Children Playing with Adult Toys

Kim Kardashian's getting a divorce. Married 72 days. And calling it quits.

At least she gave it a chance.

More and more a phrase careens through my brain, knocking holes in things, letting in some painful light. "Children playing with adult toys."

A couple of Sundays ago, I watched "West Side Story" again. Once in a while the story makes me angry. "Romeo and Juliet" does it to me too (Why not? Same story!).

Here's two street gangs, full of hormones and ego, serious stupidity, a bottomless pit of ignorance, almost un-self-aware. As the famous radio comedian Fred Allen characterized one of his less brilliant acquaintances, "He was born ignorant, and he's been losing ground ever since!"

They know what death is, but they don't know what death is. They have not yet grokked that "death" will sooner or later include people their age, people they know, and, eventually, them. So they swagger their way through life, totally self-absorbed, reacting to trivial things, over-reacting, until one day one boy from each gang ends up dead. And they are so amazed! Able to deal death, but not yet really aware of what "death" really is.

Children playing with adult toys. Unable to comprehend adult consequences, unwilling to shoulder adult responsibilities, brain-dead about anything adult, only totally insane over adult pleasures.

It turns out you can be 31, Kim, and still be a child.

It turns out you can have fully functionaly adult reproductive organs, and still be a child. You can have a child and be a child.

Sex. Drugs. Alcohol. Tobacco. Cars. Guns.

Life and death in decisions twelve-year-olds make.

Children playing with adult toys.

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time," they say.

Don't dance if you aren't willing to pay the piper.

Don't play with adult toys until you're an adult, Kim.