I'm buckling up my cranky pants today
BURTON W. COLE, Editor
By Burton W. Cole
No, I will not be using my mobile app today. I don’t have a mobile app. I don’t want a mobile app.
What I want is a sandwich and a Coke. Yes, there might be an app for that, but you can’t pour ketchup or salsa on an app to make it taste any better.
I know, I know, this is another old person rant. At my age, I not only have earned the right to wear my cranky pants, but I can don the whole outfit, including matching cranky socks.
I know no one wants to hear how things were back in my day, but seriously, back in my day, phones hung on walls and stayed there.
They didn’t go with you to restaurants, stores or amusement parks, and we weren’t apt to burden our clunky ol’ rotary dial phones with apps.
We didn’t know what apps were, but they sound a lot like naps. Back then, I didn’t care for naps, either. I’ve changed my mind on that score and never pass up a chance for a good nap. But I’m still not ready for an app, good or otherwise.
(Do these cranky pants make me look fat?)
Also back in my day — which feels like just last week but is too many calendar pages to count — restaurants didn’t feature drive-up windows with disembodied voices in speakers asking for apps.
The closest thing we had was this root beer stand where you’d park, and servers would roll up to your car on skates to take your order. I can still see that tray loaded with hot dogs and glass mugs of root beer that the roller skate lady hung from Dad’s car window.
You never heard anyone say, “Will you be using your mobile app today.” You were more likely to hear one of the servers say, “Oops. The mug shattered, but I think the fries are still good if you want me to scoop them up off the ground.”
(I’m not really wearing cranky pants. I just don’t see how the rest of the world is going to learn anything if I don’t point out what they’re doing wrong. It’s called sharing the wisdom of the aged. Stop calling me a cranky old geezer.)
You know what else makes me cranky?
When I take a great big chomp out of a chocolate chip cookie only to find out they’re — blech — raisins.
Pop-up surveys.
A gaggle of slow people taking up the whole sidewalk.
My laptop shutting down my work in progress for another stupid automatic update.
The shopper in front of me with 11 items in the 10-items-or-less line.
And, of course, the worst of them all (other than the chocolate chips/raisins thing), inappropriate apostrophes. People, truly, honestly, please believe me, PLEASE, an apostrophe S does NOT make a word plural. Aaarrrghhh!
(Why are these cranky pants so tight?)
And another thing, if they’re called stress balls, why can’t I throw them at the people who make me cranky? That should relieve the tension. And it’s a good thing that bowling balls are so hard to hurl overhand.
Burt, you say, take a chill pill.
Yeah, that’s another thing. How come the more years I’m on Medicare, the more pills I’m prescribed and the more gallons of blood need to be sucked out of my arm at every one of the never-ending follow-up visits?
The message “Don’t do drugs” was pounded into our brains when we were young, but now that we’re seniors, doctors can’t seem to get enough drugs into us. Why? Can’t we just take an app for that and call you in the morning — 15 years from now?
Well, well, Old Man Cole, you say, aren’t you just a little ray of pitch black this morning?
Yeah, well, just remember, that which doesn’t kill me had better run, ’cause now I’m cranky!
Please excuse Burt. He was up way past 8 p.m. last night. He’ll be in a much better frame of mind after his nap. Soothe the cranky beast at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.