The Old Coot found an ally.
By Merlin Lessler
A recent article by Dan Smith in the Volusia
Hometown News caught my attention. In it, he realized he sounded like that grumpy
old man in his neighborhood he hated as a kid, as he listed the things that
irritate him: dances in the end zone when pro football players score a
touchdown, fake butter on popcorn, men wearing too much jewelry, names he can’t
pronounce or remember. His list went on and on, several dozen in total. I’m
that grumpy old man too. Look up grumpy in a dictionary and you’ll see a
picture of me.
It was a good start, but he left out a lot of things
that bug me: stuff you are interested in buying, but it’s sealed in plastic and
you can’t see what you are getting, stickers – on everything: apples, oranges,
but the hardest to get off, are stuck in the worse possible place, like on the
lens of a pair of glasses. The liar at the check in station who says the doctor
will be right with you. You sit, and have no idea when you’ll be called. Meat
and deli counters solved that issue 100 years ago, giving you a number. But, not
modern day medical centers, in spite of having computers that could easily be used
to reduce patient’s anxiety. My blood pressure is always high after sitting in a
waiting room.
Stretch jeans bug me. It just allows them to replace
some of the cotton with a synthetic substance, probably derived from oil, like
plastic bags. Stores that offer 50% off on a second item, but you don’t want a
second item. So, as the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld might say, “No sale for you!”
How about socks that are so tight they cut off your circulation and socks that
are “one size fits all,” which means they don’t fit anyone properly.
It's just wrong to advertise prescription drugs on
TV. Just like it’s wrong for ambulance chasing lawyers to dominate the
advertising landscape. Adds in general. Too many and everyplace: every App,
every website, every streaming service. New Year's Eve celebrations, and worse,
New Year's resolutions - nobody keeps them. Names for moons, every 28 days, a
new, made up name. Naming winter storms, like the overzealous weather, people
do with hurricanes. Weather reports dominate the news and make us focus on the
disaster headed our way with DANGEROUS lightning. No longer called a simple
thunder storm. They want us scared and tuned in.
My list is long, but I’ll cover it over the next
year. That’s my new year’s resolution. For now, I’ll end with shoe laces that
don’t stay tied, airplane seats for those of us in “the back of the bus,” glass
bottles replaced with plastic, no free air at gas stations and crappy ones you
pay for that hardly are up to the task. A rule against taunting in pro football.
What’s wrong with the good old, “Na- na, na- na- na,” that my generation grew
up using to celebrate, and rub it in, after scoring a touchdown. It’s a war out
on the football field, and the insults exchanged that we can’t hear would make
even a salty old sailor cringe.
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