A new study out of the University of California, Berkeley, says that we should put our pets out of the bed. They’re germ-laden and will cause us more illness. So says the UC.
Not only do I protest this weak science, my cat does.
My cat will be 21 years old in June: Susan. That’s almost 140 in people years. Though she eats well, she’s thin and demanding. She spends her days on the deck in the sun, and her nights under the covers, cozied up to the small of my back.
She works the system and gets pretty well whatever she wants---unlimited petting, space on the lap, love, admiration, and amazement.
Susan’s always been small. She peaked at about 6 pounds when she was five or six years old, long ago. She’s tiny now, barely 5 pounds. When people first see her, they invariably think she’s a kitten.
Once, when she was young, I saw her whip a big white fluffy cat who dared to look comfortable in our back yard. She watched him with her head low. She growled long and steady to give fair warning. At this, he turned and gave her a lazy look, underestimating the force of her will.
In a flash, Susan leapt on him and they had a cartoon cat fight. A frenzied cloud rose before my eyes with only the occasional paw or ear identifiable as they screeched and yowled in a wild, wild scramble. Then they separated, landing face to face for an instant before the white cat broke and ran for the fence.
Susan watched him for a moment, then decided he wasn’t exiting fast enough to suit her. She lit into him again, catching him on the haunches just before he bounded up and over the enclosure with one last howl.
She sauntered back to sit at my feet, smoothing her coat and pulling tufts of white fur from between her toes, never looking in the direction of the interloper.
In her prime, she killed a bird every day, quite disconcerting for a bird lover like me. I used to come home to the scene of the crime. She brought the slow and the weak to my bedside time after time, dismembering them, eating bones, feathers and all. Mostly I would find feet, beaks, a smudge of blood, and the occasional entrail. Now she watches birds from the windows, occasionally chattering at them, more often showing only detached interest.
She killed a squirrel once, leaving him stretched out in the center of our bedroom with only a hind leg missing. We discovered him after an appraiser had surveyed the entire house, including the bedroom, without mentioning the gruesome scene. (In spite of this, the house appraised well, and we refinanced successfully.)
Back in the day, Susan had a favorite toy, a catnip mouse with pink ears and a leopard-print body. She played with him daily, crouching behind chair legs to ambush him in the hall, sliding across the kitchen floor with him in her jaws, tossing him in the air. She traded that mouse once for what she seemed to perceive as my favorite toy, a furry trinket from Alaska she saw me fawning over after our first trip there. I came home from school to find her leopard-print mouse sitting on the shelf where the souvenir had been, and later found the trinket in the kitchen next to her dish.
Susan rode with us in our big black Chevy Blazer when we moved here from Oklahoma, adjusted to two more changes in residence, supervised two Labrador retrievers, and still travels with us when we go for weekends on the coast or a week in Oregon. She’s a wise old friend and respected confidant.
And not once, in all these years, has she made me sick.
Put her out of the bed? I don’t think so. I prefer to rely on the long-standing, well-established research that says human contact with cats (and dogs) enhances our lives, reduces our stress, diminishes the blues, and brings us joy. That matches my experience with the venerable Susan.
Besides, I’m a little intimidated. If she knew about the research, she might put us out of the bed!
Showing posts with label moms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moms. Show all posts
Friday, February 4, 2011
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thanksgiving Surprise
I hate surprises. That probably comes from many years as a high school principal. In that job, uneventful is good; surprise is bad. Better to have things rock along in that steady albeit predictable way, than to face what a pack of teenagers can conjure up for a thrill. One too many “senior pranks” put me over the edge.
Certainly there are good surprises: No lines at Costco. Toll booths out of order – free bridge crossing. A scratcher that pays something, anything. Those I can adjust to. I will routinely welcome the surprise of good manners or generosity when they surface in the public arena. But I confess to being a slow adapter to even a mildly unpleasant, unexpected change of plans.
Thanksgiving this year, for example, had an element of surprise for the Plath family. The hosts - the ones who always host; the ones who take the biggest burden year-after-year; the ones who cook the turkey and prepare their house for the invasion of the running kids, the elderly, the gen-xers and the boomers; the ones to whom the rest of us carry a dish, (I’m hors d’oeuvres); had an illness preventing them, at the last minute, from hosting.
Thank goodness it’s not a life-threatening illness, but nevertheless a significant one that puts you down and off your l-tryptophan. The announcement came abruptly, nearly 9pm Tuesday night. They couldn’t have company, and wouldn’t be cooking for anyone.
So the calls began to circulate among the rest of us, the dependent ones. What, oh what, will we do?
I guess I could have simplified things by going to the logical conclusion first: We will host. We’ll scramble to pull the house together. We’ll go back out into the bustling world (curmudgeon hell) and collect all the things that go with hors d’oeuvres to create an actual holiday meal for the people we love. We will make the best of an unfortunate situation so that family is together and tradition is upheld.
But I didn’t do that, even though I knew it would be the eventual outcome. I didn’t cut to the chase, even though I’ll claim in other scenarios to be a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy. No, I participated in a series of tentative, circular, jaw-clenching (for me) conversations in which family members who honestly cannot host waited for me to man up.
Do I sound cranky? Why does this make me so cranky? Because I was in my groove, that’s why. Please, just don’t upset my groove. I was planning to do all that, happily, with joyful anticipation, really, for Christmas. But Now? Without time for psych? On the spur of this moment? NOW?!
All right, all right. I’ll do it. Of course. They all knew I would.
And as you’ve no doubt predicted, we had a lovely time. All parties pulled together to make simple what can be complicated by a non-changer like me. To my wonderment, they all seemed to take it in stride.
The meal was surpassingly good, each one bringing her best to the table. His best too – one brother-in-law brought warm fresh-baked bread, his claim to fame. My husband added his signature appetizers, grilled duck breast sliced onto Triscuits, with cheddar and plum jam…yummy! The unplanned and unexpected combination of tastes and textures made all the more pleasing when it worked in short order. This could be how it’s actually supposed to go.
That’s the way it was with the Pilgrims and the Indians, right? On that first Thanksgiving Day, no one in this group had any idea what the other group might bring to the table. They each had to suspend instinct, call on good breeding, and taste things they didn’t recognize. And that turned out better than OK.
(I know, I know. It’s a myth. Another startling revelation I’ve had to incorporate. But I’m not giving up on the concept of diverse parties breaking bread and making peace. Why should I?)
The Plath Clan returned to a forgotten practice of once around the table, saying aloud what we’re thankful for. Corny, but I recommend it. I’m thankful to have married into such a lovely, patient, adaptable, and accommodating bunch of Republicans. They’re really quite nice.
Can an Oklahoma girl learn to embrace the unexpected? We’ll see. In the meanwhile, I wish you and yours sweet surprises and the happiest of holidays.
Oh, and thanks for reading.
Certainly there are good surprises: No lines at Costco. Toll booths out of order – free bridge crossing. A scratcher that pays something, anything. Those I can adjust to. I will routinely welcome the surprise of good manners or generosity when they surface in the public arena. But I confess to being a slow adapter to even a mildly unpleasant, unexpected change of plans.
Thanksgiving this year, for example, had an element of surprise for the Plath family. The hosts - the ones who always host; the ones who take the biggest burden year-after-year; the ones who cook the turkey and prepare their house for the invasion of the running kids, the elderly, the gen-xers and the boomers; the ones to whom the rest of us carry a dish, (I’m hors d’oeuvres); had an illness preventing them, at the last minute, from hosting.
Thank goodness it’s not a life-threatening illness, but nevertheless a significant one that puts you down and off your l-tryptophan. The announcement came abruptly, nearly 9pm Tuesday night. They couldn’t have company, and wouldn’t be cooking for anyone.
So the calls began to circulate among the rest of us, the dependent ones. What, oh what, will we do?
I guess I could have simplified things by going to the logical conclusion first: We will host. We’ll scramble to pull the house together. We’ll go back out into the bustling world (curmudgeon hell) and collect all the things that go with hors d’oeuvres to create an actual holiday meal for the people we love. We will make the best of an unfortunate situation so that family is together and tradition is upheld.
But I didn’t do that, even though I knew it would be the eventual outcome. I didn’t cut to the chase, even though I’ll claim in other scenarios to be a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy. No, I participated in a series of tentative, circular, jaw-clenching (for me) conversations in which family members who honestly cannot host waited for me to man up.
Do I sound cranky? Why does this make me so cranky? Because I was in my groove, that’s why. Please, just don’t upset my groove. I was planning to do all that, happily, with joyful anticipation, really, for Christmas. But Now? Without time for psych? On the spur of this moment? NOW?!
All right, all right. I’ll do it. Of course. They all knew I would.
And as you’ve no doubt predicted, we had a lovely time. All parties pulled together to make simple what can be complicated by a non-changer like me. To my wonderment, they all seemed to take it in stride.
The meal was surpassingly good, each one bringing her best to the table. His best too – one brother-in-law brought warm fresh-baked bread, his claim to fame. My husband added his signature appetizers, grilled duck breast sliced onto Triscuits, with cheddar and plum jam…yummy! The unplanned and unexpected combination of tastes and textures made all the more pleasing when it worked in short order. This could be how it’s actually supposed to go.
That’s the way it was with the Pilgrims and the Indians, right? On that first Thanksgiving Day, no one in this group had any idea what the other group might bring to the table. They each had to suspend instinct, call on good breeding, and taste things they didn’t recognize. And that turned out better than OK.
(I know, I know. It’s a myth. Another startling revelation I’ve had to incorporate. But I’m not giving up on the concept of diverse parties breaking bread and making peace. Why should I?)
The Plath Clan returned to a forgotten practice of once around the table, saying aloud what we’re thankful for. Corny, but I recommend it. I’m thankful to have married into such a lovely, patient, adaptable, and accommodating bunch of Republicans. They’re really quite nice.
Can an Oklahoma girl learn to embrace the unexpected? We’ll see. In the meanwhile, I wish you and yours sweet surprises and the happiest of holidays.
Oh, and thanks for reading.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Your Junk is Fair Game; Mine is Sacred
I remember when “Don’t touch my junk!” was a normal, wholesome part of an argument between siblings over whose toys belonged to whom. Now, as with “thong,” and “dope,” and “the bomb,” the meaning of “junk” has been hijacked by a generation touchier and less gentile than any before it.
You probably saw the news blurb this week in which a sensitive, or not so sensitive, young software engineer, John Tyner, refused the newest airport security clearance invention, the electronic full body scan. He then went on to refuse the more personal version, the full body pat down, saying he’d have the Transportation Safety Administration employee arrested if that employee made contact with Mr. Tyner’s “junk.”
Not permitted to board his flight, soon Mr. Tyner was escorted out of the San Diego airport and put in line for civil charges and fines up to $10,000. Seems once you start the security clearance process, you must complete it, one way or the other.
We are all now faced with a new reality that seems unlikely to go away, even in the face of threatened lawsuits and loosely organized “opt out” protests. Someone somewhere, perhaps the Campaign for Liberty, is encouraging travelers to opt out of the electronic scanner security check during Thanksgiving week travel. The idea being to demonstrate their protest against the revealing scan, choosing the pat down instead, and slowing the security check process for themselves and everyone else headed for cranberries and pumpkin pie.
I don’t think it’s going to work, because while the act of looking under our clothing for an instant is invasive and unnerving, my money says more folks will still choose this touch-free and therefore oddly impersonal search over the extremely personal alternative, a full body “pat down.” From all descriptors and videos available, the “pat down” might more appropriately be named a full body “feel up.”
My husband and I had the electronic treatment recently at Tulsa International Airport. The process encompassed an awkward moment pausing for the camera as it were, hands over head, a futile wish that I’d lost the weight already, and a minor wash of relief as we reclaimed our possessions, slipped into our shoes, cleared the area, and headed to our flight. I resisted the urge to look back over my shoulder.
I’m glad to know the person operating the machine and the one who sees the image are nowhere near each other. Also, the one looking at the screen cannot see the person screened, only her whole life reduced to a glimpse of what might be a Safeway chicken strung up by the wings. I’m glad to know they don’t store the images---not enough room in the freezer, I guess
If we engage our intellect, there’s no denying these machines add another layer of safety to airline travel. These new full body scanners can detect objects made from a range of materials concealed underneath travelers’ clothes, including liquid and plastic explosives. The old metal detectors can’t do that. The “underwear bomber” got through the metal detectors. He wouldn’t have cleared the new scanners or the alternative same-sex, person-to-person hands-on search.
In our experience in Tulsa, I felt confident the process was professional. Still, software exists that does not produce a real body image, but only a stick figure. Let’s do that. I expect even John Tyner would not object to a stick figure on the screen representing his naked self. If the TSA can get the same critical information without exposing all my reasons for basic black and vertical stripes, why not do it that way? Have a heart.
And have a brain. Some of the scanners use x-rays and others use millimeter wave technology (the electromagnetic waves that power cell phones and microwave ovens). So use the safer electromagnetic waves. Software exists to ensure that images are not copied or retrieved; that unauthorized access is prevented; and that any image analyzed by a human reviewer is kept 100% anonymous. Do all that. In every airport, in every security check.
And before you rest, find a way to deal with infants and small children and our grandmas and grandpas without humiliating them.
We all want to be safe and safer when we fly. For this, we have given up, and will give up even more of our comfort to get it. But you gotta respect our junk.
You probably saw the news blurb this week in which a sensitive, or not so sensitive, young software engineer, John Tyner, refused the newest airport security clearance invention, the electronic full body scan. He then went on to refuse the more personal version, the full body pat down, saying he’d have the Transportation Safety Administration employee arrested if that employee made contact with Mr. Tyner’s “junk.”
Not permitted to board his flight, soon Mr. Tyner was escorted out of the San Diego airport and put in line for civil charges and fines up to $10,000. Seems once you start the security clearance process, you must complete it, one way or the other.
We are all now faced with a new reality that seems unlikely to go away, even in the face of threatened lawsuits and loosely organized “opt out” protests. Someone somewhere, perhaps the Campaign for Liberty, is encouraging travelers to opt out of the electronic scanner security check during Thanksgiving week travel. The idea being to demonstrate their protest against the revealing scan, choosing the pat down instead, and slowing the security check process for themselves and everyone else headed for cranberries and pumpkin pie.
I don’t think it’s going to work, because while the act of looking under our clothing for an instant is invasive and unnerving, my money says more folks will still choose this touch-free and therefore oddly impersonal search over the extremely personal alternative, a full body “pat down.” From all descriptors and videos available, the “pat down” might more appropriately be named a full body “feel up.”
My husband and I had the electronic treatment recently at Tulsa International Airport. The process encompassed an awkward moment pausing for the camera as it were, hands over head, a futile wish that I’d lost the weight already, and a minor wash of relief as we reclaimed our possessions, slipped into our shoes, cleared the area, and headed to our flight. I resisted the urge to look back over my shoulder.
I’m glad to know the person operating the machine and the one who sees the image are nowhere near each other. Also, the one looking at the screen cannot see the person screened, only her whole life reduced to a glimpse of what might be a Safeway chicken strung up by the wings. I’m glad to know they don’t store the images---not enough room in the freezer, I guess
If we engage our intellect, there’s no denying these machines add another layer of safety to airline travel. These new full body scanners can detect objects made from a range of materials concealed underneath travelers’ clothes, including liquid and plastic explosives. The old metal detectors can’t do that. The “underwear bomber” got through the metal detectors. He wouldn’t have cleared the new scanners or the alternative same-sex, person-to-person hands-on search.
In our experience in Tulsa, I felt confident the process was professional. Still, software exists that does not produce a real body image, but only a stick figure. Let’s do that. I expect even John Tyner would not object to a stick figure on the screen representing his naked self. If the TSA can get the same critical information without exposing all my reasons for basic black and vertical stripes, why not do it that way? Have a heart.
And have a brain. Some of the scanners use x-rays and others use millimeter wave technology (the electromagnetic waves that power cell phones and microwave ovens). So use the safer electromagnetic waves. Software exists to ensure that images are not copied or retrieved; that unauthorized access is prevented; and that any image analyzed by a human reviewer is kept 100% anonymous. Do all that. In every airport, in every security check.
And before you rest, find a way to deal with infants and small children and our grandmas and grandpas without humiliating them.
We all want to be safe and safer when we fly. For this, we have given up, and will give up even more of our comfort to get it. But you gotta respect our junk.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Stop Shouting!
The Scene: Tommy and Dickey Smothers - strumming away on guitar and bass violin in the 1960’s, swapping political barbs for our edification and entertainment. Back and forth they would go, tit for tat, see-sawing their way through both sides of a current event, until finally Tommy could no longer hold his own. His arguments inevitably faltered. Backed into a corner, he would swell up, contort his face, and unleash his best game-ending attack, “Oh yeah?!”
From there, knowing he’d won, Dickey would simply pluck his bass, letting his brother’s feeble, emotional display speak for itself, and the music would go on.
A similar scene played out at some sort of political gathering in New Jersey recently, except with a twist, and not nearly so funny: With the Governor at the podium, a heckler from the crowd raised his arm and angled an accusatory finger at the speaker. Veins distended in his neck, arm pulsing to the beat of his words, he shouted until neither the Governor nor the other audience members could ignore him.
This is our unfortunate truth: More and more people, out of arguments and moved by anger, shout out in public settings, hurling unanswerable blurts, derailing the moment. It is the method of the frustrated and powerless. Take a cheap shot and see if anyone else around you will pile on. “I don’t have a well-formed argument. I don’t have a platform, or forum. I’m hurt. I’m afraid. I feel defeated. And you stand for what I’m mad about. Let me attack you in public where I am free to act this way, but you, in your position, must obey the rules of decorum.”
But this time, the speaker didn’t smile and wave his hand, hoping to dissuade the heckler. He didn’t shake his head and wait. He didn’t surrender. Governor Chris Christie turned to his heckler, pointed back at him and in a forceful but calm voice said, “It’s people like you who scream and yell that divide our country. I’m about bringing our country together.”
With the breath knocked out of the red-faced man and order restored, the Governor returned to his business. No one could deny the truth of his response. Folks from that room will not likely break out into unbridled rudeness again anytime soon. If they’re going to flail in helplessness and fury, they will most likely chose their targets more carefully, or retreat to the safety of the internet. There they can join forces with others dug-in and disenfranchised, persuading no one, but righteous in their vehemence.
Now, will I vote for Chris Christie if he runs for president? Don’t know. Don’t know much else about him. I’m just glad he stood up to the crackpot.
I don’t know that any similar event took place in California around Proposition 19, the legalization of marijuana. Yet it seems, incredibly, that we’re going to vote on this extremely controversial issue without opposing forces standing toe-to-toe, wailing, wringing hands, or gnashing teeth. Nobody got all blood-pressure-y! (Of course, it’s not too late --- we have a few days left before the election.) Still, in the mean time, business people, educators, law enforcement, newspaper editors, and ordinary citizens expressed their views in a remarkably civilized manner. The fate of the Proposition remains to be seen. But it appears the outcome will be derived from voters’ consideration of the issue sans drama.
Maybe we could use such a model for a discussion of immigration. Maybe folks could just start talking about it; other folks could listen and respond with alternative viewpoints, and so on and so on and so on.
I’ll bet there are some really good ideas out there that could begin to unravel this knotty issue. Maybe we could take turns, offer suggestions, and ask questions without ridicule. Maybe even immigrants could join in.
Of course, Arizona will be in a time out for the first round. They must sit quietly while the rest of us begin a thoughtful conversation, thinking about laws, and human beings, considering what was, what is, and what should be.
Oh, if I could only play the bass fiddle. I would strum away while we talk, offering a measured rhythm to the tune of the times.
From there, knowing he’d won, Dickey would simply pluck his bass, letting his brother’s feeble, emotional display speak for itself, and the music would go on.
A similar scene played out at some sort of political gathering in New Jersey recently, except with a twist, and not nearly so funny: With the Governor at the podium, a heckler from the crowd raised his arm and angled an accusatory finger at the speaker. Veins distended in his neck, arm pulsing to the beat of his words, he shouted until neither the Governor nor the other audience members could ignore him.
This is our unfortunate truth: More and more people, out of arguments and moved by anger, shout out in public settings, hurling unanswerable blurts, derailing the moment. It is the method of the frustrated and powerless. Take a cheap shot and see if anyone else around you will pile on. “I don’t have a well-formed argument. I don’t have a platform, or forum. I’m hurt. I’m afraid. I feel defeated. And you stand for what I’m mad about. Let me attack you in public where I am free to act this way, but you, in your position, must obey the rules of decorum.”
But this time, the speaker didn’t smile and wave his hand, hoping to dissuade the heckler. He didn’t shake his head and wait. He didn’t surrender. Governor Chris Christie turned to his heckler, pointed back at him and in a forceful but calm voice said, “It’s people like you who scream and yell that divide our country. I’m about bringing our country together.”
With the breath knocked out of the red-faced man and order restored, the Governor returned to his business. No one could deny the truth of his response. Folks from that room will not likely break out into unbridled rudeness again anytime soon. If they’re going to flail in helplessness and fury, they will most likely chose their targets more carefully, or retreat to the safety of the internet. There they can join forces with others dug-in and disenfranchised, persuading no one, but righteous in their vehemence.
Now, will I vote for Chris Christie if he runs for president? Don’t know. Don’t know much else about him. I’m just glad he stood up to the crackpot.
I don’t know that any similar event took place in California around Proposition 19, the legalization of marijuana. Yet it seems, incredibly, that we’re going to vote on this extremely controversial issue without opposing forces standing toe-to-toe, wailing, wringing hands, or gnashing teeth. Nobody got all blood-pressure-y! (Of course, it’s not too late --- we have a few days left before the election.) Still, in the mean time, business people, educators, law enforcement, newspaper editors, and ordinary citizens expressed their views in a remarkably civilized manner. The fate of the Proposition remains to be seen. But it appears the outcome will be derived from voters’ consideration of the issue sans drama.
Maybe we could use such a model for a discussion of immigration. Maybe folks could just start talking about it; other folks could listen and respond with alternative viewpoints, and so on and so on and so on.
I’ll bet there are some really good ideas out there that could begin to unravel this knotty issue. Maybe we could take turns, offer suggestions, and ask questions without ridicule. Maybe even immigrants could join in.
Of course, Arizona will be in a time out for the first round. They must sit quietly while the rest of us begin a thoughtful conversation, thinking about laws, and human beings, considering what was, what is, and what should be.
Oh, if I could only play the bass fiddle. I would strum away while we talk, offering a measured rhythm to the tune of the times.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Fighting the Curmudgeon Gene
To paraphrase Confucius: “A continuous smile is the surest sign of wisdom.”
I’m working on it. I smile a lot. But it doesn’t always make me feel smarter.
Once, when I was standing at the entrance to my school at 7:45am, waving and smiling, greeting parents and students as they arrived, someone honked at me.
I continued my wave and lifted the eyes of my smiling face just in time to see a young man whiz by in a white pickup truck, giving me the finger.
My smile faded, but not soon enough to keep me from feeling like the idiot he apparently believed I was. I must have suspended that kid sometime.
Or maybe he’s just an early blooming curmudgeon bent on putting the kibosh on the merry mood of the moment. “Good morning, have a good day, my eye!” (Or my finger.)
Grumpiness is easier than thinking. For the genuine curmudgeon, no thought seems operable save the continuous loop of entitlement. “You could easily have been the one who bumped me; why must I be the one to apologize?” Or simply, “I, me, me, mine all mine!”
Not that there aren’t irritating and annoying episodes going on around us all the time. Clearly, there is plenty of justification for ill-tempered behavior, if we find ourselves in need of absolution.
Just last week I went to the Farmers’ Market with a friend. We arrived early so the crowd had not yet amassed. Still, plenty of folks there were living on Planet Oblivion completely unaware of their surroundings.
When I’m going into a setting like that, I take my chill pill in advance. It works pretty well in keeping a smile on my face and my manners up front even when I don’t truly feel that accommodating on the inside. (I may be a closet curmudgeon.) It seems like I say enough “excuse me’s” and “sorry’s” to make up for at least a couple of folks who remain unconcerned about much except that beautiful eggplant, or the teriyaki chicken skewers they might be fourth in line for, instead of third.
And I have to remind myself that, thoughtful as I might be, I am probably a pebble in someone’s shoe. I stop midstream as often as anyone else. I can’t find my money while people with exact change languish in line behind me. I’m as guilty as the next guy. Surely, I can extend the patience to others I hope will come to me. But it’s kind of fun to grumble.
One theory about grumpiness is that we’re all so steeped up with the minor thumps we endure each day that we’ve reached our thresholds. We want to get our surreptitious revenge. “Just this once I’M going to be first in line.” Or, “It’s someone ELSE’S turn to say ‘Excuse me.” I’ll have to plead guilty to that, coming and going. I’m guilty of demanding my turn on occasion, and then feel guilty after the fact for insisting on something so small. I ought to be a bigger person.
When I’m walking on the foot path in Benicia State Park, I sometimes resist moving to the side so an approaching person can pass. Darn it! I’ve been moving aside for everyone! I’m not moving for this guy! Of course, this guy doesn’t know any of that. He may have been moving aside for everyone himself.
What do I prove if I refuse to move aside? That I’m not a wimp? Maybe if it was the same guy day after day coming toward me. But it’s not. It’s this guy I hardly remember seeing before.
What do I lose if I let another BMW in traffic ahead of me? At most, a few seconds of travel time. But if I speed up and close the gap, I can bask in grumpy self-righteousness and bad vibes. Curmudgeon heaven! All those rude drivers who’ve wronged me before? They’re not around to learn my pathetic lesson; but at least this time I win!
Then there’s the other side, the driver who’s so overbearingly selfless that she never takes the right-of-way when everyone else at a four-way stop knows she has it and is waiting for her to GO!
Even Confucius rolled his eyes sometimes.
I’m working on it. I smile a lot. But it doesn’t always make me feel smarter.
Once, when I was standing at the entrance to my school at 7:45am, waving and smiling, greeting parents and students as they arrived, someone honked at me.
I continued my wave and lifted the eyes of my smiling face just in time to see a young man whiz by in a white pickup truck, giving me the finger.
My smile faded, but not soon enough to keep me from feeling like the idiot he apparently believed I was. I must have suspended that kid sometime.
Or maybe he’s just an early blooming curmudgeon bent on putting the kibosh on the merry mood of the moment. “Good morning, have a good day, my eye!” (Or my finger.)
Grumpiness is easier than thinking. For the genuine curmudgeon, no thought seems operable save the continuous loop of entitlement. “You could easily have been the one who bumped me; why must I be the one to apologize?” Or simply, “I, me, me, mine all mine!”
Not that there aren’t irritating and annoying episodes going on around us all the time. Clearly, there is plenty of justification for ill-tempered behavior, if we find ourselves in need of absolution.
Just last week I went to the Farmers’ Market with a friend. We arrived early so the crowd had not yet amassed. Still, plenty of folks there were living on Planet Oblivion completely unaware of their surroundings.
When I’m going into a setting like that, I take my chill pill in advance. It works pretty well in keeping a smile on my face and my manners up front even when I don’t truly feel that accommodating on the inside. (I may be a closet curmudgeon.) It seems like I say enough “excuse me’s” and “sorry’s” to make up for at least a couple of folks who remain unconcerned about much except that beautiful eggplant, or the teriyaki chicken skewers they might be fourth in line for, instead of third.
And I have to remind myself that, thoughtful as I might be, I am probably a pebble in someone’s shoe. I stop midstream as often as anyone else. I can’t find my money while people with exact change languish in line behind me. I’m as guilty as the next guy. Surely, I can extend the patience to others I hope will come to me. But it’s kind of fun to grumble.
One theory about grumpiness is that we’re all so steeped up with the minor thumps we endure each day that we’ve reached our thresholds. We want to get our surreptitious revenge. “Just this once I’M going to be first in line.” Or, “It’s someone ELSE’S turn to say ‘Excuse me.” I’ll have to plead guilty to that, coming and going. I’m guilty of demanding my turn on occasion, and then feel guilty after the fact for insisting on something so small. I ought to be a bigger person.
When I’m walking on the foot path in Benicia State Park, I sometimes resist moving to the side so an approaching person can pass. Darn it! I’ve been moving aside for everyone! I’m not moving for this guy! Of course, this guy doesn’t know any of that. He may have been moving aside for everyone himself.
What do I prove if I refuse to move aside? That I’m not a wimp? Maybe if it was the same guy day after day coming toward me. But it’s not. It’s this guy I hardly remember seeing before.
What do I lose if I let another BMW in traffic ahead of me? At most, a few seconds of travel time. But if I speed up and close the gap, I can bask in grumpy self-righteousness and bad vibes. Curmudgeon heaven! All those rude drivers who’ve wronged me before? They’re not around to learn my pathetic lesson; but at least this time I win!
Then there’s the other side, the driver who’s so overbearingly selfless that she never takes the right-of-way when everyone else at a four-way stop knows she has it and is waiting for her to GO!
Even Confucius rolled his eyes sometimes.
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