Jul 072014
 

Don’t be dense!

This should be pretty obvious if you have been following our lessons. Unfortunately these days most people are pretty dense and seem unable to follow a stream of logic so we are going to be very blunt. Polite is a synonym for lie. It is just that simple. If you choose to remain oblivious to simple truths, we can’t do anything about it. Human nature is pathetic. We continually ask people to tell us things that we know are untrue. If you have to ask your husband whether a dress makes you look fat, you already know the answer. “Of course it does!” So now the poor man has two bad choices. He can say yes which will make you hate him for confirming the truth or he can say no which will make you hate him for lying. Most husbands are taught to be polite and lie through their teeth and most wives delight in making it impossible for them to be honest. No wonder marriage is in trouble these days.

Stop being a mealy mouthed liar!

We always seek to be inoffensive which of course causes us to lie. “That was a great cup of coffee, Carol. Can I have a refill.” The coffee tastes like battery acid. It is luke warm and the cream is curdled. “I’d love another piece of that delicious cake, Mrs. Smith.” The cake in questions is lumpy and tasteless. Who wins with such behavior? The answer, of course is nobody. If you don’t set these people straight, they will continue to inflict their shoddy goods on other unsuspecting victims. If they believe you they will have your encouragement to do it. If they don’t believe you, they brand you either as a fool or liar.

Be straight at work!

You may think that we are singling out women here but men are just as inclined to this foolishness as women. It just attaches to different activities. When it gets into the workplace, it is even worse because we are expected to lie as a condition of employment. Your boss may be a fool but he is unlikely to keep paying you if you tell him. Imagine the chaos if you said what you were thinking. Is the customer always right? Of course not. Could you fix their problem and get them out of your face if they would just shut up and go away. Of course. Because we think that polite is important, we waste everybody’s time and make everybody upset. It is a darn nuisance.

You aren’t getting any younger you know !

Cut out the crap. Tell it straight. Stop the lies and stop pretending that polite isn’t a synonym for lying, You don’t have tine for games. Time is a wasting and nobody is getting any younger. Next time somebody expects you to waste your time and theirs with mealy mouthed and duplicitous politeness, just say no. Tell them the truth and lets get on with life.

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Feb 152014
 

The “let the nanny state take care of me” crowd has a tendency to use zero tolerance as a way to protect themselves when they turn their brains off. That would be 99% of the time. Let’s look at just what zero tolerance is.

Back before zero tolerance became the politically correct method for demonstrating your stupidity, it had a very limited use, and was usually enforced only by the local old maid librarian. Most of them had ears like a directional microphone, and were pissed at the world because they had never been kissed, and used that super hearing mostly to punish highly hormonal teenagers.

I’ll swear, the librarian back home could hear you if you picked your nose, and would throw you out. For the library, the upside was it kept boogers off the bottoms of tables and chairs.

Don’t look at me like that! Where else are you gonna put a booger in the library, inside the back cover of a book?

Anyway, these days any little self appointed dictator uses zero tolerance to 1.) Give them an excuse to exercise what little power they have as often as possible, and 2.) Allow them to save energy by not having to think. For some reason, while it seems to be used by everybody with just an itty bitty bit of power, it rears its ugly head most often in our schools.

• A couple of years ago in Cobb County, Georgia (a part of the metropolitan Atlanta area…naturally) a little girl in, I believe, the seventh grade, who was an A + student, was expelled for the balance of the school year for bringing a weapon to school.

The weapon? A plastic 6 inch long Tweety Bird keychain that had the door key to her home on it. Now, if you have at least three active brain cells working at the moment, you have to be asking yourself, “Self, how in the hell can a plastic keychain be a weapon?” Well, a brain dead (and zero tolerance loving) principle, followed Georgia law to the letter and decided that a keychain with a key on the end of it (where else would you keep the key?) fit the legal description of a “flinging weapon”, and kicked the honor roll student out of school.

The principle was thinking along the lines of numbchucks. Personally, I think numbskull is more appropriate.

• Along about the same time in Gwinnett County, Georgia, (yet another suburban Atlanta county)…

Stop right there. I don’t wanna hear any crap about Georgia. Atlanta might be in Georgia, it might even be the capital of Georgia, but it is not Georgia. Atlanta might be 10% Georgians. Everybody else moved in from Yankee land.

Anyway, in Gwinnett County, Georgia another 10 or 11 year old little girl took a very small 1 ounce bottle that had a purple liquid in it to school and told her classmates that it was communion wine. One of her classmates told the teacher, who took the little girl and the bottle of “communion wine” to the principal’s office . The principle opened the bottle (drinking on the job Mr. Principle?), discovered the “communion wine” was actually grape juice…and expelled the little girl for violating the no alcohol policy. He said that even pretending that it was alcohol put the little girl in violation of the policy.

I suppose that means that if two of the boys in school were standing at the water cooler and started joking about getting a drink of beer “on tap” they would be expelled as well.

• Not to be outdone by it’s confederate neighbors to the south, a high school in Spotsylvania, Virginia has expelled another straight “A” student for shooting spitballs in class. Not suspended… expelled.

As a totally irrelevant aside, who the hell would name a town Spotsylvania? Every time I hear that name I get an image in my head of a cross between a spotted Dalmation dog and a vampire, and I don’t even do drugs like our regular reader Hansi.

OK, back on topic. The school has taken a portion of the Federal Gun Free School Act, which mandates that schools expel students who take “…weapons, including hand guns, explosive devices and projectile weapons, to school. “, and has decided that a spitball is a “projectile weapon”.

Based on the three examples above I think my own personal definition of “zero tolerance” is fairly accurate. My definition? I’ll express it in the form of a math problem:

Zero intelligence + zero judgment = zero tolerance.

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

More Posts - Website - Twitter

Feb 032014
 

We don’t hold with stereotypes here at COC.  The image you probably form when you hear Cantankerous Old Coots is ugly  old  men but you need to know that cantankerosity is more than skin deep and that coots can be any sex.  In other words you can’t tell a coot by his cover and just to be clear, we use  the standard English meaning for pronouns that the masculine pronoun is also the general pronoun.  So if you are paying any attention, you will understand that  Cantankerous Old Coots can be women.  They can take all forms, from dotty old ladies like Miss Marple to something more seductive. You can be pretty and still be a Cantankerous Old Coot.

At COC we want to do more than entertain.  In fact ,our aim is to help each of our readers exercise the full flow of cantankerous potential they possess.  It is our eleemosynary intent to nurture even the smallest nubbin of honesty and help it grow into real truth-telling cantankerosity because that is what we do here at COC- tell the truth when no one else will.

Some of the fairer sex may feel that they must exclude themselves from the joy of cantankerosity because they think that it is just not feminine.  They may feel that indulging in cantankerosity will make them undesirable or unattractive.  To that, we at COC have only one response.  Au Contraire! Just because you feel pretty, you are not excluded from developing the ‘I don’t give a damn about what anybody thinks attitude’ that is the essence of a coot.  Take the video clip below as an example.

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Nov 032013
 
Sign for the Grumpy Troll pub in Mount Horeb.
Image via Wikipedia

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 have to quit caring what other people think.  You have to be true to yourself and not worry about being polite if it interferes with being you.

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

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Sep 022013
 

It’s another milestone for the Coots

The Regents of Cantankerous Old Coots University

Award to Hansi of Hansi's Hallucinations

Hansi of Hansi’s Hallucinations is the man!

Today marks the first degree awarded by Cantankerous Old Coots University.  Congratulations to Hansi, the master hallucinator over at Hansi’s Hallucinations.  It is no mean feat to meet the requirement for this degree but he has proved worthy by actually reading five of the Coots News Service news summaries and leaving a comment.

For taking time from his busy schedule, Hansi has earned the respect of the faculty and staff at COCU and we are proud to welcome him as the first Associate Coot.  If you would like to emulate the illustrious Hansi and receive your own degree, just read and follow the instructions.  Just like Doritos, we can make more.

 

Ralph

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

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook