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Thursday, March 20, 2008
“I’m Getting Too Old For This ****”
Apologies, Gentle Reader. Your Curmudgeon has been suffering a severe case of the exhausteds, brought on by...well, you don't really need to know, do you? Let's just say it's from all the usual sources plus a few new ones, and as that boar Robinson Jeffers wrote about observed of the world at large, things are likely to be worse before they mend.
All the same, one must blog. Mustn't one?
1. Exclusions.
From a recent conversation with the lovely and talented Fetiche Nouvelle:
FN: Why won't you play chess with me?
YC: Don't you have enough opponents not to need me?FN: I like playing you. I never know what I'm going to learn.
YC: I think you've learned everything I have to teach you. In fact, at this point you're probably better than I am.FN: So you don't want to play me because you're afraid you'll lose to me?
YC: No, it's more...well, maybe we shouldn't belabor the subject.FN: Belabor it? We've only just started to talk about it!
YC: Please, dear. You've been beating experts lately, and I never even made it to that level. Allow me to retain the vestiges of my dignity.FN: I don't get it. You wouldn't mind losing to an expert or a master, but you don't want to lose to a woman?
YC: Not quite, dear.FN: Then you don't want to lose to a woman who's younger than you?
YC: Not quite, dear.FN: Well, then you don't want to lose to a tiny Oriental woman who's younger than you?
YC: Not quite, dear.FN: Then why?
YC: I don't want to lose to a tiny Oriental woman who's younger than me, makes twice as much money as I make, can build an ocean-going raft out of bamboo and vines, and wears five inch heels. You're wearing them now, I'm sure. Probably the ones I bought you.FN: Well...yes.
YC: See?FN: How about if I spot you Pawn and move?
YC: Forget it, babe!
2. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi Dept.
It's easily observed that professional athletes have relatively short careers, at least in comparison to those of us who work at less physically strenuous trades. But what of the post-athletics athlete -- the one who has put down his tools -- track shoes, ice skates, bat and glove, what have you -- and has taken up flackstering duties?
How long has it been since you saw:
- Peggy Fleming touting Trident gum?
- Dorothy Hamill advertising hair color products?
- Larry Bird promoting McDonald's?
- Mary Lou Retton flacking Eveready batteries?
Have these, once the champions of their sports, joined the "Where are they now?" brigades alongside Deanna Durbin, Linda Kozlowski, Michael Biehn, Jean-Claude van Damme, Mimi Rogers, and so on?
Your Curmudgeon would not have thought that advertising is as rough on the constitution as ice skating, gymnastics, or basketball. We learn something new every day.
3. Holy Thursday.
Christians are busy celebrating Holy Week, the immediate run-up to the great feast of Easter, the central event of the Christian calendar. But ask the average Christian what we commemorate on Holy Thursday, and he just might draw a blank.
Nominally, Holy Thursday is the day of the Last Supper. It's a little cloudy, since no one really knows how much time passed between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, but we're taking commemoration rather than anniversary, so some slack is surely acceptable.
Good Friday, the day we commemorate the Crucifixion itself, is the one day in the Christian calendar when Mass is not celebrated. Mass, of course, reproduces the central event of the Last Supper: the First Eucharist, when Jesus transubstantiated bread and wine into His Body and Blood, and His Apostles partook of these things for the first time, setting the pattern for the subsequent two millennia of Christian observance.
But Good Friday is more than that. It's also the last fast day in the Catholic calendar. Catholics in good health are allowed only one meal on Good Friday. Due to this Church-imposed discipline, Holy Thursday is thought of by many as "Holy ****, tomorrow is Good Friday!" And upon this realization we stuff ourselves prophylatically full of everything edible we can get our hands on, to fortify ourselves for the ordeal to come.
Don't ask your Curmudgeon to explain this custom. He dislikes to type when his mouth is full.
4. Unnecessary Advice.
Several other bloggers -- all of them female, which might have something to do with it -- have recently emitted long lists of rules: rules for how to treat your wife, girlfriend, or Significant Other; rules for how to treat your waiter or waitress; rules for how to treat that harridan at the Department of Motor Vehicles; and so on. It's the sort of thing that makes your Curmudgeon grin, for none of it is necessary. Indeed, the advice-giving itself indicates an insufficiency in the givers.
Yes, yes, no doubt these self-nominated Counselors to the Masses are filled with nothing but the best intentions and the spirit of charity, but that doesn't change your Curmudgeon's opinion that they should have their lips sewn shut and their fingers glued together until they can get over their towering cases of arrogance.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Ever heard that one? It should be tattooed on the eyelids of every rule-maker in this galaxy, and when we've accounted for all of them, we'll do the Magellanic Clouds for good measure.
The correct way to deal with someone who doesn't treat you with appropriate respect and dignity is to put yourself above him: that is, to be perfectly, icily correct in all things, and never to say a word about his lapses from propriety. This is called self-respect. Not many persons have it, these days, despite all the "self-esteem" emphasis touted by our government-run schools.
Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, once observed about the current trend among waiters and waitresses of trying to pose as friends to the customer: "If we are friends, why do I have to wait on you? But if I can have friends of my own choosing, it doesn't matter that I perform a service for wages." That's dignity. That's appropriate reserve and self-regard. And you'll never hear it from the Counselors to the Masses, all of whom seem to think they hold licenses to remake cranky pedestrian Man into a mold he was never intended to fit.
Carry yourself with dignity, discharge your responsibilities honorably, and nothing the world says or does to you can force you to lower your head. Nothing more need be said. Now, if you'll excuse him, your Curmudgeon has to finish his latest self-help book.
Eternity Road will not be updated tomorrow, Good Friday in this year of Our Lord 2008. We'll see you all again Saturday.
Comments
Re #1: Some problems are defiantly worth having and should be savored for what they are worth.
Posted by on 03/21/2008 at 01:51 AMThe correct way to deal with someone who doesn’t treat you with appropriate respect and dignity is to put yourself above him: that is, to be perfectly, icily correct in all things, and never to say a word about his lapses from propriety. This is called self-respect. Not many persons have it, these days, despite all the “self-esteem” emphasis touted by our government-run schools.
This should be engraved on every person’s mind.
Posted by Fausta on 03/23/2008 at 09:04 AM"Carry yourself with dignity, discharge your responsibilities honorably, and nothing the world says or does to you can force you to lower your head. Nothing more need be said.”
These words sent chills down my spine. At 28 years old, I sometimes feel like the only person left in my generation that operates in this manner, but it is the way that I have lived as much of my life as possible. I am not perfect, but I strive to meet the lofty goals set by your words.
Thanks for this, it really made my day.
BTW, being a fellow Curmudgeon as he is, you haven’t felt the need or necessity to read any Patrick McManus recently, have you? Excellent comedic writer, who also calls himself a curmudgeon.
Posted by on 03/28/2008 at 08:25 PM
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