Can someone please explain to me how I managed to get through my entire life without ever owning a fidget spinner?

Seriously, they are everywhere these days. Watch most anything on the net and, eventually, they will creep into the topic of conversation. Pass by the store windows in any small-town Localville, and you will see adverts announcing that the much-coveted item can be yours for anywhere from a bargain-basement price to an absolutely ridiculous one.

Now don’t get me wrong, I can see a use for them, especially for those with attention-deficit disorders where they may actually help to calm anxiety and relieve stress.

I don’t, however, see a benefit for everyone.

When I was a child, we didn’t need fidget spinners. We had chores to do, something some kids today seem to feel they should have a free pass from. Otherwise, we were drawing, or painting, or writing, or singing, or outside running around, or digging in the sand, building yet another fort in some bush or tree, or simply flying a kite. Point is, I remember my childhood being quite busy without my having to walk around, holding a piece of plastic. The reality of a stressful life, such as I’d later come to know most intimately, didn’t exist back then. The daily routine was simply about cramming in as much fun as we could manage.

Most of our activities encouraged us to get out and play with others. Neighborhood games of hide-and-seek or baseball were great ways to pass away an evening. Rarely did we sit around long enough to even contemplate why there would be a need to twirl a piece of plastic between our fingers.

Today, I sometimes feel the only things kids truly exercise is their fingers … while they play video games, or scroll through their telephones, or twirl their fidget spinners. We are raising a society of kids, who are being encouraged by their normal childhood activities, to be loners.

And don’t even get me started on the cost.

There are thousands-of-thousands of dollars being generated for those who create and sell these things but that’s not a benefit to anyone other than the select few. For the rest, we are just stockpiling more junk that most likely will no longer even be the in-thing in a year or two. Once the craze is over and everyone moves on to something else, the fidget spinner rejects will wind up forgotten in some cast-off drawer. Or they’ll be lined-up on yard sale tables with a quarter price tag stuck on them.

I think it’d be more productive if we put all that money to better use, like by donating it to charity, or to abused and neglected children and animals, or even to help youth who desperately want to college but have no means to do so. Can you imagine how much of a fund we could all create if everyone just chose not to buy one fidget spinner and instead donated that money to helping the less fortunate?

Oh well, to each his own, I suppose. If fidget spinners are you, then by all means, you do you.

Given that I’m at a point where I look at such things more in the sense of how long I would have to work in order to buy that thing, I can’t hop on this fad bandwagon. For me, they are not worth the time I spent earning those dollars. I’d rather save up my coins and go on a road trip somewhere where I can have a real-life adventure.

It’s all comes down to priorities, I suppose. Would you rather spin your life away . . . or get out and make memories . . . or put a smile on the face of a homeless person by offering them a warm lunch?

I know what I’d choose.