I Heard You Coming

The other day I popped by to see my Dad. Always a treat - even for a curmudgeon.

What I wasn't expecting when he greeted me at the door was "I heard you coming." Apparently Jimi Hendrix, playing dutifully at volume through a 400-watt sound system that makes the rear-view mirror useless (way too shaky from the bass) could be heard INSIDE HIS HOUSE.

We are talking a beautiful, relaxed suburban setting here - my humble car was broadcasting Jimi some 100 feet away with the windows closed. Zounds!

I know my Sainted wife always claims I don't hear her when she's talking to me, but maybe she's on to something. So I tested this "theory" by playing Jimi on my home stereo at appropriate Hendrix volumes (you, dear readers, no doubt recall the damage Who volume can do to wall-mounted plates) and walked outside.

Uh oh. I could hear it out front on the street...with all the windows closed.

Cool.

Brakemen

Have you ever thought about these guys? In the early days of railroading, these were the crucial guys who helped to stop trains. They were pretty brave dudes in their day: old trains didn't have the automatic braking system they do today. So the brakemen would clamber up atop each car and manually apply brakes when needed.

Tossing and turning on a top of a moving train car, trying to turn a mechanical wheel to grip the brake drums on each car. Crazy stuff. They deserved a union to call attention to the risks of the job.

Then, as with auto workers, things got out of hand. Train air brakes were invented - brakemen were no longer needed. But, the union negotiated to keep them on - doing nothing of value but getting paid handsomely.

Curmudgeonly diabolical.

Multitasking

Have you encountered one of these yahoos who brag that they can "multitask?" You don't have to be a curmudgeon to know they are full of it.

Spend 5 minutes with one of these sorts and it becomes clear they can no more "multitask" than your average dog can. The best can switch between tasks with admirable alacrity, but most sort of zone out when the going gets tough. It becomes great fun to throw a question at them while they are "multitasking" and watch them grind to a halt.

Curmudgeons? ANY task is to be avoided, let alone multiples.

Shopping for Paint

If you are a married man, you have been dragged to the paint store to look at "colors." You rarely, if ever, go there voluntarily. As a matter of record, our local paint store has a sign proclaiming "no custom colors mixed without permission slip from wife."

Fine by me.

So here you are, in the paint store with your Sainted wife. You smile benignly, you make like the coral is indeed different from the pink, that there are key differences between the zillion "whites," that that shade is no doubt "so last year:" you basically whore yourself out for peace on the home front.

I'm a curmudgeon. This adventure is the definitive test of marital harmony. Who knew? Not any guy I ever met. It wasn't anywhere in the marriage vows I took.

And don't even start me on wallpaper shopping.

More Breakfasts With Tom

I have mentioned these before (way, way back in December 2012). These are periodic breakfasts with my good friend Tom where we engage in an active discussion of current affairs from an economic point of view.

I trust I have not already put you to sleep.

The "active" part is where I actively eat and Tom expounds (seemingly endlessly) on various economic theories as if they were a) interesting, and b) factual. And everything that is going on economically these days apparently spells doom and gloom for us all. By the time I get back home, my Sainted wife has to quarantine me until I have fully, as she phrases it, "detoxed from Tom."

This is why I engage in this "entertainment" periodically - any more frequently and I would be suicidal.