Article published October 16, 2013 (#-523)

Don’t call the Old Coot!

By Merlin Lessler

I love wrong numbers. I had one the other night, "Hello,” I said, wondering why I’d bothered to answer, thinking it was probably a telemarketer. I expected to hear,  “It’s your last chance to protect your credit rating; you must act today to take advantage of our one time offer!” – or- “We need your help. Won’t you please make a donation to the Clam and Oyster Foundation?” But, it wasn’t. All I heard was a muffled, “Grmph-butch-is-at ooh?” I was relieved. I told the mumbler he had the wrong number. “I’m tho thorry,” he replied. He didn’t need to apologize; I was thrilled; I love it when it’s a wrong number. I can get off the phone in a flash. With a right number, I have to listen, and sometimes even talk, turn down a request to do something or worse, agree to it. Even with a telemarketer, I have to listen long enough to figure out if I should hang up, make a wisecrack or lie - “Sorry! My wife just set her hair on fire taking the roast out of the oven!” And, hang up chuckling to myself. It makes me wonder why Alexander Graham Bell worked so tirelessly to invent such an inconvenient device. One that has been rudely intruding into people’s lives for over a century. (He took credit for it anyhow; it was really invented by a little-known Italian mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, 16 years before Bell patented it in the US.).

 But, I answered the phone the other night. I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs; I hear the bell and my arm shoots out and picks up the receiver even though my mind says, “NO!” So there I am, more often than not, saying hello with dread and trepidation. I hate talking on the phone, even in the best of circumstances. Most old coots do. We have a hard time conversing when we can’t look someone in the eye.  Too much missing information, we can’t see the caller, and even worse, the caller can’t see us roll our eyes as they go on and on. They don’t get the message to SHUT UP!  

It’s why old coots have shifted to text messaging, those of us who have learned to use a miniature keyboard that is. It’s true, we don’t get to read the body language that we’d get in a person-to-person exchange, but even so, texting has a critical advantage over live phone conversations. You can delay your response and be less likely to: #1 - prove how stupid you are, #2 - avoid agreeing to something you will come to dread or, #3 - be required to put on an Oscar winning performance and respond to the caller with, “I-a donna speak-a da-Anglish,” which works Ok with a telemarketer, but not very well with a relative asking to borrow the ladder.

Wrong numbers are truly underrated. They’re just the thing for me. Call and ask for someone who doesn’t live here and I’ll give you a listen. (I’ve got nothing to lose.) Call and ask for me and you’ll get the “hair on fire” routine. Have a problem with that? Don’t call; send your complaint to mlessler7@gmail.com. I’ll add it to the pile.

Article published October 9, 2013 (#-522)

The old Coot can’t get to sleep.

By Merlin Lessler

I was watching TV the other night. Technically, it was the middle of the night, three o’clock in the morning. It was one of those wake-ups where you can’t get back to sleep, too much on your mind. In my case, it was something stupid, “Remember to put new wiper blades on the car.” Even so, it kept me awake. I flipped on the TV. Couldn’t find anything. Hundreds of channels and nothing worth watching. I couldn’t read a book because I forgot where I put my glasses, all four pair that I scatter about the house, but seem incapable of locating when I need them.

I liked it better when there was nothing on TV in the middle of the night, back when they ran the 11 o’clock news – 15 minutes in total, including the weather report. Now, the weather report itself takes 15 minutes. Two minutes of useful information and thirteen minutes of what you should do, or wear, to endure it. I guess we’re too stupid to figure that out on our own. At the end of the news, the announcer said, “Good night,” the scene shifted to a waving American flag and he (it was always a he) dropped a phonograph needle onto a scratchy 33 1/3 vinyl record and the National Anthem blasted out through the speaker. (It was designed to wake the old coots who fell asleep on the couch, and get them to go to bed.) Then, a test pattern appeared. I guess it was so the engineer could adjust equipment at the station. They never said what it was for. But, there it sat, covering the entire screen, a big circle surrounded by smaller circles and lines and other odd geometrics. No sound. Just the test pattern.  

Sometimes we sat and starred at it, puzzling over its purpose. But usually we got up and walked over to the TV and turned it off. That’s right! Got up and walked over to the TV. No remotes back then. We would have thought them magic, witchcraft.

If I had a choice, I’d opt for the test pattern today. It would be better than the hundreds of channels running shows, none worth watching. Maybe someone will record an old test pattern and market it as a DVD. You could pop it into a DVD player, and wa-la, it’s 1954 all over again. I forgot where I was going with this. It happens a lot when you’re an old coot. Ready, Aim, Fire turns into Ready, Aim, ??? Anyhow, I never got back to sleep the other night. I got up and changed the wiper blades and went out for coffee. The diner was loaded with old coots like me, who also couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ve got to get a “test pattern” DVD. I know it would solve my middle of the night wake up problem. Anything is better than sitting around a diner at four o’clock in the morning with what looks like the cast from that old zombie movie, “Night of the Living Dead.” 

 

 

Article published October 2, 2013 (#-521)

The Old Coot solves a “big” problem.

By Merlin Lessler

I’ve given this a lot of thought – this national obesity epidemic we are grappling with. I’ve seen the ads on TV: for diet pills, meal plans, exercise plans, tonics and any number of miracle cures. I watched Oprah lose (and regain) fifty pounds at least a half a dozen times. She couldn’t do it and she had a personal trainer, a dietician, a chef and a billon dollar bankroll. Even lap band and stomach stapling surgeries don’t necessarily have a long-term effect.

But the answer, the solution, is as plain as the nose on your face; in fact, it is the nose on your face. Shut it down and you are on a path to a smaller you. We learned this as kids and then forgot it. We held our nose when we were made to eat something we didn’t like: spinach, asparagus, liver, lima beans. (Sorry, I got carried away with my own list.) Anyhow, we held our nose and hardly tasted it.

It works for food you don’t like; it works for food you do like: Snicker’s bars, Oreos, Whitman samplers, strawberry shortcake. (Sorry, I got carried away with my own list again.) Hold your nose; lose weight! It’s that simple. Try it! Get something you really like, hold your nose and eat it. Not quite as good is it? It’s because 75% of taste comes from your sense of smell, your nose. The tongue can only distinguish between sweet, salty, sour, bitter and something called umami. 

Now, on to my old coot diet. I call it the clothespin diet. Use a clothespin to lose weight! No painful exercise routines, no harmful pills, no will power, no counting calories. Just a cheap bag of plastic clothes pins, preferably in assorted designer colors that match the clothes in your closet. Clip one on before a meal or wear it all day long. Nothing will taste quite so good. Pretty soon you will eat because you’re hungry, not because it tastes good. The pounds will simply slide off your frame. Having a bad day? Unpin your nose and go on a taste binge. Then, put the clothespin back into service and you’re back on track again. What could be simpler?

Article published September 25, 2013 (#-520)

The Old Coot takes a gamble.

By Merlin Lessler

The Old Boy’s Club, that meets every weekday morning at the GoatBoy CoffeeBar, bought a $100 Rotary raffle ticket. We expect to win one of the top three prizes, $10,000 - $2,000 - $1,000. There are only 250 tickets sold, so our odds are good. We’re too cheap to buy a whole ticket on our own so we pooled our money to help support the local Rotary Club in their efforts to make our community a better place to live.

That’s what I hope anyway, that it’s a “we” thing, because so far I’m the only one who’s put up any cash. “I’ll catch up with you later,” is the standard response when one of the “boys” is asked for their ten-dollar share. I think I’m in for it; just ask Dennis how many times we’ve stiffed him when he let us have a coffee without paying. (One of those “I forgot my wallet” things.) Except for Rick, who does just the opposite. He doesn’t forget his wallet; he forgets to pick up his change. Maybe it evens out? All I know is that I’ve got until October 29 to break even myself. The best offer I’ve had so far is, “I’ll pay you out of my winnings.”

Now these guys aren’t old, even though they’re in the Old Boys Club. I’m the old guy. I’m the cheapskate. I’m the guy who keeps reminding everyone that a pizza only cost a dollar when I was growing up. That gasoline was twenty-six cents a gallon. But, I get no respect; I’m forced to thank them for the money taken out of their paycheck that funds my monthly Social Security stipend and pays for my medical bills, which aren’t that much, because guys from my generation don’t go to the doctor unless the bone in their arm penetrates the skin or they can’t get the stick out of their eye. Still, I’m forced to give thanks every month for what they call their welfare payment to me. And then listen to them complain that there won’t be any money left when they become an old coot like me. 

I’m in a dilemma. I fronted the money for the $100 ticket; now I have to collect ten dollars from each of them. And, not be too pushy about it, since I’m the Rotarian and it’s my club that’s selling the raffle tickets. Even when I tell them how many thousands of dollars we donated to make sure a community swimming pool was built at the high school, or about the annual donations we make to the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Waterman Conservation Center, the Boys and Girls Club and many other local organizations. Even when I point to the basketball hoops we installed at Marvin Park, the gardens we planted and now maintain at the “Welcome to Owego” signs and our worldwide effort to wipe out polio. They still give me a hard time. None of it will make a difference in my collection effort; they are going to make me work for it. Payback for having to listen to my old coot rantings every morning.

So, if you see me standing in front of the GoatBoy CoffeeBar holding a tin cup, begging for coffee money, you’ll know the Old Boys Club stiffed me. Maybe you can help ease my pain by getting your own gang together and buy a ticket. It’s easy; just stop in at the Riverow Bookshop (Owego) and ask for John or Laura or contact me via e-mail below. But hurry! You only have until October 29^th.

Article Published September 18, 2013 (#518)

The Old Coot never gets the whole story.

Here I go again! Another foolish attempt to explain the difference between men and women, naively thinking it will help in the battle of the sexes, bringing Mars and Venus into compatible orbits. This time it’s the “men never get the whole story” phenomenon.

A husband will come home and say to his wife, “I ran into Bill today; his son got married in the Bahamas last month.” He (the husband) thinks he did a good job, got the scoop and remembered to report it. He couldn’t be more wrong!

The grilling begins! “Which son? Who did he marry? Did Bill and his wife attend or did the couple elope? Where are they going to live? Where did they meet? How long had they dated?” Each question is answered exactly the same, “I don’t know.” Men never get the whole story!

They actually do get more facts than they report. But, not facts relevant to the “relationship” story. For example, the husband with the scoop on Bill’s son getting married did learn that the son drives a 2010 Mini Cooper with 8,000 miles on the odometer, that Bill shot a 97 on the golf course in spite of getting a 10 on the 16^th hole. But facts about the marriage? Absolutely none! He didn’t think to ask.

It’s not his fault; it’s the way a man’s brain works. Next time, if he’s like most men, he won’t mention Bill’s son getting married. Mars will keep his orbit away from Venus.

I don’t know why men are like this. It might be a memory problem; we forget we’ll face a cross-examination when we come home with a story like this. We eventually learn to cope, when we become old coots. But we don’t fix our problem; we simply resort to fiction. We make up the answers. Our fingers are crossed when we step to the witness stand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. 

An old coot will respond to a “who-did-he-marry” question with made-up facts,  “A girl from California; they met in college.” – “Did Bill and Mary go to the wedding?” - “No the couple eloped.” On and on an old coot will go, perjuring himself to the nth degree, to avoid having his “men don’t get the whole story” syndrome exposed. Eventually, it will come out, but he’ll cover his tracks with, “I guess I heard it wrong,” revealing yet another male dysfunction, the “men don’t listen” syndrome, an aliment I explained a few years ago in my unending quest to quiet the battlefront in the war of the sexes. If you missed it, you can scan down the page where it is posted for your review. Unless you’re a man. Then, don’t bother; men never get the whole story.