If they want you to take the same pill twice, why do they give you so many to begin with?

The gg knows he's a tad behind in his posting schedule, but I've been a bit under the weather the past week. But not to worry, being sick affords lots of opportunities for grouchiness. For starters, there's that small print on the pill bottles. It seems to me that with an aging population, most prescriptions these days are written for us geezers, the age group most likely to be visually challenged to begin with. And yet the pharmacists seem to be in a race to see who can use the smallest font on their pill bottle instructions. When I was finally able to make out the fine print on my latest pill bottle, I found these instructions to be amusing enough to at least offset some of my grouchiness: "Take one pill twice daily." I don't know about the rest of you, but that sounds like a dang good trick to me. I guess one best leave it to the good old imagination to figure out the best (only?) way to take that pill once, retrieve it and swallow it again later in the day. And then finally there is the problem with opening the pill bottle. I usually keep a set of tools and a blow torch handy for opening cans, jars, etc. around my house and now it looks like I'm going to have to use the full arsenal to open my pill bottles. All of this because some low-life nincompoop decided some years ago it would be cool to spike a bottle of Tylenol on the drugstore shelf. This was enough to send my blood pressure and grouch meter skyrocketing again simultaneously.

We can only hope their arithmetic is better than their grammar

The gg has spent today dealing with some IRS forms. That's always a sure-fire way to make a grouch even grouchier. But there was a particular statement on one of the forms that got my attention and actually made me chuckle. It read like this: "I understand that both myself and my spouse must sign below." Since your gg is a purist when it comes to use of the King's English, I knew I had my posting for today. One can only hope that the person at IRS who penned that sentence is not also responsible for the arithmetic involved in handling our tax returns.

While I'm on the subject of the IRS, here's something else that peeves me. Have you ever had the experience of trying to fold and shove a fistfull of forms into one of the teeny-weeny letter-size envelopes the IRS provides in its mailings? Surely you know what I'm talking about. I had that experience today. After much frustration (and, of course, grouching), I finally wound up throwing their envelope away and using an oversize envelope of my own. If that's not frustrating, the gg doesn't know what is.

And in addition to providing us with large enough envelopes to hold all the forms, etc. they insist we send them, don't you think the least they could do is to pay the postage. Think about it--we pay them all that money (up to 39% of our income in some cases) and they make us pay the postage for the privilege of sending it to them. Now I'm really grouchy. So grouchy that I'm thinking about running for Congress on that platform alone.

Next thing you know they'll offer oil changes

Today, I went into a Walgreen's to by some Advil. I wandered up and down, back and forth, from aisle to aisle looking at shelves stocked with toys, hardware, auto parts and even groceries. Finally I found the pain relievers on a shelf in the far end of the store. After that, I had intended to self-test my blood pressure at one of those machines they have in the store but I was so grouchy by then I figured my blood pressure reading would have caused the machine to explode. Remember when drug stores were just that--drug stores? When that was all they sold? Oh, maybe you could buy a greeting card, a package of gum and a box of chocolates, or other "notions" as they called them back then. But everything else was drugs. Today, it's like drugs are an afterthought. The drugstore has become a toy store, hardware store,grocery store and photo studio all rolled into one. And it seems the two biggest chains--Walgreen's and CVS--are in a fight to the finish to show which can be the least like a drugstore. I say a plague on both their houses--I'll start buying my Advil at Jiffy-Lube!

Rush Limbaugh IS O.J. Simpson

The gg rarely listens to Rush Limbaugh but today I needed some entertainment while driving so I tuned in to the El-Rushbo to find him playing tapes from a speech given by the long-since defamed Jeremiah Wright, President Obama's former long-time pastor. He even re-played the same tapes that were used to try to tie Obama to Pastor Wright in last year's presidential campaign. Today Rush tried again to tie the two together, but it was what he said at the end of his tape-playing that made me really grouchy. (Don't be misled, fellow geezeres: I was as appalled by the rantings of Jeremiah Wright as anyone, just not sure you can rightfully hang that around Obama.) Rush said: "My friends, this proves that Barack Obama IS Jeremiah Wright!" He then went to a commercial and lo and behold he ran an ad from one of his sponsors known as "Legal Zoom". Ironically, Legal Zoom was founded by the famed criminal defense attorney, Robert Shapiro, who just so happens to be the same Robert Shapiro who ran O.J. Simpson's defense team. So if President Obama IS Jeremiah Wright vicariously by virtue of their association, as Rush said today,then that must also mean that Rush Limbaugh IS O.J. Simpson vicariously by virtue of Rush's association with Robert Shapiro, O.J.'s attorney. Just a thought.

Daylight Saving Time: How can you fall back when you're bent over?

Get ready all you fellow geezers out there in Geezerdom--time to set those clocks back. Or is it forward? I never can remember. Let's see now--isn't it "spring forward, fall back? Problem for me is, I had a football coach back in high school who would always admonish us running backs when we were tackled to "fall forward". I've always remembered that. But what difference does it make anyway? Either way, for the next month, I'm going to be either an hour early or hour late to wherever I'm going. Good thing I don't need to go anywhere. I can just stay home and grouch about how silly the whole notion of daylight saving time is. Whoever came up with such a thing anyway? I'd like to shake his hand while strangling him with the other. All I know is I need to spend the next hour looking for all the user manuals to the oven clock, the bedroom alarm clock and the clock in my car. Then I'll need to find some teenager to decipher the instructions. And for what good purpose? What's the use of Daylight Saving Time anyway? Is it just so we can see when we're on our way to work instead of when we're on our way home from work? What difference does that make to a retired geezer--a very grouchy geezer?

Baseball: America's Past(bed)time

I tried watching the first game of Yanks-Phils World Series tonight and fell asleep during the 7th inning. What little of the game I was actually able to stay awake and watch was marred by cold drizzle (temperature at "new" Yankee Stadium was 51 degrees). Wonder what would the baseball gods would have done if the Rockies had made it to the WS? Sometimes I think baseball has lost its mind. Here it is October 28 and the WS is just now starting! It used to be played the first week in October. For the first time in history, there will be World Series games in November. And why can't the games start earlier so that young kids can watch the games as well as the geezer crowd. We geezers are the game's most loyal fan base and the young kids are its only hope for the future. And yet the games are scheduled at times when few from those groups can watch and enjoy them. When I was a kid, the WS games were all played in the afternoons. Sometimes we kids were even allowed to stay home from school in the afternoons and watch the games. I'll never forget watching the infamous Don Larsen perfect game in the 1956 series while home from 8th grade.
Why if Casey Stengel were managing the Yankees in this day and age, he'd probably have fallen asleep before I did tonight--in the dugout! Baseball needs to get its act together and correct this situation. Until they do, I'm going to be one grouchy old fan.

Happy Hallowchristmas

Well, here we are only in October, we haven't even gotten to Halloween, and the GG has noticed that some business establishments have already started to put out their Christmas decorations. It seems to the GG that this is happening earlier and earlier with each passing year. What the heck is going on? GG loves to watch old movies where the father and the son hitch up the horse and wagon about 2 days before Christmas and go get the Christmas tree. Then they bring it home and the whole family decorates it on Christmas eve. Whatever happened to those days? The only things that peeves your GG more than having to contend with Chirstmas in October is folks who leave their Christmas decorations up until after Easter. If it were up to me, there would be a fine assessed for each day decorations are left up beyond,say, January 1 and a surtax on the value of any decorations put out before, say, December 15. All our seasonal traditions and holidays now seem to overlap each other. Next week will be November, which judging by October and Christmas will mean it's time to start getting ready for Valentine's Day. All of this makes me very grouchy.