Take that Food and Shove it!

Posted by Ralph at 10:41 rants

Aug 282013

A Shopping Rant

I seem to be recovering some

English: Interior of a Sam’s Club in California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

of my cantankerosity which went AWOL when I got back from my trip. Once I got my worries about becoming nothing but a mellow old geezer off my chest last week, it slipped blissfully from my mind. (It is one of the blessings of getting older. I start thinking about something and ten minutes later it’s gone.)

Anyway I was doing some shopping at Sam’s, blissfully alone so all I had to do was find the items on my list. There were no distractions to slow me down. (When I go with my wife, it’s like she had never been there before in her life. She has to look at everything and apparently she has never seen any of it before. I have to write off a whole morning. It is a whole different experience that I can’t control so I turn off my mind and follow her lead) -but back to the point.

I was moving methodically through the store picking off the items on my list, only slightly handicapped by Sam’s insistence on constantly moving items around. I had picked up the laundry and dishwasher detergents and was rounding the corner into meat when it started. I saw a lady standing behind a cart looking at me expectantly. I shuddered when she made eye contact. She looked me square in the eyes, held up a pill cup and said,

“Try some Ranch dip?”

“No thanks,” I told her staring at the floor and moving quickly toward the vegetables. My steely focus was broken. I forgot the next item on my list and I could feel her eyes burning into my back as I rushed by. And that was just the beginning. It was like running the gauntlet. Every aisle I found another stalker trying to get me to taste chili, oranges, nuts- you name it. I was able to avoid a few so I can’t tell you everything else being offered. Finally, I reached the registers and safety. They never offer you anything once you make it to the registers. They only want your money and let me say that I am ok with that. It’s the reason I came to Sam’s today anyway-to give Sam some of my money and take home supplies.

So what’s my problem?

Some of you may wonder why I complain about free food. Some of you may think that it is great when a store offers you something to eat without making you pay for it. And if that is you, then you can stop reading right now. If you are the kind of person that will eat anything offered, even at Sam’s Club then you clearly aren’t the discriminating reader that we love here at COC. Heck, if you will eat anything that somebody sticks in your face, then you will probably read anything you find also. Take yourself right over the Huffington Post rig and we will forget you ever visited. No one will ever know.

No, it’s not the food that sets me off. It’s not the fact that the food is free either. I’m fine with food and I have the figure to prove it. I like free also. You won’t ever catch me passing up a freebie. There is just one proviso that I insist upon. It’s got to be something that I want and it has to be first rate. I don’t want imitation crab. I don’t want low fat sour cream. I don’t want a pig in a poke. I don’t want mystery meat. (I had enough of that in the Army.) I want something good! If you are going to give me something for free, then let me pick it out. And while you are at it, make it more than a taste. Let me have all I want. Deep down I know that if what they are offering me is any good, they wouldn’t have to give it away.

But there is more to my dissatisfaction than the food being offered and the piddly portions. It is also distracting. When I am cruising the store, efficiently picking off the items on my list, I get in the zone. With deadly focus and precision, I move from one item to the next. My mind is a steel trap, intently concentrating on the task at hand. I don’t chat with neighbors. I don’t hob nob with employees. I don’t muse and daydream about places I would rather be. I take care of business and there is the problem.

Those annoying hawkers of free food demand my attention and divert my focus. They waste precious minutes while forcing me to respond to their demands. Even worse they take it as a challenge to overcome my resistance. They won’t give up. It is as if they get a reward when I take their food. They refuse to believe that I don’t want the stuff and keep nagging. They won’t accept no for an answer. They can’t believe that I really don’t want it. “After all,” they seem to be thinking “Who doesn’t want free food.” And they

won’t believe that I am that who.

So why do I go back?

So why don’t I just give up on the brick and mortar stores? Why don’t I take my shopping to the web and avoid all those frustrations? I try but it isn’t easy. You have to plan ahead in order not to run out of something important. There is also the ability to compare products and prices in real time and actually see what you are buying when you go to the real store. Finally, I guess I’m an old fashioned guy who just likes to get out of the house once in a while even if it does mean dealing with annoying people. Life isn’t easy. For now, I guess those annoying food hawkers are just something I will have to deal with as best I can. Nobody ever told me that life would be easy.

Up with Senility

Posted by Ralph at 10:41 Up With

Aug 282013

“I am in the prime of senility.” Joel Chandler Harris

There is a lot not to like about getting older- most of which you can’t begin to appreciate until you experience it. Part of the problem is that it happens so damn slowly that you never notice that you can no longer run like a gazelle until suddenly you discover that you need a cane to walk. Somehow those tiny and gradual diminishments of your abilities just escape notice until you are way over the hill..

Up with Senility!

It’s the same with pain. When was it that I accepted pain as a normal part of daily life. It sure wasn’t when I was 20. I don’t think it was 40 or even 60. I just know that along the way I routinely accepted pain as normal. Excusers like to tell you that the negatives of aging are more than made up for by increased wisdom and judgment. Excusers don’t know shit!

In truth there is nothing golden about those vaunted golden years. You finally reach a stage in life where you don’t have to work and now that you have the time discover that you no longer have the physical ability to do anything that is any fun. In spite of all the hype saying how wonderful old age can be, it is a constant battle to hold on to whatever physical strength, coordination and mental power you have left and then deal with the pain that is your constant companion. The biggest problem in your golden years is finding a reason to get out of bed each morning when you know that each moment will bring pain and that everything you do puts you at risk for injury which may end what remains of your independence.

Podcast 3: Gettysburg

Posted by Justin at 09:36 Podcast

Aug 182013

Hello Folks. Today’s podcast marks another of our countries historical times, the dedication of the battlefield cemetary at Gettysburg, PA by President Lincoln in 1863. The original address was delivered on November 19th of that year. I think it is very important to remember many points in our history. This one, 147 years ago speaks of our continual growth as a nation, and our pursuit of the ideals that were set forth by the Founding Fathers in the Revolutionary War, and sealed in the Constitution of the United States. The Text of the Gettysburg address follows. [powerpress]

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Please join in the comments below and share on the social networks!

A good reason to be pissed…

Posted by Bob@HayleStorm Interactive at 11:21 Bob's Politics, videos

Aug 112013

If you ever get that non-specific “pissed off” feeling you can’t find a specific source for about the way the United States is run, maybe this is why:

[powerpress]

"The Price", a painting by Tom Lea, a WWII war correspondant

“I fell flat on my face just as I heard the whishhh of a mortar I knew was too close. A red flash stabbed at my eyeballs. About fifteen yards away, on the upper edge of the beach, it smashed down four men from our boat. One figure seemed to fly to pieces. With terrible clarity I saw the head and one leg sail into the air.

I got up… ran a few steps, and fell into a small hole as another mortar burst threw dirt on me. Lying there in terror looking longingly up the slope for better cover, I saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs (Landing Vehicle – Tracked). His face was half bloody pulp and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.”

You knew you were pissed off. Now, maybe, you know why.

Put Out False Cantankerousness, It can be funny!

Posted by Justin at 11:21 Coot Comedy, Softer side

Aug 112013

Cantankerousness can be perceived several different ways. Most people see it as a negative thing, and that is what we are trying to change here at Cantankerous Old Coots.com. Sign up for our email list to find out more from the Coots University.

Today I have a video for you. It is an old one, from the late eighties/early 90’s editions of Saturday Night Live. I finally found one of these videos on line.

Dana Carvey, the man famous for the Church Lady and the “Chopping Broccoli” song, played the “Grumpy Old Man”. While it was over the top and false Cantankerous, it is really funny. I actually played the Grumpy Old Man in a SNL style video we made for Boy Scouts one month. It was fun back then, but who knows if it affected my life and directed me to this site…..hmmmmm

Anyway, The video.

That’s all for today Folks, Sign up for the email list and leave a comment below!

-Justin

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