The Buck Pauses…and Moves On.

I didn’t know the speed limit was 55

When I passed that slow moving grandmother

Whose white knuckles and red face and bluish hair

Were the same color of the police car that stopped me

 

I didn’t know I should have gotten involved

When that masked man was robbing the store

And holding the life of that shop-owner at gunpoint

To steal money meant for his daughter’s chemo treatment

 

I didn’t know my child knew about my gun

Or that he’d remove it from its place inside my closet

And bring it to school during third period

To slaughter daughters and sons for fun

 

I didn’t know the IRS was targeting certain groups

Or that Justice meant taking freedom from the press

Or that 3a.m. embassy calls should be answered

Because precedents for Presidents are rarely prescient

 

I didn’t know ignorance wasn’t a valid excuse

Since accountability seems to have disappeared

Into the entitled arms of the next generation

Who don’t even know they don’t know.

 

 

New word of the day: Transparentcy (def) Adults who turn into children

I know there are a lot of people out there who gripe about politics – understandably. I love to engage in political discussions and I try to argue against whatever side the other person takes. It makes us more adept debaters when we can contend from more sides of the spectrum, no?

Still, this latest series of events has got me stymied.  We were told this was going to be the most transparent administration in history.  I remember that line from about five years ago because it got me all fired up and excited that things might be different, that perhaps someone was finally headed into the big house with some cogliones and would lower the curtain in front of the wizard and give us all a look-see.  Even if the emperor had no clothes, I wanted to check the fella out.

But now here we are, staring into the redacted Freedom of Information paperwork, listening to IRS (Internal Revenge Service) vendettas, curious why Benghazi reports were altered, frustrated that the government grabbed the AP phone records, wondering where transparency went, and whether or not information is being withheld to protect people from embarrassment, or worse.  It’s just too damn depressing to thing hope and change has disintegrated into hopeless and unchanged.

I used to ask questions about the role of leaders versus the role of representatives, and whether one portended arrogance over the other.  I used to wonder whether we could send men and women to the marble capital and hope that they would forego their own personal principles in support of the philosophies of the populace.  I used to think the people representing this country’s leadership would be able to move beyond corruption toward the ideals of the American Dream.

Alas, it seems something has gone awry.  I guess representatives will always be bullied by lobbyists and forced to comply with the wishes of special interests.  I guess leaders will always succumb to their own welfare instead of protecting the security of the people they presumably lead.  I guess all of those things we learned in high school about checks and balances, and separation of powers, and the role of a representative, were just a bunch of academic rubbish.

Well, this was supposed to be a rant on transparency and I guess now you know where I stand on the issue.  I think that’s what transparency means – to tell people exactly how things are, even if they suck.  Perhaps someone can take that message out to the East Coast.  I think some folks are confused on the definition.

The Chains That Bind…

New products out there these days.  Fitbits, Up, Fuel etc. Seems like the ol’ pedometer has gone the way of the phone booth, relegated to movie studio lots and estate sales.  Alas, we are now counting everything- calories, steps, hours of sleep, energy expenditure.  Remember when it was just the money in your wallet, and sheep?

Truth is, I’m not sure I’m okay with all of this new technology.  I think back to those summer nights when I could step outside and go for a walk, without some goal draped around my arm, constantly beckoning to me that I’m just a thousand steps short of my goal for the day, that failure would feel miserable, that the community which I’m now connected to is Tweeting or Facebooking their support, and that if I can just find a way to push myself past the fucking yogurt shop and around the corner one more time, perhaps I can look myself in tomorrow’s mirror and not feel the pangs of guilt associated with disappointment.  I remember days I could look down at my food and take a bite and enjoy it without having to snap a photo of the barcode first, and then wait the twelve seconds to make certain I hadn’t broken some RDA for sugar or calories or saturated something.

A few years back, conspiracy theorists shouted warnings of the government- implanted RFID chip, claiming Big Brother would know everything about our daily lives.  Today we purchase electronic products, place them around our wrists, and shoot off all sorts of personal data into the cyber-sphere.  It’s hard to imagine some balding and spectacled little fella, tilted over his MAC, and hacking away at his keyboard as he inputs my nightly run.  If the Defense Department or Nike or even the women on some EHarmony-type site truly care about my monthly mileage, have at it.  If I want your career, or shoes, or a hug, I’ll simply ask for it without you having to send some subliminal message to convince me I need you.

I guess my point is that it’s not about threats to my privacy.  It’s more about the simplicity of life that seems to disappear with every gadget of convenience.  Prior to the printing press, we’d sit around campfires and tell stories.  Afore the Sony Walkman, we used to sing.  Long before cell phones and Wikipedia, we’d remember things like phone numbers and facts.  Our brains worked on a regular basis, storing data and regurgitating it when necessary.  Today though, we just look down, at these things on our wrists, which tell us how we are doing in life, and whether or not we are succeeding compared to our peers and ourselves.  Was it the poet who talked about the chains that bind?

I’m just rambling now, wondering whether someone will eventually tie something around my tongue to count my words.  Maybe then I’ll have to worry about them being worthy too.

Why Stop at Gays? – An Exercise in Political Incorrectness

I’m not really one to balk at politically incorrect things – preferring rather, to sit on the sidelines and giggle as those who’ve been offended go on offense and try to explain the offense to those who did the offending.  Still, this whole gay marriage thing has touched a nerve of mine and I can’t stay silent any longer.   As the nation debates the merits of the gay marriage ban, I don’t think our antagonism has gone far enough.  I know it sounds horribly offensive, but give me a few more paragraphs and I think I’ll help you turn the corner on this one.

There are some pretty feminine men out there – ones who flamboyantly gesture when telling stories and who wear fabulous hair gel products and who utter things with the sort of untimely lisp that makes you know they got their ass kicked on the playground more than once.  Too though, there are some women out there, working Clark Gable hairstyles (not to mention the mustache), with legs more hirsute than a late autumn grizzly, and wielding a penchant for things like lawnmower repair and odd house-painting jobs.  Did I leave out the throaty home-team cheer when football season arrives?

If you pull the intellectual oar hard enough, you’ll come to learn that if the human race is going to propagate properly, we should probably consider extending the ban to any Similar-sex couples.  Lets face it, the scale from Ferrigno to Aniston is fraught with trespassers.  Butch and Bitch are only one letter apart, right?

Colors have a spectrum, right? Autism has a spectrum.  Even electromagnets have a spectrum, although I have about as much chance of understanding that as I would having an autistic kid explain to me..  So why not a gender spectrum?  Let’s put women on the end near 1 and men on the end near 10.  A guy like Richard Simmons might generate a -74 while Rosie O’Donnell could pull a high positive triple digits.

So we could make a rule that unless you are at least 7 points apart on the gender spectrum, you can’t marry.  That sounds like a rule strong enough to stop the world from becoming a bunch a of RuPaul lookalikes, eh?

Perhaps some case studies would serve my point better.  When you are in the mall with your wife, and she’s dragged your unwilling ass into the shoe store for a twenty-minute look-see, you might come upon an undernourished chap with a suggestive hip sway, that flits to and fro, as he rifles through the new line of high heels, and who’s holding his own wife’s purse, as she, with the overwhelming case of Cankles and the burn-scarred hand that your average mechanic would recognize as having had a rough go with the oil pan, questions the proprietor about the latest brand of construction work boots.  You’ll agree they are not far from sexually similar, and, in fact, may have crossed the threshold of gender specificity.

Or possibly, you’ve made your way out to the local Sears store and found two women, in horribly baggy painter’s outfits, arguing about whether or not to use primer and you realize that the one of them, the one against primer – OF COURSE! has well-manicured nails and a nametag on his outfit that says William, while his counterpart, whose nametag says Billie and whose fingers come with thick callouses and something resembling Mange, is bending over like a major league umpire as she sniffs the tops of the paint cans.  This couple is circling the opposite gender poles with enough strangely-placed hormones that even the gay men standing in the kitchenware section are pointing and fish-hooking their lips.

Since I’ve already tapped into the politically incorrect ethos, why not mention the whole breast issue.  Obesity, now rampant amongst those over twenty-five and flourishing in those with pimples – we’re relegated to phenomenal physiques from 18-24, but after that it’s pretty much a population-rich avalanche toward diabetes – has created a plethora of extra boobs in the world.  On your next trip out to a restaurant or ball game, take a good hard look around and tell me whether the average large-breasted person pees standing or sitting.  This nation has enough masculine mammaries to keep Victoria’s Secret hush-hush for centuries.   Factor in the sweatpants-wearing, feminine lung-machines stair stepping their way into anaerobic Nirvana and you have another paradox of the gender roles – breasty men and bulky women.  Stick these two on a wedding cake and you’ll pound your cranium trying to figure out who should sport the dress and who’ll don the tux.

Look, I get it.  People are people and to each his or her own, right?  But if we’re going to question morality, shouldn’t we slide into home?  Tell me Jack Osbourne and Corey Feldman don’t look like they could play on the LPGA tour.  Janet Reno’s strong chin and well-constructed hairdo could easily have slid her onto the anthropological charts.  Ambiguity is a dangerous opponent.  What kind of world would this be if we let love of the individual become the mitigating factor in relationships?  Seriously, could you imagine a citizenry given the freedom to choose their sexually similar equivalent, or even worse, to choose a lover who strays toward their own side of the gender spectrum?  We’d end up with urinals in the women’s bathroom and walk-in closets in the lobbies of office buildings.  And what kind of nation would that be? This isn’t Amsterdam!

It’s time we delimit ourselves to limiting marriage for gay men and women.  We need to expand our definitions of inappropriateness to include Similar Sex people.  Melting pots need different ingredients to create a cultural cuisine.  Failure is no longer an option.  This is the only way to maintain our differences.

For those unsure, this was sarcasm!!!

Einstein Was Wrong

I’m not big on quotes.  Letting someone else rent space in my mind reeks of irresponsibility and makes me feel like I’m missing an opportunity to un-quiver an arrow at something original.

But sometimes, with the wisdom of experience, someone says something that captures my thoughts in the right way and I feel obligated to attribute their words to my ramblings.  Today is one of those days.

I am sitting sub-comforter – my back consciously congruent to the deflating pillows of an old couch – and staring at one of the various talking heads now screaming at me from the sixty-inch boob tube.  Five political people perch around a wooden table arguing the merits of phrases like “fiscal cliff” and “debt ceiling” and they toss around threatening

comments such as “If we don’t do something, blah blah blah, the Mayans were right.”

Some of the heads have poorly combed hair and at least one of the men employs hand gestures, which your average moviegoer might recognize as vaguely Kubrickian.  Plus, there are charts.

As I nestle into a bowl of oatmeal – possible cholesterol issues – and concern myself with the pajama pants crease now grinding into my left leg, I weigh the day’s contradictions.  See, when I grew up, I had some ideas about potential:

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. – Bruce Lee

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them. - Albert Einstein

Truth is, while I’ve already expressed my anathema for unoriginality, these guys pretty much nailed it. We are individuals subject to the many influences of our predecessors.  As kids, the thoughts and words of our idols guide us.

What I’m saying is – “I get it!”  Our government leaders have taken the lessons of their youth and applied them to their governing philosophy.  Only, they fucked up.  Going beyond your limits does not refer to the economic parameters of a thriving nation.  Breaking limits refers to upward mobility, not to downward spirals – no one wants to break limits on depression or trash dispersal or losing friends. Limits are less about how many people rejected your advances and more about how often you secured a date.  Limits refer to things like space and seas and ambition and excellence.

 

It seems, however, that our leadership is confused, suffering before the wrath of misunderstanding now permeating American culture. When it comes to financial security, they believe “going beyond limits” is a good thing.  They pride themselves on filling the nation’s credit card and burdening America’s youth with high-interest long-term debt.  They think they are adhering to the “go beyond” mandate.

Perhaps we need some new information. Maybe outdoing oneself is not always in one’s best interest.  Sometimes limits might be good.  Here are a few more voices of reason:

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.

Andrew Jackson

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Oscar Wilde

Alas, I am off the couch now, pressing the button on the remote control to the off position, recognizing that I’ve reached my listening limit, and doing something about it!

 

Attention: Deficit Disorder

Just once I’d like to hear someone in our government tell it like it is.

Dear America,

We…um…ahem…hrummpphh….alright I’m just gonna say it. You know that thing people talk about called financial responsibility, where if you don’t have money, you don’t spend it.  Well, um, we fucked up.  Big time!  We’ve leveraged America’s future by putting it on a credit card and now we’re looking into this great chasm of financial devastation and thinking, “Oops!”

Truth is, we probably should have stopped when the deficit hit zero dollars, or maybe a few thousand below the beltline  – the way holiday shoppers do.  But we didn’t.  We saw all these great things America could have right now and we’ve placed the responsibility upon our nation’s children to the tune of about 50K per kid once they leave the womb.  It’s quite possible there is no way out.

Oh sure, we can print sixteen trillion in new money and pay off our debt to China, but that would devalue the dollar and mean bread and milk prices would push higher than Hunter S. Thompson on a bender.   Hell, we could even raise the hell out of income tax on the 50% of the population that pays it and we’d barely make a scratch in the deficit, not to mention the tailspin we’d throw our economy into.  We could cut spending enough to rip the well-being out of the Medicare patients and we could slash the military budget until we’ve got just a few guys and girls in rowboats shooting water pistols at our attackers.  We could make the retirement age somewhere near Betty White and make up new terms for unfunded liabilities and tell everyone that they’ll have to “bite the bullet” for a few years.

But guess what?  That still won’t do it.

Because unless China forgives about half of our debt, we’re pretty much done.  Start learning Mandarin kids, because in about fifty years, the headlines in the Peking Press are going to be talking about those poor little children in Atlanta, Georgia and Manhattan, New York who are laboring away in sweat shops at $0.32 per hour to help their parents put some rice imported rice on the table.   Once we hit twenty trillion, it’s over – there’s no way home – fat lady singing, deflating erection, final credits rolling on the Constitution, OVER!   And that day is coming very soon.

It’s painful to be an economic pessimist, but with fiscal cliff impending and unfunded liabilities growing and an apathetic generation of entitled youth, there just simply seems to be no hope left.

And still they won’t tell us the truth.  Still they are negotiating deals that only raise 1.5 trillion in revenue, and deals that only cut the increase in spending – not the actual spending.   With leaders like this, it is no wonder we are staring into the dark chasm of economic doom.  Maybe it’s time we throw in the towel and max out the ol’ Visa.  Maybe we should all pursue the hedonistic lifestyle and forget about the future.  YEA!  C’mon Darwinists, let’s do it.  What do we have to lose?  It’s just our country, right?

Another Inappropriate Christmas Tale from CC

‘

‘Twas the night before Christmas and the house was a mess

I’d been drinking since three, of career distress

The stockings were lying right there by the floor

My wife saw me come home and she’d stripped at the door

The children were in their bed all nestled and sweet

She was feeling quite naughty and wanting a treat

Mama put on her leather and I dropped my briefs

She grabbed the North Pole and I sighed with relief

When out in the yard some idiot with a sled

Crashed onto my lawn while I was getting head

Away to the window I flew like a flash

Ripped open the shutter and yelled out to his ass

The streetlight failing above the commotion

Was a prelude to the hell now set in motion

When what to my rueful eyes should appear

But a staggering red suit with a forty-ounce beer

When the unsightly lush fell over and got sick

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick

More rapid than rats the police sirens came

And he slurred and mumbled and call’d them by name

“Now Narc, Now Piggy, Now Popo and Shady

On Five-0, on Copper, on Smokey and Statie”

He slammed through the porch and crashed into the wall

“You’ll never catch me,” he said clutching his balls

As dry leaves before passing semi- trucks fly,

When lifted by wind, mount to the sky

So up to the roof the officers flew

Reaching for Nick as he shouted “Screw you”

And then in an instant I heard up on top

His lurching and wobbling as he avoided the cop

I drew in my head to see what would transpire

Down the chimney came Nick, burnt his ass in my fire

He was dressed all in fur from his beard to his toes

His clothes reeked of booze and his junk was exposed

A bag of things stolen was flung on his back

He turned his head and coughed and then touched his sack

His eyes – how they bled! His frown lines how deep

His skin appeared jaundiced and his breath smelled like feet

His chapped lips were dry like a riverbed’s drought

The beard on his chin was covered in Stout

The blunt of a joint he held with lips like a wreath

And the smoke, it had yellowed and rotted his teeth

He had cloud-colored hair and a furry beer gut

Which when pressed from the sides looked a lot like his butt

He was putrid and rank, a right dastardly drunk

I held up a bat and cried “Don’t fuck with me punk.”

With a roll of his eyes and a flop of his head

He fell on the ground and I thought he was dead

He said not a word but went straight to his work

Left the gifts from his bag and called me a jerk

And then shoving a finger inside of his nose

He scrambled up my chimney and burned off his clothes

He jumped to his sleigh and flipped off the cops

Then grabbed the reigns and slagged down some Shnapps

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight

Bah Humbug you bastards, you messed up my night!

The Storm Above Lady Liberty

Presently, America rests upon the cliff’s edge of political supremacy.  As Democratic doctrine and Republican dogma vie for influence over a national melting pot, distraught citizens fret over an uncertain future.  But how did we get here?

At its inception, American offered a promise – the new nation would have pre-ordained rights and divest itself of monarchical rule.  In the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers, Madison and Hamilton posed arguments about the proper role of a centralized government.  The Founding Fathers established an institution balancing the power of government with its citizens’ demand for Independence. In hopes of an opportunity to better their lives, immigrants poured in from across the globe.  Meanwhile, political parties promised assistance to new voters in the form of government programs or tax breaks, all the while swelling and shrinking the government ledgers.  Presumably, the population learned lessons about effectively governing their own nation.

On the international front, as America’s capitalistic economy gained veneration, fascism, socialism and communism fell into economic disrepair.  America became a destination for entrepreneurism and a bastion of freedom.  With Lady Liberty lighting the way, the masses came, emboldened by America’s promise, but steeped in the traditions and cultures of their homelands.  Over time, American idealism turned into something sludgier.  People brought their beliefs with them, and slowly America’s temptation of freedom turned into a less-free sentimentalism.  Immigrants arrived in America’s airports and crossed her borders believing in the American dream, and then worked to remake her dream into their own vision.  The consequence was an America that looked very different than what the Founding Fathers devised.

Today we have reached a point of ideological equilibrium.  Half the nation is now a government-dependent population, and the other half is a population of independent citizens.  But the questions remain.  In a sympathetic society, what is the proper balance between individual responsibility and government intervention? Programs like Welfare, Social Security, and Health Care all create a culture of dependence.  Obviously we cannot let Americans fall by the wayside, but too, we cannot continue to take from those well-off to pay for the those not as well-off, without jeopardizing something sacred to this nation.

The idea that government will provide for its citizens is a double-edged Damoclean sword that protects the poor, but also, subjugates their will.

Individual independence though, also wields a sharp blade.

Empowering ideas- about holding a job and supporting oneself, or one’s family, about utilizing one’s inherent gifts to manifest a life – fail before a populace which lets it’s brethren suffer the horrors of poverty, and poor health and deficient educational systems.

I don’t have all the answers here, but this election seems to see this nation pivoting toward something.  Will we remain the world’s lone bastion of individual freedom that can find a way to offer everyone an equal shot at something greater, or will we turn toward the model of older and more experienced nations that suggest government should serve as the caretaker of its citizens?  I guess the real choice is whether you believe in America’s people, or the men and women who represent them.

When it comes to candidates, I always ask the following question: When there is a discrepancy between your personal principles, and what your constituency wants, will you abandon your principles and vote with your constituency, or will you abandon your constituency and vote your personal principles.

In my opinion, the answer explains their belief about the role of a representative.  I am tired of corrupt bureaucrats staking their claim to be leaders.  In a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people, it’s time we had someone representing the people.

Freaks!

An American visits a cemetery and notices an Asian gent placing a bowl of fruit on a grave.  “When do you think your friend will be eating that fruit?” he asked.  “About the same time that yours will be smelling those flowers,” the other man replied.

This story clarifies a point about the ethnocentricity of cultural biases.  The way we do things makes sense to us, but not necessarily to others.

I did a little research on body language today.  I guess the post World-Series ritual of bear hugging and jumping up and down, like third-graders hopped up on too much Yoo-Hoo, sort of made me curious.  Plus, I recently returned from Italy and, just trying to get street directions, I spent more time bobbing and weaving than Manny Pacquiao.  Not to mention the living in LA thing, where middle fingers rise as often as Hollywood-producer erections.

See, I was always taught to express myself with words, so the idea of translating a thought with a gesture, just didn’t inspire confidence.  But now, having studied the topic a bit, I realize how intimidating this hyper-gesticulation thing can truly be.

Indians move their heads in ways that say “yes” and “no” at the same time, and messing this one up can get you a taxi ride, shot at, or laid – so gaffing here could have serious consequences.

In Iran, thumbs up means “Up Yours,” which, at present moment, means you’re either about to have your head cut off or to feel something nuclear headed your way.

In Brazil and Turkey, the “okay” sign is obscene, so when you signal your approval of a recent wax job or morning brew, don’t be surprised when Lucia or Yağız kicks your ass.

In Greece, putting up a “talk to the hand” sign is called a “moutza” and will get you chased from the nation.  Same goes for Korea and Pakistan, so I’d suggest putting your hand in your pockets there – by the way, hands in the pockets in the US means you have something to hide or you’re a sexual deviant, so cheers!

Did you know, in Britain, the phrase “I’m stuffed” means “I just had sex.”    I’m horrified no one told me that before I ate at the buffet.  All I know is there are gonna be some curious Brits when they hear what I have planned for the Thanksgiving turkey this year.

OK, to my point.  There are a lot of cultural idiosyncrasies that can annoy you – people slurping their food and closing in on your personal space and talking loudly enough to be heard three nations away.  But maybe we shouldn’t judge them so venomously.  After all, our open-armed hugs and aversion to toplessness and uncomfortableness around swordplay, probably seem just as curious to the greater world.

 

I’m just saying we could all be a little more accommodating about this stuff.  After all, how boring would life be if everyone was the same!

New word of the Day: Smelderly (def) old person odor

Did that 8:00 a.m. Apple thing today, the one where you slow-walk in, with your protective helmet and the lower lip drool, and try to articulate that something is wrong with your RAM or Gigabyte or Hard Drive, and the “four-year-old-girl-genius” behind the slate counter starts giggling at you with the same amount of empathy old people get in freeway fast lanes. She puppy-dog tilted her pierced face at me, reached out a tattooed arm, pressed the on-switch, tapped keys the way hyperactive kids play Whack-A-Mole, and then handed it back to me and said “it’s fixed,”  before I could even tell her the damn problem!

The point is, I had a little extra observation time on this uneventful Saturday morning at the shopping mall.  Perhaps it’s my ignorance, but I was un-aware malls serve the dual purpose of economic consumption and senior citizen track workouts. As I hoisted and tilted my morning cocoa bean addiction, I was suddenly in the midst of a particularly aggressive AARP stampede.

To my left, a grey-haired gent wearing a low cut sweater and sporting the sort of scrunched neck that disappoints vampires and suggests one of his parents may have been a Pez dispenser, blew by me.  I could actually smell the mothballs in his wake.  Four seconds later, I heard the scuffing waddle of a blue-haired woman whose hips shouted lifetime of secretarial work.  She’d worked herself into a stunning emphysemic wheeze as she hurtled down Level One on her way to what one can only imagine was a post-workout Denny’s breakfast.  I thought, “Oh, how sweet, an old couple racing.”  Apparently, however, this is the status quo for weekend mornings.

Over the next fifteen minutes, I witnessed what your average thinking man might assume is a Senior Olympics training ground (Viagra,Testosterone and Estrogen jokes withheld due to serious lack of blogspace).  Sketchers-wearing women emerged blowing white baby powder from their skeletal walker frames, their mouths lubricated by things caramelly and butterscotch.   Patient nurses guided arthritic arms and palsied limbs through step after wobbly step.  With rear ends sagging inside long white pants, scaly, crocodile-ish men limped along the floor trying to ignore the instinctive pull of eyes-to-ass, for fear of offending the young department store working women whose current state did not yet include Depends garments.  If you listened close, you could almost perceive the hearing aids’ whine.

I’m pretty certain I should be happy about this seemingly inconspicuous gathering of old people.  After all, they are getting exercise in a safe place and probably stimulating the economy with their mid-workout caffeine needs and frequent restroom-disposables requirements.  But there’s just something a little scary here –  sweaty old men and women with aggressive grimaces, awkwardly enhanced by loose dentures,  bearing down on innocent mall patrons – and I find it intimidating.

I hear there’s a thing called the Geek Squad – people who come to your house and fix your  technology.  They say the kids are old enough to drive and they don’t laugh at you when you ask questions like “So what’s the difference between an iPad and a laptop?”  More importantly, they don’t come surrounded by angry herds of regenerative elderly people who suck oxygen from aluminum tanks on their way to Gold Medals or hospitals.

Perhaps it’s a rumor.  Perhaps I’ll have to spend the next thirty years navigating this labyrinth of aged humanity.  Whatever the end holds for me, if you ever see me jogging through malls with a vacant Alzheimers-ish stare and a potent garlic smell, please….tackle me and bring me home.