happier times spent hanging out at malls. The fools! That was Generation X.
I am a millennial. Destruction is all I know. I no longer care what I wipe from the face of the Earth.
The paper napkin I killed for sheer sport.
I watched home ownership burn while I ate an avocado, coolly, smeared on toast. What home could ever shelter me after all that I have done? I have no home. I am more mobile than any past generation, because my crimes compel me ever onward.
The pleas of Applebee’s fell on deaf ears. “Do you think that if I could not find it in myself to spare the nuclear family, I would let you live, Applebee’s?” I murmured. Buffalo Wild Wings received no mercy. There will be no wings where I am going.
There is too much blood on my hands, and no bar soap to wash them with (I killed that first, after it witnessed me murdering golf).
Romance sits in my parents’ basement in a big freezer.
I am about to finish killing democracy, then perhaps, the planet. Then I can run no longer. Obviously. I killed running.
There is nothing for me but to mount this fresh kill on my wall: a trophy. All I have ever desired.
Alexandra Petri is a columnist for the Washington Post.