"Do you mind?"

I can't count the number of times I've heard the following exchange on TV:  "Do you mind if I ...(insert any action - "use the phone," "come inside," etc.)," and the prompt response from the asked party is "sure!"  Yet the asker ALWAYS goes on to execute said action despite having essentially just been told "yes, I do mind."  What gives?

It fair boggles the mind how so many different writers on so many different shows manage to screw up the English language as they write this exchange into their scripts.  I'm a freakin' engineer and I know it's incorrect.  It would comfort me if I could conclude that those Hollywood types are hacks, but it sneaks its way into NY shows as well.  Very creepy.  E.B. White would not be happy and neither am I, let me tell you.

Do you mind if I sign off now?  No?  Then I will.

Busy Bees

What is it with people who have to be busy all the time?  Let me be clear:  I spent my career looking busy and now, in my retirement, and with the tips that are included in the Curmudgeon Handbook, I can focus on the much more relaxing, enjoyable - yet challenging - task of finding fault in others' activities whilst remaining above the fray.  After all, there is an art to doing as little as possible as well as pride in a job avoided.  

These Busy Bees even have some misguided illusion that I would be happier if I were to join them in said wholesome activity.  They clearly don't understand that as a curmudgeon, I already have my hands full, what with trying to ignore the vast amounts of stupidity that accost me daily.

As a wise man - I believe it was me - once said: "don't do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow."  Why, my ability to put off tasks is the stuff legends are made of.  Not to appear immodest, but some of my theories in this area have been accepted by the Handbook editorial staff.  For example, there is an art to writing down a task with great fanfare, appearing enthused about it, and all the while furiously creating the perfect plan to never quite DO it.

So, Busy Bees - stop and smell the roses.  Stop and smell SOMETHING.  Or turn on the Hallmark Channel - there could be a Rockford marathon afoot.

Appropriate Exercise

My father brought me up believing that sailing was a proper form of exercise.  This critical lesson was lost on my brother - he plays tennis, squash and all manner of sweat-producing things.

I, like my father before me and his father before him, do not engage in sweat-producing endeavors willingly.  This applied to our professional lives as well as our recreation.  Even golf is on the edge, as without the breeze of a sail, the sun can get overbearingly hot, and anyway, all that country club joining and socializing can be quite tedious.

So, as I pointed out in December, when the concept of the couch potato was revealed to me, I embraced it with enthusiasm.  I like to believe that I've furthered the cause by bringing so much of my life to the safety of the couch.  And what do you know - just in time for Matlock!

But, the Doc's onto me.

The Pop-In

I suffered one of these recently.  Suddenly there is somebody - or, more terrifyingly, somebodies - at your door.  "We were in the neighborhood - thought we would drop by just to say hi!"   And then the BIG LIE:  "We won't be but a minute!"

Coats come off, people seat themselves.  Now what?  Put the tea on?  Turn off the Barnaby Jones marathon?  Where the hell did I hide that hideous vase they gave me for "that empty spot on your shelf?"  The blood races, the sphincter clamps.  The pop-in is on.  

Apparently, this is normal in various neighborhoods in America.  Apparently, I have never lived in one of them, which is pretty much why I am innocently unprepared for these diabolical events.  Heck, when I moved 3 whole miles away from my folks to my first apartment, they would never visit without first calling.  You can do the dishes in the time it takes to drive three New Jersey miles.

I think there should be little signs, like "Feel Free to Pop" for the front lawns in those "various neighborhoods"  and wherever else this practice wishes to be observed.  

My front lawn?  Grass.

Gluten-Free

I'm not sure I follow all this blather about "eating healthy."  First of all, the specifics of healthy eating are astonishingly fluid - first butter is bad, then not; eggs'll kill you, then eggs are a perfect nutritional choice; oil is bad (except for good oil); bacon is bad and yet the Two Fat Ladies Who Cooked started each recipe with "line your baking dish with bacon."  It goes on and on.

I am a student of the "everything is OK in proper portions" school.  Just because my portion of whipped cream is way larger than yours or I feel I'm getting my vegetables simply by letting them sit on my plate - not through actual ingestion - my portions are proper as far as I'm concerned.

Then there are the fads - gluten-free is a current one.  As the name implies, gluten is the glue that holds baked products together.  Ever eaten a gluten-free cookie?  One bite and the rest of the cookie is a pile of crumbs in your lap.  Heck, the Chinese even make fried gluten balls - mmm.  And who hasn't eaten glue in kindergarten?  I know it held me together.

One wonders how mankind has made it thus far in our evolution, what with - until now - being blissfully ignorant of the evils of gluten and its ilk.