One of my biggest fears is turning into a cranky old man.
Pre-middle age might be a tad early to worry about such things. I think in most areas I pass for my 30-something, advertising friendly self: My knuckles aren't gnarled and curled up like a tree trunk yet; I have full control of my bladder at least 99.4% of the time; the top of my pants still resides closer to my waist than my arm pits; I am still paying full price at my local eateries; and I haven't started mixing my adult beverages with Ensure yet. However, more and more often, I get little glimpses of the crotchety Mr. Hyde residing in my easy going Dr. Jekyll persona*. For example-
* Mr. Hyde was the bad one, right? I find it hilarious that after his transformation he was only Mr. rather than Dr. He must have been very serious about the six years he spent at mad scientist medical school. The fact that I am referencing a 125 year old novel is not helping my case much.
-A complete lack of interest in new technology. I don't have a burning desire to own an Ipad. Hell, I didn't have a smart phone until last year. I had to have special training to just post these little fevered explosions of my ego. If it took more than just clicking the "publish post" button, you would never hear from me again. Don't look so happy about that. In short, I am slowly turning into the guy who has to have someone set all his clocks because it is just too complicated for my addled brain.
-I have, on multiple occasions, eaten dinner before 5:30 p.m. This is "early bird special" territory, there is no getting around it. There used to be days I hadn't eaten breakfast before that time.
-I now factor things like parking, crowd size and what is on TV tonight into deciding my plans.
What's more troubling is a slight change in attitude that tends to waft in unexpectedly. Suddenly, little things just tend to make me cranky and light the fuse to a rant. I do a pretty good job of just rolling with it and not letting things get to me too much. But sometimes when you are confronted with the same inane things, over and over, you have to let somebody know about it. I feel like one of those cartoon characters with the steam blowing out of my ears and a spinning bow tie in those moments. My doctor tells me that smoking ears aren't a good sign, so for one day and one day only I have decided to embrace the grump within. I am going to unleash the rant and never speak of these things again. What follows is a list of the things I am inordinately sick of and annoyed by. There is little rhyme or reason behind these particular items; they are things just happily bouncing around my stream of consciousness.
1-Awards shows. This comes with the season; I can't turn on my TV this time of year without seeing someone get a shiny phallic award for something. Is there anything more coma inducing than seeing a room of really rich and successful people congratulating each other on being so rich and successful?
Who is it deciding what is the best of everything anyway? I feel there is some shapeless cabal of mysterious old men, with long gray beards deciding these things. The whole thing seems a little arbitrary. Maybe I am too right brained, but I don't trust any results that don't require an equation, slide rule and graph paper. Awards should be approached like word problems: The Artist was the best movie of 2011? I am afraid I need you to show your work.
Truth be told, my biggest problem with award shows* is the constant reminder of how out of the loop I am. They nominated nine movies for "Best Picture" this year; I have seen exactly one of them. The Grammy's are even worse; it's a constant stream of bands and music I have barely heard of. It's like a virtual reality machine for Alzheimer's-a parade of people and sounds I don't recognize at all. I find myself thinking "Shouldn't Van Halen be nominated for something?" or "Would it kill you to give something to U2?" Evidently my musical biography stops in 1988.
*My second biggest problem is this cottage industry that has sprung up around these shows were we analyze what everyone wears. And by analyze I mean tear to shreds. I realize this is shocking, but fashion means less than nothing to me. I'm pretty sure these things exist so Joan Rivers can still draw a pay check.
2-Sports "holidays". The most watched television program every year is the Super Bowl. Perhaps you have heard of it. Amidst the reams of paper* devoted to coverage of the big game every year, some sport journalist, being the original deep thinkers they are, always writes a column that campaigns to make the Monday after the game a national holiday.
*Seriously, reams. I am sure we have destroyed acres of forests to prospect of covering every minute detail of this game.
This is why the terrorists hate us.
Basically we are saying we are going to drink so much beer and eat so much chili, wings or anything else we can fit in a deep fryer that we should get a day off to recover. Here is the deal with being a sports fan: If you are going to get this serious about things this trivial, you have to pay the piper. And by pay the piper, I mean show up at work unshaven and miserable. For example, game six of the World Series was an epic event last year. It featured multiple come backs and drama, lasted for nearly five hours and ended in a remarkable fashion. The ending was so remarkable it called for, nay, required, celebratory beers and shots. Did I mention it was nearly midnight when it ended?
Yet at 8 a.m the next morning I stumbled into work. I smelled strange, there was something on my pants that could possibly have been vomit and I wanted to crawl under my desk and die, but I made it. The piper was paid. Getting to sleep in until noon the next day would have been cheating.
I noticed this same themed article recently in relation to the NCAA tournament. This guy argued we should actually get two days off work, the Thursday and Friday when the games start. Shut up and take sick days like the rest of us.
3-The smoking ban argument in Springfield, MO. Let me state this up front: I couldn't care less if smoking is allowed in public or not. It affects my life in no way. Last year, the voters decided that you could not smoke in any business and in fact could only smoke after descending through a man hole into the sewer system. Or something, I am a little foggy on the details.
It is now one year later and apparently the issue is going back to the ballot. Really? I have to endure all the posturing and rhetoric again? Fantastic. I have an idea, lets just vote on it every single year. We can make it a best out of 25 scenario. Even better, lets just make this a holiday. It can be like Groundhog Day. Every year we can randomly select someone and, I don't know, check them for a lung tumor. If we find one, 52 more weeks of smoking! Think of the t-shirts we could sell.
4-Election year politics. I don't care what party you belong to or your feelings about any candidate. I am not here to try and persuade you any point of view other than this one: I would rather get poked right in the eye than have to tolerate any more election politics this year.
It is a daily parade of inanity and ridiculousness and nobody is throwing candy, only rocks. We are deluged with a constant barrage of garbage about contraception, gas prices, health care, Iran, Rush Limbaugh*, electability....I think one of my blood vessels just ruptured. In my skull.
* Can we take a moment just to agree Rush is a horrible person and we should never be surprised when he says terrible things? I hate all the attention this guy has gotten solely because I am sure it means his ratings have never been higher. Bill Hicks, my favorite comic of all time, does a great bit on Rush; go find it on the internets.
Look, I have no idea who I'm voting for at this point. I have no prediction on how this all turns out* and I think you should vote for the person you think will do best. However, that's the problem: I haven't heard anyone speak about a candidate they are passionate about. All I hear is the venom about candidates people passionately hate. "The person I loathe least" seems to be an odd way to go about filling this position. Maybe that is because the quality of candidates is that bad, I don't know. Whatever the case, November is a long way away.
*I lied, one prediction: Newt's gigantic head will finally ascend from his body and float to the atmosphere like a weather balloon. Have you seen the size of that thing?
That's it, that's the list. I feel cleansed and optimistic. This will last at least 24 hours or until someone cuts me off in traffic on my way to the early bird special.
No comments:
Post a Comment