Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

Down with Aging

Posted by Ralph at 11:01 Down with

Feb 232015

Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.

Kitty O’Neill Collins

Old age is a catastrophe.

There isn’t anything desirable about it. People aren’t like fine wine. They don’t get better, they only persevere. Even so, the world is full of Pollyanna’s concocting wonderful sounding benefits from aging. Those fools believe the hype ginned up to keep us from facing the truth. They will find out soon enough that it’s all a pile of crap. Aging sucks!

You don’t get wiser. You don’t get better looking. You don’t even get respect. You just get old. Nothing works like it used to. Your body sags and bags where it used to bulge and flex. Still aging is the best alternative available. As much as your quality of life deteriorates with aging, nobody wants to throw in the towel. People cling to life and accept aging even as they search for validation. Take me, for example. I don’t even feel like a grown-up yet.

When do I get the secret handshake that tells me I’m grown-up? Sure I am old but looks aren’t everything. Just because the years pass doesn’t mean that your mind goes along. I have always felt a disconnect between my chronological age and the way I feel. Just reaching 21 and being able to buy a drink didn’t make me feel like a grown up. Heck, I’m still waiting for the special handshake that lets me know I’m an adult. I’ve been waiting for this a long time. Most of the time I am just as confused and insecure as a kid about what to do. It’s all I just put up a front and hope no one will notice. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Health Nuts

Posted by Ralph at 11:01 Down with

Feb 232015

: Image by Ed Yourdon via Flickr

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”

Redd Fox

Unless you are a total recluse, you know some health nuts. These people are fixated on ‘taking care of their bodies’. They would never dream of eating a hamburger. It’s got to be a broiled chicken breast or if they are total loons- a vegeburger. Then they pretend to enjoy their food while they smirk at you and your unhealthy choice. They know how much fat is in anything you name and whether it is saturated, unsaturated, poly-unsaturated or, the crème de la crème of bad, trans fat. These are the people who decided ,in the interest of their own good health, not to eat anything that tastes good. Since they get no pleasure from food, they compensate by making you feel bad eating something delicious. It is an evil perversion and health nuts deserve a special place in hell.

It’s pretty clear that health nuttiness doesn’t make them healthier. They don’t look any better. They get sick just as often and instead of enjoying life they take pride in making sure that anybody around them can’t enjoy life. There is never an end to their quest for perfect health. Taking one step on the path, instead of producing praise just causes them to step up the program- and the abuse

“Bob, it is so good that you have given up eating read meat. Your body will be so happy.”

As you smile at their encouragement they continue.

“Of course, you really want to give up that nasty meat all together. It’s so bad for you.”

And its not just food. Maybe you start taking walks to keep that blood flowing and clear your head. You feel pretty good. Just don’t tell the health nut.

“Fred, that’s a great first step.”

Don’t get cocky because they continue.

“We’ll have you doing an Iron Man in no time.”

This coot has learned over time not to give a health nut any encouragement. These unhappy people only live to suck all the joy de vivre out of anyone unfortunate enough to be in the same room with them. Don’t give them an inch. Don’t concede even the smallest of their points because when you do, they have you where they want you- feeling guilty.

Enjoy yourself and let health be damned. Eat that savory hamburger with pleasure, wiping your chin from time to time as the delicious juices drip. Walk if you must but be careful about jogging because the next step is running a marathon. Focus on enjoyment and don’t let guilt get his foot in the door. Health nuts have forgone pleasure to achieve the false nirvana of ‘good health’. The only pleasure they have left is suckering you to follow them. If you concede an inch to their fixation, you are as good as doomed to join them. If not in the achievement of perfect health- at least by reaching a state of perfect unhappiness.

It is a slippery slope to health nuttitidude.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Summer

Posted by Ralph at 11:01 Down with

Feb 232015

Whatever happened to Summer?

So. its Summer. I just can’t get excited these days. I’ve been snookered too many times. Summer just means scorching heat and kids playing in the street. Maybe there is still magic in Summer for some people but I’m past it.

Summer is a tramp, full of promises and bad at delivering. As a kid, I was a sucker for the dream. I lived each year for the promise and then made excuses when they never came through. Anything could happen. Sadly it mostly didn’t. These days I don’t expect much. I just hunker down and get through it.

It is hard to like Summer. It promises great things but never really delivers. When I was a kid, it’s big attraction was that there was no school. Aside from that. Summer meant high temperatures and insufferable humidity. It meant hot sticky nights, trying to sleep with the sheets sticking to your body and bugs, lots of bugs, Noisy annoying annoying bugs like June bugs were bad enough but the grass was full of chiggers and the evenings brought mosquitoes which left you with painful itches and welts. The only bugs I liked were lighting bugs which sadly I never see in California. Summer fantasies were about bikini clad lovelies on sandy beaches. If you were in the landlocked Midwest, these were only fantasies because all you had were swimming pools or the lake and somehow it was just never beach blanket bingo or even Gidget. The reality was just never as good as the fantasy. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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It’s December and this Coot is cold – and bored.

Posted by Ralph at 11:01 Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Feb 232015

: Image via Wikipedia

Where is Global Warming when you need it?

This Coot is frustrated today. It may be just the weather. It is only December and we’ve got frost. What ever happened to that global warming thing? Wherever it went, bring it back because I need it. Still, I’d probably be frustrated even if if weren’t freezing because my life is boring. Something is wrong here. It’s not the way it happens on TV. I did the right stuff. I went to college as long as I could get away with it. I got a job- it was even an ‘interesting’ job. Then I retired. I followed the plan. I put up with serious shit and smiled even when I hated it. Then put my nose down, did the energizer bunny thing and got another job and then another. Then I won! I got to retire. Now I want my reward.

And what’s up with retirement?

So, I’m sitting around in my retirement bliss wondering where is all the fun. I put up with big time inconvenience for all my adult life so that one day I would get to retire and do what I wanted. Isn’t that what fun is all about? Thinking back, nobody was ever very clear about what that fun would be. The TV ads always show golf courses but since I never had time to play golf I would first have to learn. Going back to school again doesn’t sound like much fun to me. Then apparently when you retire you are supposed to go live with other old fogies. Apparently retirement fun is living in some place with a golf course along with a swarm of happy, semi-conscious old people sipping wine and watching the sunsets. Can you spell B O R I N G?

Did I get snookered big time? Is the Pope catholic?

Maybe I should have learned golf.

Maybe I should stop struggling. Maybe I should learn to play the golf and live in one of those senior communities. Let’s say that I’ve managed to put away enough money to move to one of those golf course ghettos. Would my life be better? I don’t think so. First, I’d be broke from buying into the place and couldn’t afford to travel. I’d be stuck there forever. Then I’d be surrounded by mindless twits who play golf all day. What would I talk about? And who could I talk to? When you live in a place like that, how often do you see people from the real world? How often would my family actually visit me and provide intelligent conversation? My retirement may be boring now but if I lived in a golf ghetto, I would be pleading for Alzheimer’s to take me into oblivion. That is no life for a self-respecting coot.

It is a serious existential question.

Dust off the Kierkegaard. Dig out the Sartre. What even made me buy into this retirement trap of happy senility? If there is a solution to my retirement problem, then I guess it is up to me to find it. Society has certainly let me down. If I had waked up sooner, I might have paddled up a different creek and become a rock star because they seem to go on forever. Never mind it won’t do me much good to cry about it now. I’ve got to take my boring life to a new plateau. I need to find something fulfilling to do and keep warm while doing it. Something that doesn’t require so much discipline. Forget golf. I’ll take up pyromania.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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That’s not the ugly American; It’s only me.

Posted by Ralph at 11:01 Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Feb 232015

Foreign countries are strange

One of the big hangups about traveling, particularly traveling abroad is dealing with the strange customs of foreigners. It is as if just living somewhere foreign gives them permission to be strange. Go figure! Some of if is charming. Who doesn’t love the idea of gondolas and seranading gondoliers? And who can resist the romance when ordinary objects get translated into Italian.

English: Tripe in an Italian market. Some tast...

Image via Wikipedia

Ordinary stuff becomes magical in another language. Still there are risks. you can order something uneatable, like tripe, without knowing. Europeans seem to value tripe much higher than Americans perhaps because it sounds so sexy. It is hard to remember sometimes that the people eating that tripe aren’t Americans. And tripe remains stomach no matter what language you speak.

Ah, there is the problem. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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