The Old Coot waits his turn! (June 26, 2019 Article)

The Old Coot waits his turn.

by Merlin Lessler

Don’t crowd ahead! Stay in line! Wait your turn! Don’t buck the line! Those are a few of the exhortations that taught children how to behave in polite society when I was growing up. It was an important component in transforming us from little brats to well-mannered adults. We learned the value of waiting our turn from rude people who pushed ahead of us. We didn’t like it! And we didn’t want to be thought of, like we thought of them.

Most people don’t buck the line, but times are changing, bucking the line is becoming an accepted norm. Many people now use Apps on their smart phones that push them to the front of the line. Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, McDonalds, and a host of other food and beverage vendors invite customers to crowd ahead. You notice it; I notice it anyhow, when standing in line at one of those places, waiting patiently to get to the counter to place an order. People pop in the door, walk past the line, grab their order, smile at the line people and stroll out. It makes me wonder if they’re silently muttering, “Sucker,” as they leave.  

I could get those Apps, but I don’t want to miss the show, the “watch how people act as they wait in line” show. Sometimes, my fellow line people talk to me while we’re waiting, to grumble about the App users, but more often, to complain  about a customer at the front of the line holding us up because he doesn’t know what he wants, is too fussy about the specifics of his order or is searching through his pockets for a 10% off coupon.

I’ve made several acquaintances and a few friends, kibitzing in line with “regulars” and watching the show. I can’t let a “buck-the-line” App take that away from me.  Besides, it’s good for our well-being to slow down, to stop and smell the roses and practice patience. Something that pays dividends when you get in those agonizing lines, like at airport security. Or in life, waiting for “your ship” to come in.

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The Old Coot failed the recycle test! (June 19, 2019 article)

The old coot failed the test! Got an “F.”

By Merlin Lessler

I got my report card this morning. I walked out to retrieve the recycle bin and saw that it wasn’t empty. It had a small plastic bag in the bottom, signaling that I got an ‘F”! I failed. I was doing so well; I had all A’s the past several weeks, but this morning I didn’t pass the weekly quiz. That plastic bag was REJECTED! NOT ACCEPTABLE! It proved I hadn’t done my homework or I couldn’t follow instructions or I was just being an uncooperative old coot.   

But it was a mistake, not an intentional act that caused my failure. I know that plastic bags are no longer recyclable; they mess up the separation machinery at the sorting plant. It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not. I still got an F!

I’m not as concerned about failing out of recycling school as I am about the inconvenience I put the recycle crew through. These guys are among the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. They hustle more than middies on a college lacrosse team. Virtually in a dead run, back and forth to the truck with intervals of hanging on in back (for dear life) as the truck moves on to the next set of stops.

My inability to retrain myself, to adapt to the change in the recycle rules, makes their jobs harder; it forces them to paw through my “test paper” to see if I passed this week’s exam. All I can say is, “I’m sorry! I’ll try to do better. And, if that doesn’t work, I’ll plead the “old coot” memory excuse, “I forgot!”

The Old Coot cuts the line. June 12, 2109 Article

The Old Coot solves a line problem.

By Merlin Lessler

I don’t think architects get out enough. They don’t visit the buildings they’ve designed, to see if they are meeting the needs of the people who inhabit them. Take the restrooms, as a for instance. If they visited any public facility, they might pick up a few tips on design fundamentals that apparently aren’t taught in architect school. They would see a long line of women waiting to get into the bathroom and a tiny, or no line at all, in front of the men’s room door. It wouldn’t be hard to adjust the design to eliminate this flaw. Make the ladies room twice as large as the men’s room. Equality is great, but not as a design fundamental. Not, when it comes to rest rooms. Unequal square footage should be the norm.

Architects also need to go inside the rest rooms. Years ago, some engineering marvel decided to replace paper towel dispensers with electric hand dryers. “How can it go wrong? It solves the trash removal issue!” It did that, I’ll grant you, but over the years the machines have been ramped up and now sound like a jet engine revving up on the runway. They’re louder and harder on the ears than a rock concert. I’m lucky, I’m usually wearing jeans and denim is the perfect material for drying your hands. I hustle out the door while wiping them on my pants. It’s a skill I picked up when I was six years old and got my first pair of Levi’s. I just wish I had a second pair of hands so I could cover my ears at the same time.

Architects might also notice, if they stopped by one of their creations, that the paved walkways into buildings are seldom used, as evidenced by well-worn dirt paths through the grass to building entrances. It might be smarter to plant grass and see where people walk. Then, pave the worn-down paths. (Not my original idea; I stole this from someone; I forget who.)

Maybe, when they are at one of their creations, they can try to open their car door without dinging the car next to them in the parking lot. The spaces get smaller and smaller, yet the cars get longer and wider. It’s especially hard on old coots like me. We have to fling the door wide open and then work to unfold and extricate an uncooperative body that wants to stay in the car. They must have picked up their design principles in the same college course that airline designers learned to squeeze more people (sheep is more like what they think of us) into airplanes. And, just like the car and parking space phenomena, the passengers boarding planes are getting bigger, but the seats, aisles and headroom are getting smaller. Somebody in the design business needs to do the math! PLEASE!    

Comments? Complaints? Send to – mlessler7@gmail.com

Tho Old Coot wants closed captions - June 5, 2019 Article

The Old Coot complains yet again, #827.

By Merlin Lessler

This is the 827^th Old Coot article that’s erupted through pen & paper (and keyboard) over the past 15 or so years. Most of them have voiced some sort of beef about the world we live in, the world I live in anyhow. By the time I’ve finished scribbling & typing I’m laughing at the complaint, and more importantly, laughing at myself. More than six of these eruptions have aired my ongoing gripe with the “Weather” people. One article earned me a call from a US Weather Service meteorologist, to defend their warning system, that at the most inopportune times, interrupts my TV screen with irrelevant (and annoying delivered) alerts that don’t affect my area, or if they do, are what I would call, normal weather. I complain that they have made us afraid of thunderstorms, snowstorms, winds, rain, heat and cold waves, making the latter seem even more severe by replacing actual temperature measures with wind-chill and heat index numbers, adding to the fear factor.   

Even more of my complaints have focused on the big three - politicians, bureaucrats and corporations. A corporation, by legal definition is an “artificial person,” but it seems all three entities often fit that “artificial person” description, producing rules, laws and policies that defy common sense.

I’ve complained about people who clog up and slow down lines due to their inability to follow line protocols. I’ve thrown my gender under the bus endless times for our lack of ability to fold cloth items (T-shirts, sheets, blankets, etc.) for our inability to notice obvious things in the world around us, to make a bed without it looking like a dog chased a cat under the covers and an inability to come to terms with the good-bye process that our wives employ, taking ten minutes or more to say goodbye when leaving a gathering of friends. Often, with us standing at the side and chomping at the bit to just GO!

My complaint today is rather mundane, but it raises my blood pressure when I encounter it. I’m hoping it irks you too. But who knows? Maybe it’s just an old coot thing. I go to a sports bar or restaurant to consume unhealthy food and an adult beverage or two where there is a wall of TV’s.  No sound is coming from the speakers because they are on different channels and would only add to the din in a place that is already noisy. But most often, not a single TV is in a closed caption mode. You get a picture but little idea of what is going on. If you ask the waitress, waiter or bar tender to turn on the closed captions, all you get is a blank stare and are then told, “Only Joe knows how to do that, and he’s in the back. I’ll tell him when I get a chance.” This, form high tech young people who grew up in the electronic device era and yet, can’t or aren’t allowed to mess with the TV remote control.  And, it’s not just sports bars that are closed caption challenged, health care waiting rooms, airports, train stations and many other lobbies as well. The customer used to “always be right” but now we’re left out in the cold, the cold of silence.

Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

I'm afraid of my chair! - Old coot article of May 29, 2019

The Old Coot is afraid of his chair.

By Merlin Lessler

The U.S Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) collects statistics on injuries and deaths caused by consumer products. A dry, humorless collection of data, at first blush. But when you really examine the numbers, they are quite thought provoking. Astounding, is more like it.

I’m looking at the data for senior citizens (65 and older) because that’s the team I’m on, like it or not. We are a stumbling bunch and some of our stumbles take us to the emergency room. We’re beyond the “Go walk it off” stage. Or, as my mother dealt with my injury complaints when I was a kid (as did most mothers back then), “Here’s a popsicle; go out and sit in the back yard and you’ll be fine.” If I didn’t have a bone sticking through my skin; I wasn’t really hurt. (I only had one trip to the ER as a kid, and that was because a pitchfork got stuck in my foot.)

CPSC numbers, from the most recent report I could find, show that seniors had over two million ER visits that year caused by consumer products. The rate for us old folks is 5 injuries per 100 compared to 3 per 100 for the 24 to 64-year-old group. OK, we’re more accident prone, and at a rate nearly twice that of younger people. No one knows this better than we do, but what surprises me, are some of the consumer products that send us to the ER. Blankets, for example. Blankets caused 4,700 ER visits. I can only guess how a blanket caused a trip to the hospital. Maybe, if you get tangled up and throw your shoulder out of joint as you struggle to get free? Or, if you get a leg cramp and smash your toe into the footboard trying to kick it out? Anyhow, it does happen, and nearly 5,000 times a year.

The products that cause most of the injuries are more understandable: 785,600 ER visits due to stairs, ramps, landings and floors, 128,200 due to bathroom structures and fixtures, and 44,300 from old coots like me, climbing on ladders or stools. There is no data to cover one of my ladder mishaps. I climbed onto the roof and accidentally kicked the ladder over, stranding myself until a good Samaritan (Damen Tinkham) came by and set the ladder back up.

We are a clumsy bunch, us old coots (and cootessas); we’re so clumsy that 6,200 of us had to go to an ER after using sound recording equipment! 11, 000 visits as the result of a golfing mishap. We keep the ERs in business. I think we should get a senior discount.  

I’ve got to stop my examination of this consumer data. If I get any further into it, I won’t dare to get out of my chair. Which, I notice, isn’t as safe a place as I might have thought since chairs, sofas and sofa-beds caused 46,800 (ER) injuries. Even if I get out of my chair without an accident, I still have to navigate across the room to type this handwritten mess of scribbles into my computer. A dangerous journey across a throw rug. Dangerous, because rugs and carpets cause 64,200 injuries a year, according to the CPSC. I’ll have to risk it, but it’s a jungle out there.

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