A use for selfie sticks?

I've been showing several different groups of friends around the Eternal City, with a few more groups yet to arrive in the coming days. Though the friends have come in different groups and do not know each other, one thing has remained constant in our wanderings through the streets of Rome: selfie stick sellers.

Of all of the illegal sellers of stolen goods, the selfie stick sellers are, by far, the most obnoxious. Whereas the sellers of knock-off purses, various wooden items from Africa, and cell phone chargers and power adapters set up their "wares" on main sidewalks and benches, they tend not to approach you as you walk by. The selfie stick sellers, though, walk right up to you, put their selfie stick right in front of you, and say, "Selfie, selfie?" Every. Single. Time.

There are dozens of selfie stick sellers throughout the city moving about in packs, so it isn't just one of them of shoving a narcisstick in front of you, but three, or four, or even five. All within a forty feet span of sidewalk or road. Even if I walk through the streets alone, wearing my cassock, and listening to my iPod, still they shove their selfie sticks in my face thinking for some unfathomable reason that I might want one of these stupid things so emblematic of how far society has fallen.

I mention all of this today only because someone sent a cartoon to me via Twitter:

@Daren_J_Zehnle pic.twitter.com/BleA7Mq1o4

— Jerry Vuoso (@jzvup) May 18, 2015

My disgust of selfie sticks is, by now, well known, and I admit to laughing when I saw the comic.

Though I've never thought about hitting someone using a selfie stick, I have thought about buying one to carry with me through the city. Then, when one of the selfie stick sellers sticks their sticks right in front of me, I could take mine out of my pocket and beat them with it. That seems to me to be the only legitimate use for a selfie stick, though, admittedly, it isn't likely morally right. (I have no plans of doing so.)

If I suffer the selfie stick sellers well, I suppose I could assist a great many souls in Purgatory. So far, I'm afraid I haven't suffered them well and, though I would like to suffer them well, I don't see it happening any time soon. Such is the nature of my own sinfulness.