NOW it is clearly well known that I am not a complainer. I love every thing. I love my country, I love my city, I love my friends, I love my job, I love my life. I only don’t love some things.
Like, for instance, I don’t love it when I’m in an empty movie theater because it’s a very early time or it’s a very late time or it’s a very warm, sunny, lovely beach day or it’s a very lousy movie. Whatever. Nobody’s in the whole place. Not even an usher.
And where does some yenta with heavy perfume and a crinkly shopping bag and popcorn and her coat that she has to take off and the long scarf that she has to unwind and which falls on the floor and which she then bends to get it whereupon the crinkly shopping bag falls and who if she were a building she’d be condemned – where does she choose to sit?
Right next to me. And she also has a cough, yet. This is the kind of thing that makes you understand why animals are behind bars in our zoos. It’s for their own protection.
I also don’t like medical advice when I don’t need it or want it. Last month I had a cold. No matter what you swallow or spray, it takes five days. Do nothing and it’s the same five days – but at least it’s cheaper.
One person told me, hydrate! Take decongestants. Take antihistamines. Take vitamin C. Take one from Column A and one from Column B. And stick some goo up my nose on an airplane. I told her I wasn’t going on a plane. She said, “Stick it up anyway.”
My housekeeper prescribed Vicks. I didn’t need Vicks. I needed Kleenex! Somebody else said he swears by Echinacea. What do I care what he swears by. He’s been in the hospital twice this year. Two friends pushed me to go to their doctor. I said, “There’s nothing wrong with me.” They said: “He’s wonderful. He’ll find something.”
How about the price of stamps? Today, just mailing a get-well card can make you sick. It’s cheaper to take a plane and visit the person in person. If the world is getting smaller, why’s it cost more to mail a letter? I suggest they put Jesse James’ picture on our postage.
And ever notice the Post Office has 27 windows and only two clerks? Waiting on line two hours to get three stamps? Nobody I want to get in touch with that much. And why only two clerks? It’s their lunch hour . . . they’re on a break . . . we’re short-staffed due to cutbacks. Cutbacks from what?
My personal favorite is, “They’re in a meeting.” A meeting for what? To sharpen their same-day express service, which means they guarantee to lose your package the same day you mail it? All I know is, some flower seeds I ordered just arrived as a bouquet.
The economy. When I grew up, Halloween meant ghosts and goblins and monsters and witches. Now what scares us is the Dow Jones. But one must take a philosophical view. Like, if God intended us to be rich, he would never have given us the stock market.
We must all look at the positive side. The sound, secure investments of today are the tax losses of tomorrow. And let us discuss Wall Street, which can’t seem to get its act together. What is their difficulty? I, my very own self, figured how America can balance its budget. Just close 27 states.
Everything simply needs rejiggering. Like a stock you were planning to retire on at 65? All you have to do is upgrade the math so your retirement age is now 350.
And remember, Wall Street is already on the upswing. The security is so relaxed, they’ve even taken the locks off the upper-floor windows.
How about girls named Bambi, Tiffany, Ashley and Amber? Boys named Flynn and Quinn. All sound like they must have the mentality of a shoelace.
Four million kids born each year. Each needs a name. In the old days there was Betty Perske, who became Lauren Bacall. OK, so forget Betty or Gladys, Noah, Jeremiah and Esther. But what happened to names like Bobby, Sheila, Shirley, Stanley, Irving, Pat, Dot, Tom, Ben?
I mean, we’ve got us Frank Zappa’s kids, Moon Unit and Dweezil, Gwen Stefani’s Zuma Nesta Rock, David Bowie’s child, Zowie, Bob Geldof‘s Trixibelle, others named Suri, Shiloh, Maddox, Apple, Moses, Honor, Brooklyn or Penn Jillette‘s daughter, Moxie Crime Fighter, or Helen Hunt‘s Makena Lei Gordon. Jamie Oliver named his kid Daisy Boo. And Eddie Murphy came up with Zola. And Rachel Griffiths‘ kid is Banjo. I guess Tuba was taken.
I’m also not wild about tourists with rumps the width of circus elephants’ who walk four abreast. Nor am I insane for mothers with strollers who stand together, six of them, in the middle of the street, talking about burping and colic while you have to step off the curb to walk around them.
Another thing I don’t like – people who don’t say thank you if you hold the door open for them.
I also hate complainers and whiners and irritating smartmouths who have columns and nag and moan and bitch – don’t you?