The Old Coot pans mandatory holidays. Published 02/21/2024 Article # 1068

 The Old Coot pans mandatory holidays.

By Merlin Lessler

 I was having a bad day. It was late afternoon, I hadn’t run into anything to complain about. Then, I tumbled right into it after searching a mile long aisle of cold medicines. I didn’t realize that cold treatments came in so many variations. When I was a kid, a jar of Vicks and cough drops did the trick. Mom applied Vicks to my chest and tied a rag laden with it around my neck, and sent me off to school.

 That cold aisle experience was a revelation, but not enough to register on my complaint meter. The next aisle did. A mile long rack of Valentine’s Day cards. A pressure cooker for most men. What should I do, or buy, to fulfill my Valentine’s Day obligation? Another celebratory holiday foisted on us by the greeting card, candy, florist, restaurant and jewelry industry.

 It’s mandatory, these annual obligations created by commerce interests. Birthdays, I get, anniversaries too. But, not the endless stream of guilt laden “special” days. Secretary’s Day., Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day. On and on they go.  You can be a thoughtless jerk all year long and use Valentine’s Day to get yourself off the hook, But, if you are thoughtful and pleasant all year long, but forget to buy a card for Valentine’s Day (and any number of other manufactured celebratory events) and you’re apt to be called a thoughtless old grouch.

 Anna Jarvis, the woman who created Mother’s Day in 1908 and succeeded in getting it adopted as an official U. S. holiday in 1914, spent the later part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar, because it had become so commercialized. She wanted it to be a day you did thoughtful things to thank your mother for all the sacrifices she’d made for you during the previous 364 days.

 But, back to the Valentine’s Day celebration, that so recently came and went. You might think I messed it up and am using this column to cover my tracks. No comment!

 Comments? Complaints/ Send to mlessler7@gmail.com

The Old Coot is a good "waiter!"- Article # 1,067 Published 2/14/2024

 The Old Coot knows how to wait.

By Merlin Lessler

 Here I go again. Providing unwanted advice in yet another attempt to help “Men From Mars” get along with “Women From Venus.” This time it’s for men who are “fast leavers” married to women who are “slow leavers.” It goes something like this. He asks, “Ready to go?” (To the store, across country, across the street. It doesn’t matter.)  She replies, “I’ll be right there.” Off he goes, gets in the car and watches for her to come out the door.

 Two minutes go by. Then five. He starts getting antsy, “What the heck is keeping her?” Another five minutes tick off the watch on his wrist. He starts to boil. He gets out of the car and goes to the door. Here she comes, two bags in hand. One, to drop off at her mother’s, the other to be donated to the Mission. “You don’t mind do you?” she asks, as the car bolts out of the driveway and nearly hits a woman walking down the sidewalk.

 “What took you so long?” he asks, gritting his teeth to help keep his temper under control. The reply is a long one, “Oh, I had to take a load of clothes out of the dryer and fold them so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. Then I noticed the mirror in the bathroom was all spotty from when you washed your hands, so I wiped it off. The dishes in the sink looked messy so I rinsed them and stacked them up to dry, in case someone came in and saw them. All legitimate things. “BUT,” he groans, “You said you were ready to go!” She says, “I was! (almost).”

 It doesn’t matter where you are going; the scenario is always the same. The problem is created by the “slow-leaver” but the solution lies with the “fast-leaver.” Even a rat in a maize eventually learns how to navigate the obstacles between itself and happiness. But not the men, fidgeting and fuming, while waiting in the driveway, outside the door of an antique shop or on a bench in the mall. Always surprised she’s not there, like she said she would be. He believes her when she says, “Just a sec!” Even though it’s never just a sec. He’s one rat that doesn’t find his way to the cheese.

 Here comes the good part. Advice from an old coot who learned this Mars versus Venus thing a long time ago.  (Waiting impatiently for years!) But, no more; the path through the maize is simple. It’s called, “Facing reality. You are going to wait! Longer than you think! So, figure out how to spend that interval between your slow-leaver saying, “I’ll just be a sec,” and the time it actually takes her to get there.

 Use your phone; call a friend you haven’t spoken to in years, check the weather or use the camera to take pictures of unenlightened men, waiting for their wives on a bench with a scowl on their face and steam coming out their ears. It could go viral, even funnier than the images of Wal-Mart shoppers that circulate on the Internet. Carry a man-bag. Fill it with a book, a crossword puzzle, a nail clipper. Whatever! When the “slow-leaver” shows up, you can say, “I’ll just be a sec.”

The Old Coot yells in vain. Published in Tioga Courier 1/31/24

 The Old Coot is a yeller!

By Merlin Lessler

I’ve been talking to my appliances a lot lately. Yelling, actually. It started when my bank sent an e-mail saying they weren’t able to mail December’s statement, a glitch in the program. “OK, I can handle that.” So I thought! I opened the web page to find the statement. That started me yelling. At the computer! The glitch happened because the bank computer nerds redesigned the web site and put statements in a new location, hidden in an oddly named drop-down menu. I yelled, but finally found it, downloaded the statement, and sent it to my printer. It laughed at me, “Ha, Ha I’m out of ink; here’s too blank pages to prove it. I yelled at the printer, but I had a spare cartridge on hand (Amazon sent me three when I ordered one). So, I moved all the stuff that was sitting on top of the printer, opened it up, fumbled getting the old cartridge out because they changed the way it goes in and out. That started me yelling some more, “Why didn’t you leave the ink cartridges alone? Don’t you understand I hate change!” No answer from the printer; it just sat there grinning.

 Next outburst came when I went to heat up some water on the stove top. It’s black, with black letters. I have to get glasses to use it. Can you just walk up and turn a knob? No! You have to push a “power” icon, then a burner icon and then increase the level of heating by tap, tap, tapping on an up arrow. It’s exasperating and deserves all my “yelling.”

 It goes on and on. I can’t work the oven either, unless I get to a manual. But, there is no manual; there is a QR code on the door that takes you to a web site where you can download a manual, as long as you know the model number. Which I don’t - Yell, Yell, Yell.

 I live in a foreign country. All my appliances speak a language I don’t understand. My TV, my car, everything. Don’t even get me going about the washing machine; it locks the door, preventing me from adding a dropped sock. I always drop something. So, I yell at our appliances. I yell at the “idiots” on TV, especially the weather maniacs that try to scare us over cold and snowy weather in winter, hot weather in summer, and storms that often don’t materialize. That horrible squawk comes out of the TV speakers and a robotic voice “calls wolf.” And guess what?  Now I’m yelling at you. Sorry!