The New, New Normal

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
                              -Image by Jessica Crawford from Pixabay- 

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I believe that starting any business should be as easy as a 10-year-old starting a lemonade stand." -Mark Cuban


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

When I was a kid, normal, if you could marshall the resources and secure mum's permission, was setting up a Kool-Aid stand and investing the profits, if any, locally. That is to say, by purchasing baseball cards and comic books. 

[Profits if any?]

Yes, Dana. Drinking or giving away more Kool-Aid than you sold was not unusual.

Until this year, the new normal — once it warmed up to the point that kids started setting up black-market, locally sourced organic lemonade stands to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or the like — was news stories decrying The Man showing up and shutting 'em down.

I predict there will less of the new millennial version of this rite of summer this year given that nowadays when we look over our shoulders to see if someone's following us we're as concerned about whether or not they're maintaining a safe following distance as much as we are about being raped, robbed, or murdered.

[What's that got to do with...]

Oh, before I forget, a public service announcement. If you, like me, still use snail mail from time to time and find return address labels useful you can ensure a lifetime supply of free ones by donating to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital occasionally.

They do much good and work many wonders. By sending them a few bucks whenever the goddess Philanthropia nudges you, seasonally themed labels will continue to appear in your mailbox for the rest of your life, perhaps beyond. Win/win.

Anyways, for your viewing pleasure, Flyoverland Productions presents the following mind movie titled The New, New Normal.


A hot day. A quiet street in a relatively new, treeless (with the exception of the occasional sapling) suburban "development."

On a choice corner lot two siblings, Ludwig and Cornflower, are standing behind a large, plastic, Little Tykes "Old Fashioned Lemonade Stand." Both are wearing N-95 face masks and are staring, slack-jawed, at their smartphones. They are scrolling through their favorite social media sites while listening to different songs via earbuds.

There are no customers as all the other neighborhood kids are inside their comfortable, climate-controlled homes staring, slack-jawed, at their smartphones. They are scrolling through their favorite social media sites while listening to music only they can hear while simultaneously basking in the warm glow of 60" televisions.

Some parents, the laid-off ones that work in meatspace, are also sitting there and doing the same thing. Family time.

Other parents are working remotely in home offices, real or virtual. There are tax deductions available if you follow the rules (or don't get caught).


Back outside, a caravan consisting of an SUV (with police car package)...

Followed by a white, Sprinter style van that says _______ County Health Dept. on both doors...

Followed by an SUV that looks exactly like every other SUV in the world (except for paint color and trim package)...

Followed by another SUV (with the new and improved police car package)...

Pulls up and stops in the middle of Oakview Drive so as to block access to the scene of the crime till the situation can be resolved to the satisfaction of the Health Commissioner, the Police Chief, and the Law Director.

Cornflower texts her mom, who's in the bathroom washing down a Xanax from a flask of Vodka that she keeps hidden there. Not sure what's going on she launches an emergency text that brings members of the neighborhood watch and/or homeowners association running to the scene.

In short order, everyone is yelling at and recording videos of each other — while standing six feet apart. Most of the people in the crowd are wearing face masks of some sort and giving the stink eye to those few that aren't.

Several trendy teenagers, members of the Oakview Posse, who are wearing matching yellow bandanas and yellow Playtex gloves are standing off to one side taking selfies and posting them on their favorite social media sites.


Two hours later, the situation has been resolved. The cops are loading the confiscated lemonade stand into the back of the health department van; the crowd has thinned out; mom is in the middle of an intense, three-way call with her estranged husband and a lawyer.

Suddenly, from opposite directions, two large vans bristling with rooftop dishes, antennas, and other technical-looking stuff converge on the scene and a helmet haired, overly made-up, immaculately dressed reporter from two rival local TV stations jumps out of each van holding a microphone, each followed by a scruffy looking cameraperson.

Ludwig, alerted by his phone that it's time to take his meds, looks up in surprise and says to no one in particular, "Wow, like, what's goin' on man?" 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.


 

Random Randomnesses

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
                           -Image by sarajuggernaut from Pixabay-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible." -Ben Casnocha


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I recently checked out the reviews of a series currently running on and produced by, Amazon Prime Video, Hunters. Happily, It's not just me, it is yet another drama with a comic book sensibility. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you like the show, I can state with confidence that it’s me, not you. I'm old. In my defense, when I was a kid I loved comic books till just shy of my thirteenth birthday whereupon I lost interest for some reason. 

Having learned cynicism at me sainted muthers knee, it had already been a few years since I had turned my back on pretend wrestling but I've never given up on the possibility of waking up a rock star one fine morning, although I’m starting to have my doubts. 


I have this Hotmail account that I’ve had forever, my first foray in fact, into the wild, wacky, wonderful world of email. Nowadays, I use a couple of Gmail accounts for most of my email heavy lifting.

Hotmail, as you may know, seems to have a much tougher time blocking spam than Gmail does. Since I use my Hotmail account relatively lightly, this doesn’t bother me. 

In fact, it provides an ever-changing snapshot of what’s going on in the world at the moment, it also serves as a measurement tool. The hotter a given topic the more spam.

It’s not just that I’m receiving plenty of spam related to COVID-19, the overall volume of spam has increased noticeably. I wonder if spammers, aware that so many folks are self-isolating, have cranked up their spam generators.    

I’ll bet there are all sorts of Ph.D. thesi out there being written by wannabe doctors of economics/sociology/etceterology even as I write. If I were a more responsible columnist I’d go a-googlin’ to find out.

[It's theses, not thesi, there's no such word as thesi.]

Are you sure about that, Dana? Theses sounds like feces. Could it be thesises?

[Could we move on? Please?]

Certainly. As for me, I’m currently contentedly self-isolating as I'm a semi-self-isolator by nature. Given that I’m a prime candidate for the Boomer-B-Gone bug (did I mention I’m old?) this is all for the best. 

Also, I’m in possession of a little known sacred salve developed by a secret sect of Himalayan mystic masters that is protecting me from deletion.

It's starting to burn though...


Apropos of nothing above, I would like to recommend an article I recently read on the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) website to all of the many Millies and Zoomers out there. 

Note: If you have any interest in a website that will teach you the fundamentals of free-market economic systems (what we, more or less, have here in our prosperous little republic) in plain English (mostly) this site can do the job.

The article is a clear, well-written refutation to a statement made by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

The refutation, penned by one Alyssa Ahlgren, can be summed up via a quote from Ms. Ahlgren's article.

“We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.”

To which I would add that we have congresspeople playing and promoting the currently popular reality show, Who's the Biggest Victim problem.  

Her article explains why this is true. More importantly, it has relieved me of the burden of writing about the same subject.

See, I’ve contemplated writing something similar for quite some time. I even had a title, America is Suffering From a Prosperity Epidemic. But considering the current popularity of the Me and Mine are Victims/Let’s Eat the Rich movement I suffer from a lack of motivation.

In my defense, I’m genetically predisposed (I've been tested) to both Procrastination and What’s the Point? syndromes. Also, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, I'm old. The older one gets the more careful one is about choosing one’s battles…or should be. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.  

                                                   *     *     *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 


Cranky don't tweet. 

The Boomer-B-Gone Virus

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"The Renaissance took place in chaos and plague." -Shiva Ayyadurai 

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

The Boomer-B-Gone bug has attacked my freakishly large household.

Or not.

See, here at Casa de Chaos, my daughter, my son-in-law, The Stickies (4.5 in number, there's a part-time one), and our long term house guest and her kid have taken turns suffering from some sort of respiratory illness of varying intensities.

And, some of them have endured repeat afflictions.

Me? Nothing so far (fingers crossed) but I'm a semi-hermit who was semi-self-isolating before self-isolating was cool. This was not due to some sort of pandemical premonition on my part, I was born this way.

Still, I haven't isolated myself from the other inhabitants of Cranky Manor so I don't...

[Is pandemical an actual word?]

Yes, Dana, much to my surprise, it actually is. I wrote it to be funny but when my spelling/grammar checker didn't flag it I went a-googlin' and sure enough it's the adjectival form of pandemic.  


My daughter returned from an out of town gig that was based in Cincinnati (but the work was in the surrounding area) towards the end of last week and she and her colleague were both seriously ill with...wait for it...

Some sort of respiratory illness.

Long story short, a couple of days later she spent multiple hours being treated in the emergency department of a local hospital. They put her in a room by herself, told her husband to go home (isolate) and administered tests and treatments.

"We'll call you when we know something."

It went fairly well, they only almost accidentally killed her once. She was able to get help by tossing her cellphone at the door they made of point of keeping closed and was able to get someone's attention.

She was laying on a bed with an oxygen mask on when a whole bunch of mucusi decided to vacate the premises simultaneously and due to the mask and the fact her head was only slightly elevated she began to choke and couldn't breathe.

[Mucusi? There's no such word as...]

Since the door was closed and there was no panic button she tried calling for help but couldn't get the words out. That's when she bounced her phone off the door and was rescued.

The preceding anecdote has been provided as a public service by your friendly neighborhood Crank. Hospitals accidentally kill a lot of people and if you can't follow Consumer Reports advice and have a champion on hand to look out for you, be prepared to do whatever is necessary.

Oh, and question everything.

[What makes you an expert on...]

My late wife was born with lung disease, spent a lot of time in hospitals, and was almost accidentally killed several times. You learn not to take it personally but you also learn to maintain a certain level of vigilance.

[Well, what happened, does she have Boomer-B-Gone?]

We don't know.


The local hospital I mentioned only had/has a couple of test kits available for  Boomer-B-Gone and they're only for the patients judged to be so sick they need a ventilator and a hospital admission.

Everyone else gets a bunch of scripts...

"All the same stuff we'd be treating you with if we kept you, honey."

And is told to go home...

"Good luck. Call an ambulance if the excrement hits the A.C. and we'll see ya when they bring you back."

Which sounds awful, but, without a test or a vaccine to administer what else can they do? Even if you passed the test, assuming they actually had one on hand, they would still send you home unless you were judged to be ICU material.


Now, given that the bottom line here appears to be that the Boomer Remover bug is just a particularly nasty version of the flu that we don't have a vaccine for (but will) that's unlikely to kill us all...

And, given that the garden variety versions of the flu, and even a common cold if it morphs into pneumonia, kill all sorts of people every year...

What's the takeaway? What have we learned Dorothies?

That many of our alleged journalists are just as concerned with their personal bottom lines and prepared to exploit the customer as much or more than whatever business, politician, or identity group they're currently claiming are Satan's minions.

That you can substitute the phrase, weaselly politicians, for the phrase, alleged journalists, in the preceding paragraph.

That the thin veneer of civilization might be even thinner than we thought.

That given that The Fedrl Gummit, aware that Boomer-B-Gone was on the way, gave itself a monopoly on developing a suitable diagnostic test and came up with a test that doesn't work...

[What are you trying to say? Medicare for all might not create a healthcare utopia?]

Yup, and...

That bureaucrats that work at any level of gummit are not saints and suffer from the same flaws, limitations, and temptations (power, money, ego-gratification, office politics, etceterics) as every other H. sapien on the planet.

That a lot of college students and college-aged young folks, woke or not and as is traditional, think they're bulletproof and ten feet tall — or are just too dumb to empty the beaches and the bars for the time being.

[And many of them are old enough to vote!] 

That toilet paper may be all that stands (as we sit) between us and anarchy.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.  

                                                   *     *     *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.