You typically won’t hear of a Cantankerous Old Coot tooting his own Cantankerousity horn, but today is different. Cantankerosity is the topic du jour. (if you have to look that up get out now. Go on, get out)
As we have stated before, Cantankerous is not just angry. Cantankerous is not just being grumpy for grumpy’s sake. It is not something to be turned on or off whenever the whim strikes. Cantankerosity is the art of being Cantankerous. Cantankerosity is a way of life.
To truly be cantankerous you have to look at the world in a certain way. You have to be willing to let go of certain societal preconceptions about the population in general and just let it out.
You must be ready to say what needs saying right when you feel it, and you have to let it show on your face. There can be no dithering, no half promises, no sitting on the fence. Take a side and tell everyone else to deal with it.
Now being Cantankerous is some work. If you have noticed, there are some links in this post that will take you to other posts that are lessons in being Cantankerous. Feel free to go and browse those. There is some great information that you will need if you want to become a Cantankerous Old Coot.
If you do not have time to click and read each post, they comprise the first volume of the Cantankerous Old Coots University Manual! For some simple clicks of your mouse, you can join our mailing list which will give you access to a finely crafted ebook that contains the first 5 lessons and a bonus lesson for subscribers only, all packaged in PDF format for your reading pleasure. Plus, if you sign up this weekend, you will be eligible for special “subscriber only” discounts to future cantankerous products.
Join us in the Coots University and find your own way to say “Up with Cantankerosity!”
-Justin
PS, the picture today doesn’t have anything to do with the post, but doesn’t the “Grumpy Troll” Sound like a great place to eat? It would seem to have the right Cantankerous attitude
“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” Rita Mae Brown
There are some good things about getting old. You get better at rationalization. At least when things start not working so well, you make an effort to discover something that is better about your life these days. It’s a challenge but aging is not for the weak. Survivors do whatever it takes and become experts at rationalization.
Crutches can help
Memory is one of the things that doesn’t work so well these days. Witness the lists scattered all around my house in my attempt to keep control of everything. But lists don’t fix everything. Lists don’t help remembering what name goes with the familiar, smiling face at the supermarket as I struggle to find clues about who this person is. Mostly I hurry on after saying ‘Nice to see you again.’ but there is always the nagging thought that maybe I really do want to talk to them if I only knew who they were. It would be nice if that brain could still remember everyone I know and keep me current on all my responsibilities. Sadly, my brain seems to be in retirement mode also and it only works when it wants to. But that is not so bad as you think.
The good side of memory loss
It turns out that there are benefits to not remembering things. The old coot member (this is clearly a Freudian slip. Should have been memory of course) may be failing but it is not as bad as you might think. People don’t expect much from you anyway. What makes it sweet it that everybody gives you a pass because you’re old. Forgot to pick up your wife at the doctor? No problem because everybody is re leaved that you managed to get home at all. Don’t recognize that face with the hand reaching out to shake yours? No problem because you do remember that he loaned you money last week. When you get old, people just expect you to forget so why not make it work for you?
Eliminate what you don’t like to do
Take control of your life like never before by eliminating everything you don’t want to do. After all, you’re old and nobody expects you to remember things so help them out. Only remember what you want to do. All you need to say when somebody asks is that you forgot. They can’t hold you accountable for the aging process. You get a pass. When the expectations are below ground level, just showing up makes every body happy.
*******Since you readers seem to have forgotten the invitation of past posts and completely ignored the Cantankerous Old Coots University, I will chalk to up to short term memory loss and give you all another chance. Sign up for our mailing list and receive the first few lessons of the Cantankerous Old Coots University absolutely free. You will also be signed up for future mailings and special offerings. If you join us before September 7th, you will be eligible for a big discount on the whole Cantankerous Old Coots University course. If you don’t, I have your IP address…..I’m just sayin’…..
Good Monday Folks! Well the time is upon us, fall. Kids everywhere are headed back to school in droves, from elementary students to college students.
We here at Cantankerous Old Coots are following suit in a way. We are opening the Cantankerous Old Coots University! Yes today brings in a whole new era in the pursuit of Cantankerosity.
The Coots University will be your ultimate source for all things Cantankerous. Forums to discuss cantankerosity and lessons to bring out your inner coot will be paramount.
Today We release the first set of lessons in how to be a Cantankerous Old Coot in the finest of PDF EBooks. This set of lessons is absolutely free for the time being when you sign up for our mailing list. Plus anyone who signs up for said mailing list between now and Labor Day (September 6) will be on a list to receive special discounts on tuition as well as other goodies as they come along.
Our first set of subscribers is very special. Become one of the students at Cantankerous Old Coots University today and you will be well on your way to becoming part of the faculty.
“Hood ornaments. They were just lovely, and they gave a sense of respect. And they took ‘em away because if you can save one human life- that’s always the argument- it’s worth it, if you can save one human life. Actually, I’d be willing to trade maybe a dozen human lives for a nice hood ornament. I imagine those things really did tend to stick in bicyclists.” Michael O’Donoghue
It is comforting to be a Cantankerous OLD Coot because when you look around at the trivial cultural wasteland of modern day America, you, at least, have the memories of better times. Sick of ugly, look-alike cars? Remember hood ornaments! Back when you used to be able to tell one car from another and all cars weren’t ugly, hood ornaments were totally useless sculptures found on the hood of every car no matter the price or cache. These were not trivial junk but carefully crafted works of art designed to reflect the unique image for the car make itself and quite often the specific model. The hood ornament was just one more way to make a car distinctive. Today most of us will remember the Flying Lady for Rolls Royce or the Mercedes Star because those two manufacturers held out the longest before abandoning hood ornaments. It may have been safety that precipitated the end for hood ornaments but in the long run I think the big reason was cost. Popular priced cars after the onslaught of government regulation in the 60′s couldn’t afford hood ornaments and as hood ornaments became rare, the few remaining became collectors items causing Rolls to go to outlandish length to protect theirs before giving up.
We at Cantankerous Old Coots want to propose a solution to the ugly car problem. We say bring back the hood ornament! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make your car distinctive again? Now that you can’t tell a Toyota from a Lexis from a KIA and all cars look like a cross-over, think what a hood ornament could do to make your car distinctive. Finally you could stop having to click your key fob and wait for the lights to flash to know which car is yours. Look for the one with your special hood ornament,
Maybe you think that we are too negative at Coots. All the time you keep hearing about things we don’t like. You might conclude that Coots are never positive and that we don’t like things. You would be very wrong but to be fair – how would you know. After long conferences and much cantankerosity, the Coots have a solution. We are going to show you our positive sides from time to time. We are going to title these posts ‘Up With” and in them we will highlight things that we like and want to see more of. Look for the first of these posts soon and then expect to see more of them from time to time.
“It’s unnatural for people to run around city streets unless they are thieves or victims. It makes people nervous to see someone running. I know that when I see someone running on my street, my instincts tell me to let the dog out after them.” Mike Royko
Jogging is just wrong!
There is just something terribly wrong about jogging. The only time it makes sense is when trying to escape from some pending danger like maybe your kid’s birthday party or your mother-in-laws visit. Any other time it just courts disaster. First, I don’t believe the human body was designed to run because if it were, humans would look a whole lot different. For example, no other humanoid runs on two legs. If they want to get somewhere fast they go down on all fours like all the other running animals. Just because of our insistence on standing upright we suffer back problems all the time. Now compound that with jolting the spine and bouncing a heavy head while running. Nothing good can possible come from all that stress. For that reason I contend that running is just plain bad for the body. Walking or standing is enough strain for a spine designed for horizontal activity. Add to that the pounding on knee and ankle joints and you have a recipe for total disability. It wears me out just thinking about it. Why do people do it? It is simple and obvious. Humans are a perverse and destructive species.
Then there is the madness of marathons
Sprints or laps are bad enough but then there are the few that are the crazy (and I mean that literally) people who run marathons. Maybe there was some justification for the first one. The Greeks didn’t have cellphones or even automobiles and there was an urgent message to relay. They didn’t have much choice. Send a runner! Nowadays there is absolutely no good reason to run 26 miles unless you are mad as a hatter. Today only masochists would put their bodies through all that stress just to gloat about their pis poor judgment. These are fools, bragging to the smarter people who have better things to do. It is not just the time wasted in actually running the marathon and then recovering from the damage it does to the body. No, on top of the 4 to 8 hours of torture invested in running the marathon, these fools put in months training their bodies to withstand the malicious torture that a marathon inflicts. If they made other people run marathons, we could lock them up as misanthropic, sadistic torturers. Since they do it to themselves, we have to give them a pass. There is just no nice way to put it. It is an intelligence problem. I am convinced that marathon runners are either missing some critical component of intelligence or were tortured and insecure as children. Nothing else makes sense.
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I witnessed a phenomenon in Wal-Mart tonight. Maybe it was just Wal-Mart but there was a lady (term loosely used entirely based on gender and not the language) who was walking with a cart full of kids down the main aisle. A guy with a couple of kids himself came out from a crossing aisle in front of her. He said “Oh Sorry” as he got out of her way. She replied with a few explicatives and “Fine just run over me!”
Now, you may be wondering what cantankerous lesson this could yield. Well it is not the attitude of the woman, entirely. She was what Ralph has referred to as an Angry Old Fart in this post. Now, what the man did was not cantankerous. It was not even, well, very manly.
He meekly said, “I didn’t.” to the womans back as she was stalking away. Now, the cantankerousness is available. It should be used. This situation left the woman, who was in the wrong (not by being a woman but by being a pain in the ass) with a feeling of superiority and self satisfaction.
I felt sorry for the guy and if I would have had a coots business card I would have given him the first 5 lessons at Coots University for free(it’s called foreshadowing kids, look it up), just to help this poor guy get his balls back from his wifes purse and be a man damnit!
I believe the correct response should have been something along the lines of, “You didn’t mind it last night!” or “Watch where you’re driving that stupid shopping cart you cow!” Or even just “Same to you!” followed by a rude gesture or explosion of flatulence.
We are getting way too pacified people! We let those few who think they are in charge brow beat the rest of us into giving in. We let the medical community push us around under pretenses of patient confidentiality when it is all just a sham. Why should people get away with being rude in any store when someone apologizes.
Sure, if you shop at all, there will be a moment when you step in front of someone or cut someone off or even walk out of an aisle too fast and nearly hit someone. A polite “excuse me” or “sorry” should be sufficient to not make a federal case out of it. Of course, there are those who want to push.
To them you can only respond with a “Same to you!” or “The sun seems to be going down would you mind bending over seeings as how the light shines from your ass?”
Take a stand. Be a real person and not one of the faceless automatons who gives in to people who are louder or are seemingly more forceful. Don’t just do what the nancy boys over in legal tell you you must do. A coot says what he or she thinks. A coot sticks to that. Like we have said before, a true Coot will give the deserving party the Mapquest directions straight to Hell without passing go.
Quit being a ninny.
Watch for a huge, large, big, fantastic, stupendous, unprecedented announcement concerning this site. Stay tuned for more.
You know the ones I mean. Those skinny high school and college kids you see working at the supermarket or fast food place. The ones with the skinny asses barely big enough for one back pocket, let alone two. They can hardly keep their pants up because there is nothing to hang them on. These guys can and will eat anything and never gain a pound. With the arrogance of youth, these guys believe that they will never let themselves get out of control. They will never get fat. They look at old guys with bellies as failures. You can see it in their eyes, drawn to your bulging belly when you order a tasteless salad and diet coke. They are thinking “Fat loser.” A pox on those guys.
Getting big is inevitable
As the years pile on it seems like just looking at something tasty adds a pound or two. There is always another temptation to resist and even when you apply all the will power you can muster you keep having to buy bigger pants . Worse, even those bigger pants can’t contain a belly you can’t suck in anymore. In fact it it is starting to lop over an over-stressed belt. Even with starving and denying yourself the pleasures of desert or a second helping of lasagna, the truth is hard to hide. You are fat!
It wouldn’t be so bad being fat so long as it meant that you could eat what you like. The reality is in the vain hope of getting back to skinny, you cut back and eat what is supposed to be healthy stuff and give up eating what you really want; ice cream, french fries, hamburgers and pasta. Even with all that deprivation, you are still fat. The consolation is that if you indulged your appetite and ate what you crave, you would be even fatter – a double-wide instead of a mere wide body.
Remember the good old days
It wasn’t always like this. Back in high school, and even college, 32 inch jeans would hang on your hipbones and three or four burgers would be an evening snack. Cheesecake? Ice cream? It was all good. Well, times change and one day you notice that you aren’t skinny any more. Those hipbones have some padding and you actually celebrate no longer being a wimp. Then a year or so later you develop bulges. Your cheeks are fuller, you sport a definite belly. Those 32 inch jeans are a distant memory. You are getting fat. Maybe it is time for a diet.
That is when it gets crazy because you still think of yourself as the skinny kid who can eat anything. You are in denial and imagine that with a little diet you can get back to your old self. You starve. You diet. Maybe you even take up exercise – running or weights but the sad truth is that you are never getting your skinny body back. Your metabolism has moved on, slowed down and is prepared to turn anything you eat into beautiful, bulging fat. You have a choice. You can be an unhappy fat man, eating rabbit food feeling deprived as you try to maintain your current level of overweight or a happy obese man eating what you like and getting bigger every day. It is a curse.
Their day will come
So I say down with those skinny guys. Those kids working at the supermarket or the fast food places, flaunting their lean bodies and gratifying their young appetites with whatever food takes their fancy. Each skinny ass just mocks your ample one billowing inside your elastic waist fat boy jeans. A pox on the lean waisted guy at the deli counter eying your big belly with disgust as you drool over the hefty sandwiches and rich potato salad and finally turn away, belly rumbling. Some days it is too much and you give in, flaunting your belly as you step up and and order a hefty sandwich, both potato and macaroni salad and a big wedge of cheesecake with cream soda to wash it down. Let him smirk at the shameless fat guy eating like a hog, you think as you stuff your gut happily. Let him feel superior with his youthful metabolism. His day will come.
I’ve come to accept that my skinny days are gone and never to return. I can live with eating tasteless , healthy food and still getting bigger. But I also have a way to handle those skinny guys with an attitude. Now I like to look at those skinny guys and see the future fat guys they are destined to be. I watch them fixing my lunch and imagine 50 pounds packed on their skinny frames. I smile at their double chins and flabby bellies. Let them feel superior. Time will put them in their place. Thirty years from now they will be where I am now, fat and hungry longing for something good to eat but longing to be the skinny guy they used to be. I know that I will pay for this lapse after eating a fattening snack and discovering when I let out my belt that my pants are already stretched to capacity. Time to move up to bigger ones again. Skinny young guys will learn that lesson soon enough.
Ha! Got you on that one didn’t I. Truth is I love football and now that it is back, albeit in preseason, the world is a better place, the planets are aligning and peace is coming. But not amid NFL fans.
Here is what I am on about today. My )(**&^^&*&&*^&^%*(&^*^&%*()_(*^%^&(*&%^$% kids and their complaining about me watching football. I have choice words for them. It is not like they have been raised from the womb to be football fans. Not like some of the first outfits they ever wore bore Bronco blue and orange. Not like the first phrase I was trying to get out of them was “Go Broncos!”
It is not even like they don’t have jersey’s to wear for games! They just complain. One goes so far as to complain about fishing but that is another post.
Granted this is just pre-season today. There are 3 more preseason games to make them come around. Or not. I really don’t care as long as they don’t thwart my viewing.
I anxiously await more football. For now, I want to go fishing. But I have to get some money made. Have a great Monday and look for a special promotion next week!
One of the benefits when you are a cantankerous old coot is the time you save. People can be so demanding – especially friends. They have to know everything. How are you doing. What are you thinking. And, of course, the ever popular How are you feeling? They really don’t care about any of that. What they do care about is being known as the kind of person who cares. They will go to any length and waste any amount of your time just to make sure that you (and everybody else) know that. What a waste of your time and energy. Today’s lesson will teach you how to take control of your time by not answering questions. You have an important mission. It is your life and it isn’t a team project or a collaboration. Anything that is important to share, you will share when and how you think is right. And when is never after someone asks you a question. Don’t pause. Don’t ponder. Just keep moving.
Don’t explain yourself!
You are in charge of your life. You don’t owe anyone a response. You don’t have time to spend explaining yourself or your actions to anybody. We get hung up today because society expects niceties like answering your friends questions and explaining what you are doing and thinking. As a result we end up being pressured into wasting our time. Being a pushover never made anyone like you. Being a Coot lets you drop all the pretense. There is no need to explain yourself. There is no need to respond. Friends will understand. After all you are a Coot. You have your own drummer to march to and your friends will respect that. Sheep love to follow – even over a cliff.
Don’t argue!
Another reason not to respond is that people will argue with you. They either want to change your mind or understand your thinking. Either way you don’t give a rip and besides you don’t have time to waste. When you get a question it is like someone has thrown you a baseball, They gave you the ball. Just keep it. There is no need to throw it back. So long as you keep it you control the game. Take the ball and go home.
Don’t seek their approval.
They don’t have anything you want. You don’t need or want them to give you a thumbs up. Who are they to tell you what to do? You aren’t seeking to be chosen Miss Congeniality. You aren’t needy and you aren’t indecisive. You know what you are doing and even if you don’t, there is nothing gained by sharing that with anyone else. So when your friends, neighbors, coworkers, family want to know what is going on, don’t get sidetracked into explanations or arguments. Just keep on with what you are doing. Tell them what they can do if they want to help then keep moving. Let them make up their own reasons if they decide to help. Otherwise just leave them wondering about what you are doing and what is important. And they will be sure to understand that whatever you are doing is more important than anything in their trivial lives.
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