If you had asked me in fifth grade to predict what the world would look like in 2018, I would’ve assumed there would be far less aerosol products.

It seems like they were public enemy number one in 1991, but that category is now surprisingly filled by single-use plastic straws. I saw one taken out of a turtle’s nose on the Today Show. It was disgusting.

I’m not entirely sure what happened with aerosol cans but I know they used to damage our ozone layer. Either someone has invented a less harmful alternative or we collectively lost interest. I still try to avoid using them when possible just in case they are harmful and have purposefully avoided looking up whether or not whipped cream cans count as an aerosol.

It seems to me that elementary school teachers have an obligation to follow up with me about these socially conscious concerns they’ve engraved deep into my brain. I didn’t ask to learn about the ozone layer in social studies, yet here I am feeling guilty when applying Rustoleum all-weather spray paint to protect my outdoor metal fire pit.

Who will tell me when to stop worrying? Have they fixed the products or has the ozone entirely wasted away? I thought of Googling it, but I shouldn’t have to pretend I’m a scientific researcher just to know how the story ends. I was passive when I learned it and remain passive still.

Also, what’s going on with those plastic six-pack rings? Do we still need to cut them or has single-stream recycling made that rule obsolete?

I didn’t cut a single one in college when I piled up the most, but Jenny makes me cut them now and I need to know if I have moral grounds to resent her. (Relax, it’s a joke – I never bought as few as six beers at a time in college).

The closest thing I’ve gotten to an update on this was when a few people at work got upset about all the Keurig pod waste. I got excited because I thought we’d move to a real coffee pot so I could get a decent cup, but instead, we now collect the pods in a box and mail them to someone else so they can throw them away.

Aerosol cans and six-pack rings are some of the great environmental mysteries of my generation. My fifth-grade self also would’ve thought a lot more things would’ve melted by now from all of the acid rain.

I expected that to become a lot more like the dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Instead, it just makes our statues look a little extra sad.

Candidly, I’m tired of having to pay attention to every little detail when our EPA Administrator can reverse any progress with a signature from his diamond-encrusted pen. The bad guys have worn me down like Steve Urkel brazenly stalking a policeman’s daughter on a show that lost some luster post-#metoo.

I’m sure these teachers would respond that they weren’t just teaching me about environmentally-damaging products, but rather that they were teaching me the skills to educate myself and to be an active participant in our civil society.

While that may be the future we prepared for, it’s not the one we got. Someone should come back around to close these loops, preferably while passing out cupcakes to celebrate a classmate’s birthday.

Maybe they could do it in a Buzzfeed video titled 20 Pollutants from the ‘90s that Are Still In Our Lungs Today, or as a quiz titled Which of These Heartthrobs from the ‘80s Are Still Clinging to Your Artery Walls?

Aging introduces all sorts of mysteries, like wondering if they only changed how the SATs are scored so we can never definitively prove that our children are dumber than us.

These kids today think they’re so smart with their inflated test scores, but I’ve never heard a single one of them speak out against the Soviet Union. It’s a shame we’re raising such an entitled generation.

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