Down with Labor Day

 Posted by at 11:13  Down with
Apr 142014
 

You know how you just accept something without really thinking? You just say it or think it without paying any attention to the meaning. Take Labor Day for instance. What’s it for and why, for God’s sake is the last holiday of summer named for work? If you are like me, you never think about it at all. You just enjoy your barbeque and the long weekend and go back to work. Well today for some reason I stopped to think about it. What does Labor Day celebrate anyway?

Celebrating the American worker.

Celebrating the American worker.

It never made much sense to me as a kid that Labor Day was a holiday. It was crazy but when you are a kid you spend most of your time incorporating all the crazy things that adults into your world view. We call that growing up. There is so much crazy making required in growing up that there isn’t any time to waste thinking about those things. Back then Labor Day seemed to have the purpose of marking the end of Summer Vacation and the beginning of the school year. Today even that meaning is gone now that school starts in August. diminishing Labor Day to merely another break in the endless tedium of school.

Let’s check with Wikipedia.

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbeques and the end of summer vacations.[1]

Placating unionists and celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers, eh. I always thought it was for everyone. It sure seemed that way to me as a kid. Back then everyone I knew, at least the adult men had a job. These days even in the current Obama recovery its starting to seem like a full time job isn’t the American dream what with Obamacare punishing companies with outrageous healthcare costs for full time employees. Employers can’t afford full time employees in these progressive times. Jobs have disappeared. Food stamps are up. Workers, these days have become a distinct minority. Continue reading »

Apr 142014
 

Unbelievable as it seems, not everyone is cut out for cantankerosity. Conformity is seductive at any stage of life. The risks of taking the road less traveled and leaving the herd behind can seem too overwhelming. The temptation to settle for boring conformity always beckons at the first sign of trouble. Only the willful and pigheaded will persevere and move forward.

Walter Mitty

Relase your inner Walter Mitty

If you are in that majority, you have two choices. You can rationalize or you can surrender. The Cantankerous Old Coots accept you either way. We don’t criticize. We don’t blame. We don’t demean. We merely observe. Going along makes the world go round. It keeps the trains running on time. It pays the bills. We understand. That is why we created Lessons for Sanctimonious Old Sheep.  Go ahead and Embrace the Conformity.

If you are a committed go-alonger then the Cantankerous Old Coots say ‘More power to you’ and :Good Luck’ because you probably won’t be happy spending much time here. If, however, within you there is just a glimmer of cantankerous wannabeism, we say ‘Stick around’. Let you inner Walter Mitty indulge fantasies of cantankerosity while you live a life of deadly conformity. Let your fantasies run wild. Imagine yourself in cantankerous full form from time to time. Who knows? One day it might just break loose. Indulge those fantasies by reading the Cantankerous Old Coots Lessons.

Apr 022014
 

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.

-Justin

Apr 022014
 
Groundhog Day 2005 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
Image via Wikipedia

I hope everyone had a good break from the regular cantankerosity and enjoyed Heathers work.  She has some good rants on things us other Coots don’t think about.

Is anyone else out there getting tired of winter?  I know it has been very erratic around much of the US and still continues to be…strange weather to say the least.  Next Wednesday the weather prognosticator of all prognosticators will make his debut and tell us all whether we can look forward to 6 more weeks of winter or not.
Continue reading »

Apr 022014
 
Salt Lake City at dusk
Image via Wikipedia

Sorry to use the crudity of text slang but this is a PG rated blog.  Today I found a story on one of our local news sites here in Salt Lake that justhas me shaking my head.  Apparently there is nothing, I repeat absolutely nothing that is happening in Utah so they get to report this.  You can read the text here but I will tell you the gist of it.

Apparently it is big news when the State Attorney General has cancer.  It is in extremely bad taste to announce that fact in freaking YOU TUBE video that was released by the State of Utah’s Attorney Generals office! And as if that isn’t bad enough, the news gets invited to report on the fact that said Attorney General had surgery to remove part of his colon.  I was scared to even look for a video of that, it is probably out there.

The end of the story not only gives his location but hints at his further treatments.  Come on already, let the guy have SOME modicum of privacy.  As a matter fact I don’t know why I am writing about it….I am just genuinely shocked that this was an actual news story.  Yet another reason to NOT get into politics or public office.

What do you guys think? I want opinions on this one.  I also want some questions to be asked at askacoot@cantankerousoldcoots.com!  Saturday is not that far away!