It’s no secret my love for listicles runs deep with the blood of clickbait factories like Gawker and Buzzfeed, and yet often I find I cannot escape their obvious traps they cleverly write to take pot-shots at the sort of values I am supposed to have grown up with had there not been this magical tube network of electrical signals showing me such a list in the first place, written by the sort of snorting, chucklefucks who probably don’t know how to cope without their Starbucks and overpriced Apple Macbooks. So in the spirit of equally biting satire, I present to you my rebuttal to an article entitled 40 shockingly simple skills that today’s Millennials have no idea how to do written by a website no one gives a shit about from an idiot named Mike.

#1) Plant a seed in dirt and grow an edible plant.
Oh hey, we have two gardens full of vegetables outside our house. But seriously, it’s not 1890’s farm family anymore, old-timer. People live in apartments, condos, or don’t give a shit and just buy their produce from farmer’s markets or grocery stores. So sorry yours got eaten by Japanese beetles again this year.

#2) Change a bicycle tire.
Front or back? I’ve done both, but front tends to be easier without the chains. I used to work on my bike as a kid like you pretend to work on the Mustang you don’t own. Also, support your local bicycle shops that repair shit and have them do it. It’s like you hate small business or something.

#3) Sharpen a pencil.
Like, with a knife? The old-fashioned way? How is that hard? You are the worst listicle ever.

#4) Identify the name of any tree or bird in the real world.
Cedar. Oak. Pine. Bluejay. Finch. Your mom. Wait, that last one wasn’t a tree…

#5) Check the oil level in any engine.
I wanted to do another your mom joke, but that would be in poor taste. If you’ve ever had to drive non-new, hand-me-down cars that have issues, you’d know a lot more than just how to check oil. Fortunately, I was one of those people. Yeah, not all millennials are silver-spoon you imbecile.

#6) Name a single star in the night sky.
Everyone knows the astrological signs, dude. They’re all named after stars. Are you even trying?

#7) Change a blown fuse in anything (or even reset a circuit breaker).
Done plenty in cars, but come on, reset a circuit breaker? Clearly you’ve never lived in a 1920’s house with bad electrical before. Tripping breakers is what I do being a tech nerd.

#8) Drive a stick shift. (Many don’t even know what “stick shift” means.)
Ah yes, the ultimate NANA-NANA-BOO-BOO-I’M-BETTER-THAN-YOU moment for gearheads and MANLY MEN. Driving a stick-shift. Look, I don’t know how, and yet I am not crying because I spend 1.5 hours in traffic every day, and I am not going to spend it constantly having to move my left leg every two feet and shift up and down, which is murder on stick-shift cars. When I am good and retired and can joyride, or maybe have a mid-life crisis and buy a Veyron, I’ll learn stick. Until then, I’ll drive bitch and play smooth jazz at full volume.

#9) Navigate using a printed map without using GPS.
I’ve been licensed and owning a car since 1999. GPS became widely used in.. 2010? 2011? What do you think I was using to drive all over the east coast before GPS? Intuition? Don’t be daft, man, our generation existed before modern technology. Maybe this list was intended for the generation after us?

#10) Strike a punching bag without injuring their frail, fragile wrists.
Ohnoes, my flail, fragile wrists. Putting your witty snark aside, I’m well aware of how you punch anything without hurting your wrists. Shall I teach you how to care for your wrists you use to masturbate to Asian porn every night? I’m not snarking, I type all day, I’ve learned the tricks and own wrist braces for a reason, I am still interested in having functional hands at 50.

#11) Repair a broken garden hose without throwing it away and buying a new hose.
Repair how? Fix a puncture? Yes. Reinforce the threading to seal on the water source side? I don’t understand why fixing a hose matters when hoses cost pennies to make and sell in today’s Made in China economy. This might’ve mattered fifty years ago, but that’s why you’re old and cranky and writing this abortion of a post I am riffing on.

#12) Stop bleeding with a tourniquet.
Take cloth, tie around arm or leg tightly. I think enough people have watched police procedural or medical dramas to understand the basic idea until EMTs arrive. If you really want to know more, take a class at your local town. But, I’ll give you this one, because everyone should know basic triage in these weird and dark times.

#13) Cut a piece of wood in a straight line using a hand saw.
Really, most people don’t work with wood and have no need to do such a thing. I happen to do it because I do build things, such as my deck gates, and kayak mounts, but hand-sawing is kind of stupid unless you need specific cuts or small things a power saw can’t do. Maybe you could elaborate on the types of hand saws and what is appropriate for which use. Oh, wait, you’re including this in your silly hit piece on a generation you don’t understand. My bad.

#14) Carry a 50 lb. bag of animal feed on their shoulder for 50 meters.
Why? Do all millennials need to own chickens? Pigs? Goats? Your mom? I couldn’t resist.

#15) Cook a real meal that isn’t “instant” or microwaveable.
Ah yes, the ol’ “college ramen” or “hot pockets” joke. Here, let me help you out, I think you meant “Make a meal that isn’t Chinese take-out or pizza”. Making meals isn’t some sort of hard thing, you can buy chicken in bulk, freeze it, and thaw what you need to cook on a grill or stove, make a bag veggie, and eat. Mixing ingredients or recipes isn’t hard, you just have to pay attention to shit and be willing to fail. People don’t learn to cook because they need to in order to survive, we’re not that kind of culture anymore. People learn to cook to make new and interesting things to eat, because eating delicious food is great and a man should know how to cook, you sexist shitlord.

#16) Start a camp fire, even with a lighter.
A lighter? Is this easy mode? Anyone can set something on fire, maybe learn how to build a proper campfire before lighting it, genius.

#17) Sharpen a knife, even using a knife sharpener.
I still have my stone used for sharpening my scout pocket knives twenty years ago. Plus, most modern knife sets come with a sharpener. How dull are you?

#18) Build a shelter in the forest by using only forest materials.
Aside from knowing a co-worker who did just that, I’ve done that, and just slept on the ground under the stars. Hi, BSA Order of the Arrow here, some of us know how to do these things. Why we’d need to I have no idea, I don’t plan on being on “Naked and Afraid” any time soon.

#19) Use a car jack without ripping the bumper off the vehicle.
The bumper? Who the fuck puts a car jack on a bumper? I agree with you people should know how to change a tire, but fucking learn the right way or just call AAA. Changing your tire on the highway dangerous.

#20) Chop wood for a wood stove.
Unless you live in the northeast or the middle of nowhere, you don’t have a wood stove. It’s $CURRENT_YEAR, get with the times.

#21) Locate and reset the ground fault tolerant button on an electrical outlet to restore power to the outlets.
What? It’s right on the outlet. Now I know you’re just trolling.

#22) Dry clothes on a clothesline.
This is America. No one living in apartments hangs their unmentionables on a clothesline outside. Well, maybe you do.

#23) Strip a copper wire.
Only if I am going to sell it.

#24) Securely tie a rope to anything at all.
Bungie cords were made for a reason. But yes, I do know how to do this in case.

#25) Calculate a 15% waiter tip in their heads.
Take ten percent of the total and add half of that to the ten percent. Or, tip 20% you cheap-ass-motherfucker.

#26) Make a broken bone splint out of anything at all.
Again, like the bleeding one, people should know this, but when we break things, we go to a hospital or clinic and they do that for us. Only use case here is if you’re far away from such a thing, and then it’s sturdy sticks and some kind of rope or twine. It’s like tying tomato plants. See #1.

#27) Catch a fish.
Not everyone likes fish. I like fish. I’ve caught fish. Not lately though because I don’t need to prove my masculinity to anyone.

#28) Clean a pistol.
Most millennials don’t own weapons because they’re anti-gun. I am not anti-gun, but I don’t own one either. But if you do, you learn how they work which includes cleaning it. I don’t see this as a requirement for being you though. I don’t even want to be you. You sound awful at parties.

#29) Swap out the hydraulic hose on a piece of farm equipment.
Yeah, because we all live on farms. With internet.

#30) Intelligently read any food label.
Define intelligently? Like, pronounce the words? Know the differences in sugar? Know the different types of fats? Or know it’s a fucking candy bar and it’s bad for me and maybe I shouldn’t buy and– TOO LATE IT WAS DELICIOUS also fuck you.

#31) Purify water using a plastic bottle and sunlight.
Or I could just drink my own piss.

#32) Make a water filter out of charcoal and sand.
Or I could just drink my own piss.

#33) Fold a paper airplane.
But what if it melts steel beams?

#34) Make an emergency funnel out of aluminum foil.
The only thing I make out of tinfoil is hats to keep the alien government signals out of my head. You should too, they’re telling you to write bad listicles.

#35) Chop down a dead tree with an axe.
Oh phew, for a minute there I thought you were going to say chop down a live tree. That’d be cruel.

#36) Read a compass.
Do they have that on audio book?

#37) Cut a stuck seatbelt to escape a burning vehicle.
With what? A spoon?

#38) Paddle a canoe in any intended direction at all.
I can masturbate with both hands, if that’s what you mean.

#39) Open any can of food without using electricity.
Wait, people use can openers that run on electricity?

#40) Siphon fuel from the gas tank of an abandoned car.
Is that how you steal gas? Don’t tell us your secrets.

So yes, well done teaching Generation Snowflake what for from Generation IThoughtCigarettesWereCoolAndNowWeHaveAllThisCancer. You sure showed us. The best part about this list is that it was obviously aimed at millennial men rather than women, since it included mostly “masculine” tasks people thing real men should do. Sorry, pal, Title IX saw to ruining the masculine form in the 1990’s while you were sitting around in your soiled underwear watching football drinking Milwaukee’s Best. The most amazing thing about millennial hit-pieces is they ignore the fact that it was their generation that raised us in this snowflake society and now they’re upset because we’ve infested their politics and social norms with backwards regressive bullshit. And believe you me, I don’t like it either, I like to think being born in the early 80’s I identify more with Gen X and retain some of those older values that work, but times change, and you’re going to have to accept changing with it. We are no longer a society that relies on farming culture. We face new and different challenges.

But when your writer bio is longer than the post itself, hey, narcissism is important too.