I’m at my cousins watching the bachelorette, making gagging noises every time I hear “I’m falling in love”.  Trump interrupts the programming and I’m excited for once. He’s announcing the new Supreme Court judge and I’ve been tuning into podcasts all week to sniff out a clue on who may sit in the empty seat.

Now this is a weird reversal. First of all, millennials, as far as I know, love the bachelor and bachelorette series (it’s still on TV, isn’t it?). And very few people my age care about Trump politics (unless their SO cares about Trump politics and thats their go to drunk Friday night argument ( no….. that wasn’t me)).

But regardless, here I am, flipping the script. Probably because I’m one of those single millennials. And we are looking for a greater stage then ABC can give us. Tonight I don’t care if Blake goes home. Tonight I’m eager to find out who wins the rose on the “President Trump Presents…” show  (Honestly a good name because two weeks ago we were looking at Kim Jung Un; and I love those dumb photos of Putin as well)

I digress. I was at my cousins listening to Brett Kavanaugh’s speech about how he…. what was it again? Has women employed on his staff and has two black friends? I think thats what he said. In the brief hesitation before he discussed his daughter’s T-ball.  I can’t even be sure, neither can either of the millennials I was sitting with because we were all on google trying to figure out what his views were on Roe vs. Wade. Regardless, speech is over, Wills in the bacherlorette gets set home (sorry for the spoiler), and simultaneously I call my Uber.

Now this is the really tricky part of our generation. We are taught to be nice to everyone, but this is a stranger driving me home, and to be honest, he’ll driver me home slower if I distract him with a conversation. But the inner 1990’s baby pushes out.

“Hi. How are you?” I say. ” Oh glad to hear all is well! Much traffic tonight?”. Here I go, thrown into this conversation with a complete stranger that wont benefit me at all. He’s from Nigeria, and moved to the US in the late 80’s. Pointless information, but I know this so now you must too. He moved to Philly a few years ago from Brooklyn, NY, and I casually remark on the stark differences between the two. “No” he replies, “Philly is 1993 Brooklyn”. “What?” I say. 50% of my drivers are idiots, and the other 50% is a gamble between the workaholic hustlers and someone who could be a workaholic hustler, but I can’t understand them. I toss the dice.  “What do you mean?”. And he repeats “Philly is 1993 Brooklyn”. Well I can understand him well enough, but I don’t get it. “1993 Brooklyn?” I ask, looking at my surroundings. There are streets I would jump out of this car to walk down, and directly adjacent to those… I lock the door. But that’s Philly. And I ask again, “what do you mean 1993 Brooklyn”

“I moved to Brooklyn in 1993″ he says ” and it looked just like this. I was looking at a house then for my family that was $38,000. The same house today costs $400,000. And everyone who can’t afford New York now is moving to Philly”. I glance out my window and answer “you better invest in some Realestate then”.

We both laugh, but mid chuckle I think “is this 1993 Brooklyn?! Will Realestate here make me $300,000 in 10 years?”

How the hell am I supposed to know?

I’m not old enough to know what 1993 Brooklyn looked like. I’m not even old enough to know what 2000 New York was. My parents had me young, and they, like myself, have very little idea what it is to invest in Realestate. Neither of us knows what 2018 Philadelphia has the potential of being.

Their main concern was raising my brother and I. Furthering our education and giving us the push we need to go do things they dreamed they could. And now I’m looking outside at the gentrifying city of Philadelphia thinking…. “is this where the future will be?”

I mean no one knows. The only thing I know is my generation will ask questions like this until we are old enough to know for ourselves. Because the primary source of trust and knowledge (our parents) can write us books about raising kids, something my generation seems to be indifferent too, but very little about the economy and investment.

“Jobs are plenty” my dad tells me “people are paid more. The economy is good”.

“What the blazing hell is an economy” I think… and “who controls it”.