Twitchers

What you're looking at is a bunch of twitchers. Twitchers are that rare breed of humans that will travel miles and miles for a glimpse of a rare breed of bird.

That's right, all these people have travelled from far and wide to this one spot where some rare bird is expected to make an appearance. They've brought their tripods, telephoto lenses, binoculars and whatnot hoping their special seagull - or whatever - will grace them with a photo opp.

I presume these are sentient humans, capable of feeding themselves and otherwise leading what would be known as a normal life, but when the bird word goes out, twitchers spring into action.

Why, look at all the action depicted here. Mind boggling.

Emergency Blinkers

Emergency blinkers were made standard on American cars in 1967. No doubt they have saved many accidents, not to mention lives.

Out here in the suburbs, safety is the last thing they're used for. There is one, and only one thing they are used for. For idiots to park in an illegal spot and communicate "I'll just be here a minute, so it's really OK for me not to waste my personal time finding a legal parking spot".

Fine. There are lazy people everywhere. But these idiots often perform these antics in places that impact other drivers. This goes beyond lazy and straight into rude, arrogant AND lazy.

And once one idiot starts doing it, it essentially opens the door for all idiots to follow suit - and good god, there are a lot of them. Negotiating parking lots becomes a nightmare.

And like the boy who cried wolf, you no longer think of them as signaling a problem and you just drive on.

Hyphenated Americans

What is all this crap with hyphenated Americans?

Irish-American, Jewish-American, Afro-American, Mexican-American, they go on and on.

STOP IT. You are all Americans. I neither want, nor need to know where you came from. We all came here from somewhere else and killed off or moved the Americans that were here. Remember?

You are Americans. You've moved to a new place and set up home. You are here. You are one of us.

You are NOT hyphenated. If you think you need to hyphenate, just do it in private. Publicly, you are AN AMERICAN.

Jeeze.

Frye Boots

Back in the groovy 70's, I bought myself a pair of frye boots.

"Oh, these will last forever" the salesperson averred. Well, 45 years later, I still use them in the snow.

My waist has perchance changed in size in those years, but my feet haven't. So I can still strap them on. And I forge out in the snowdrifts to shovel the walk, even refill the bird feeder. (I may be a curmudgeon, but surprisingly I have a heart.)

Frye boots. Sure footed, and clamped to my feet like there's no tomorrow.

I now know why catalogues offer those boot puller-offers.

Fast Talkers

This is getting ridiculous. For those of you who don't tape every TV show so you can fast forward through commercials, you're innocently listening to an ad (with, typically, a minimum of attention) and then at the end, they put this fast talker on to race through all the conditions that surround the "deal" being advertised. With minimal attention, you barely internalized what the product was and maybe - maybe - hear one or two words the fast talker said.

But somewhere, someone (a nervous lawyer) convinced them that by doing this, they would be magically protected from idiots who would go ballistic if they found out the conditions of the deal at the time of purchase.

Drug ads in magazines are worse - a full page ad about some wondrous drug followed by TWO pages of warnings and conditions. And these are prescription drugs - you would have to consult your doctor about them anyway, and you should get the scoop directly from him or her, not some ad. On TV, these, too, use the fast talkers.

I'm all for "deals" on products and wondrous drugs, but watching these guys kowtow to idiot mentalities is just depressing.