Wisdom

I am now 75 years old, and I feel compelled to pass on the vast and varied knowledge that I have learned by quiet contemplation and observation or more likely by making stupid mistakes.  I present these in no particular order as I feel that each has its own situational and intrinsic value. 

 When walking your dog in a campground, always take two poop bags. Campgrounds are crowded and everybody is standing around outside watching you and will give you the skank eye if you don’t pick it up.  Also, it is a good idea to plan the dog walk so that you don’t have to carry the bag(s) for extended lengths of time.  Carrying poop is not my idea of having a good time while camping and if I have to pull up my sweats before they drop and expose my ass crack, what can I do? The sweat pull-up job takes two hands and as I have no ass it is a frequent occurrence.  Judy tells me I should wear suspenders to hold my sweats up. Yep, there goes the last of my dignity.

“Look at that would you. An old fart wearing sweats with suspenders carrying dog shit”

No thank you. I will just spread my legs a little wider in my walk and hope for the best.

Old men should not go commando, we tend to leak. I learned this lesson from my grand daughter who was five a the time.

 “Look Mama! Pappy’s got a little fish in his pants.”

“How do you know it’s a fish?”

“Cause it wiggling around and left a wet spot.”

Don’t cook a hot dog with a blow torch. Went on an overnight canoe trip with my nephew. We were a little short on cooking gear, so Alan tried to cook a hot dog using a blow torch attachment on a green propane bottle. Thought he would save some space in the canoe and not bring one of those single burner things. Or more likely he just forgot to pack it and he was too lazy to scrounge some firewood and start a campfire with the said blow torch.  What he got was burnt on the outside and raw in the middle.  He ate it anyway. Now that is roughing it. 

Don’t drive and eat sugar free chocolates. Rest areas are often not located in emergency locations and gas stations rest rooms often do not have floor drains. I probably have a class action lawsuit as that particular warning statement did not appear on the fake candy package. But who am I kidding, I am a guy so I would not have read it anyway.

When in a canoe, your butt is your friend. The upper part of your body can move like a drunken hula dancer, but the butt needs to be firmly glued and frozen to the seat. And do not stand to pee over the side.  Even though this exploit can be accomplished, not all of the bodily fluid will end up in the water. That day ended quickly and badly for me.

Don’t crowd the mushrooms while saluting. This is not one of mine. Judy had to put in her two cents.

Spam is edible but that is about it. While in grad school we qualified for food commodities. This was before food stamps…yes, I am that old. Our monthly allotment consisted of powdered milk, a brick of cheese, peanut butter, butter, powdered eggs, flour, bulgar (whatever the fuck that is) and for meat…spam or some related and equally disgusting canned meat.   By the time food stamps replaced that program, I was the only one in the family capable of eating it and it had to be thinly sliced and burnt. Even to this day my 52 year old son gets the willies if you show him a can of it in Safeway.

There is no logic in food pairings. For example, beer and popcorn are great together. Popcorn and chocolate are another.  Logically, beer and chocolate should work. That’s a big no.

Italians always brag about their food but its only spaghetti. This is not one of my observations but one of many I learned from Karl Rukavina, who I could write a book about.  He has a point about Italian food though. Did you know that there are 45 kinds of pasta? Ever heard of bucatini, campanelle, cavatappi, casarecce, farfalle, fideo, gemelli, mafaldine, orecchiette, pappardelle, pipette rigate, radiator(WTF), tagliatelle, and 32 others? And guess what, add a bit of tomato and some hamburger and you get spaghetti in different shapes. I make pancakes in different shapes like silver dollars, micky mouse heads, kitty cats, and saguaro cacti. Add a little butter and maple syrup and guess what I end up with….FUCKING PANCAKES. What is the difference between multiple shapes of pancakes and pasta?  Italians?

Voice mail is one of the of the many differences between men and women.

Man: Its dad. Got a question about my pickup. Give me a call back.

Woman: Sorry to bother you a workday son, but I was thinking you may know the answer to a question that came up the other day when I was driving to my hair appointment at Carla’s House of Curls. You know the place next to the old Piggly Wiggly that is now a flea market.  By the way Carla asked about you again. Did you two have something going on in high school? Why am I always the last to know? Oh, and before I forget dad is going to call you about a funny noise that I keep hearing while riding in his pickup. He keeps telling me it is nothing, but his hearing is not what it used to be. But that is not my question…beep..beep..beep.

This difference in the sexes is annoyingly real.  I just need the facts, clear and in as few words as possible. If I wanted audio book, I would have bought one.

In the last few years, I have learned a difficult lesson. As a former scientist I try to use logic and facts in my discussions with those who have opinions that differ from mine. With the ridiculous conspiracy theories associated with the election and pandemic, this approach has failed me.  My assumption was that these people were just ignorant of history, the constitution, or how a vaccine works. In truth, ignorant people when presented with facts learn or at least listen. Stupid people laugh. If you are dealing with the latter, walk away or better yet run.

Being wealthy does not mean you are intelligent. And that fact is not confined to the My Pillow guy. For example, the four ultra rich who paid a quarter million each to take a trip to view the Titanic through a tiny window in a cramped submersible. Personally, I had my fill of the Titanic halfway through that Kate and Leo remake of a remake of a remake. Then there are the hundreds who travel to Nepal to climb Everest. How about that Shatner fellow who paid four times the median yearly income for ten minutes in near space so he could claim to be a real astronaut as opposed to a bad actor playing one on TV.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. This is a given. What guns do is make it a whole lot easier to kill and kill more. More guns, more gun deaths. This is also a given. Is it your right to bare arms? Where is my right to attend a concert, go to the grocery store, bowling alley or church without having to check out an escape rout in case a crazy with a gun opens fire. Fuck your second amendment rights!

And finally, much to my shame, I have to admit that Marco Rubio was right. Trump has a little dick.  Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. The jury did not have enough evidence to say that he raped her as Ms. Carroll was not absolutely sure if, when he pulled his finger out of her China, that what he put in her next was his dick as it did not feel much larger. Ergo, Trump has a little dick, that according to Stormy Daniels resembles a mushroom. The burning question in my mind is how did Marco Rubio know?

That’s it. All I got. What did you expect from a Beaver fan? Lost by a safety???