Things Nobody Should Have Ever Told Us

There are some wise-sounding sayings that are not as wise as they sound.  It would have been better if they had not been said in the first place, or if they had been rephrased to make more sense.

Age is just a number. (Some anonymous old person).  So is the daily Pick-4.  Your chances of coming out ahead with that aren’t very good, either.

On the other hand, if anyone ever dares to call me old or suggest that I act my age, may all of their hair fall out, may they always smell like a field of dead cannabis and may they be ardently pursued by someone really ugly who only wants them for their money.

Follow your bliss. (Joseph Campbell).  This sounds really good.  The problem is, how do you define “bliss?”  To some people, smoking a joint until their eyes glaze over and they become stupid is bliss.  That’s an easy bliss to follow, too.  All it takes is some Weed, a room with windows and neighbors who don’t mind the smell.  Other blisses are not so easy to follow, such as a career as a writer.

Not only that, sometimes people think that a certain thing is their bliss when it really isn’t.  If you are tone-deaf and your voice sounds like a goat, you will not be very blissful if you labor under the delusion that you were meant to be the next American Idol.  On the other hand, the person who IS meant to be the next American Idol won’t be very happy following Dad’s advice and becoming an accountant.

In other words, this is open to misinterpretation.

The world is also full of other people who have ideas about their own bliss, and sometimes their perceived blisses compete with your perceived bliss.  Two people can’t occupy a stage at one time, playing the exact same role.  To follow your bliss you might have to fight someone else with the same bliss who is determined to knock your bliss out in Round 1.

Joseph Campbell never mentioned that.

Love means never having to say you’re sorry. (Oliver in Erich Segal’s “Love Story”).  Anyone who has ever had any kind of relationship with anybody knows how idiotic this is.  If you never say you’re sorry, even when you have been a total ass, your relationships won’t last long.

Sometimes we even find ourselves saying we’re sorry when we haven’t done anything wrong, just to avoid whatever is on the verge of happening.  This isn’t much fun, but neither is a fight to the death.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  (Chuck Dederich, but who really cares?).   I’m not sure if this is meant to be an encouragement or a warning.  Enough said.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  (Some idiot).  Yes … sometimes.  But sometimes even the tough prefer to hide under the covers, eat three pints of ice cream every day and watch cable TV when the going gets tough.  Sometimes they hide, eat ice cream and watch cable TV for a while, THEN get going.  Sometimes it’s vice-versa.  Whatever.  There’s a lot to be said for being a cringing wimp when the situation calls for it.  You avoid having to face unpleasantness until it turns around and bites you in the rear, at which point you’d better get tough or get out of town.

In the meantime, you have had a nice time of temporary denial. 

Confessions of a Hopeless Shopper

I can’t walk into any retail establishment and come out with only what I intended to buy.  I must have inherited this trait from my father, because all of my immediate female ancestors were great with money, even frugal.  My maternal grandmother thought that she was splurging if she bought her bread fresh instead of a day old.  My mother would never buy more than a dollar’s worth of gas at a time for the car.  (This was miserly, even in the 50s.)  My father’s mother once repaired one of my broken sandals by sewing it up with her own hands.  It didn’t look very good, but it held the shoe together.

My father, on the other hand, knew what money was for – to buy stuff.  Buying stuff on impulse made it more fun.  It was I Love Lucy in reverse.  Instead of the woman being the one who was scatterbrained with money, it was the man.  I take after him in this, with just enough influence from the female side to feel guilty about it.*

My typical shopping trip goes something like this:

It’s early evening.  The subway train pulls into my stop, and I get off and take the elevator down to the street (it’s an elevated stop).  “Ooh!” says my brain, “I’m out of toothpaste.  Better stop in Walgreens.”

The Walgreens store is next to the subway, so I push my way in through the door marked “Out.”  I take a shopping cart, not because I need it for one lousy tube of toothpaste, but because I can lean on it while I push it around.  I do the same thing in supermarkets.

The toothpaste is all the way over on the other side of the store.  I now have a shopping cart and many aisles to pass by or go through to reach it.  What happens next is inevitable.

By the time I’m finished, the cart contains a bucket of soft peppermint candies, a bottle of Softsoap Spa Radiant Body Wash, four bars of Irish Spring bath soap (on sale, saving me a whole dollar and twenty-five cents), two bottles of chewable acidophilus, two pairs of white diabetic socks (so comfortable because they are so loose), two pairs of black diabetic socks, four deodorants, and, finally, TWO tubes of toothpaste and a big bottle of ACT mouthwash (because I can't remember if I am running out of mouthwash or not and I don't want to take a chance).

On the way to the cashier, I have second thoughts.  I put the black diabetic socks back.  I have so many pairs of socks at home that I have to fight to get my sock drawer closed.  I never wear most of them.

I need three bags to carry home what was supposed to be one tube of toothpaste.

After many years of this, I have finally come to the conclusion that I am a hopeless case, and I might as well just give up and enjoy my bad shopping habits.  Life is too short to spend it without those extra bars of Irish Spring soap.

*But not guilty enough to stop doing it.