Irwin

I’m becoming a grumpy old man. I no longer care what people think about me nor am I going to go out of my way to appease people. The fact is, I don’t care for most people. The people I dislike the least are the ones that leave me the hell alone. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Unless you’re interesting or a close personal friend or relative, or somebody from this forum (I like a lot of the people here), just leave me the hell alone. I have no desire to discuss the weather or anything else with you.

Kids can be especially annoying. Yesterday, while I was out walking my dog at the park, two teenage girls were doing what appeared to be an amateur glamour shoot. The one girl was trying to be sexy, pursing her lips and posing provocatively. And that’s fine. I realize that’s the current rage. If you look at people’s Facebook pages, they’re full of that kind of crap.

So I was trying to mind my own business while walking by the photo shoot when the poser called out to me, “Can I take a picture with your dog?”

The way I see it, she had two options: 1. Leave me the fuck alone, or 2. Make me get involved with her stupid little activity. She chose the wrong option—the second one.

I was in a hurry as I had a doctor’s appointment in about an hour and I needed to play fetch with the dog, shit, shower, and shave, and get dressed. I had just enough time to get everything done. Anything else and I’d have to rush.

So my response was, “No, I need to get home.” Simple and to the point. No room for misinterpretation.

In the past, I probably would have reluctantly said “yes” to the young girl and then would have had to rush to make my appointment. That would have definitely been the case if the girl was really hot. But not any more. Hell, I’m old enough to be that girl’s grandfather. Getting it on with her would have been just plain weird and would have felt perverted—no matter how hot she was.

The young lady obviously didn’t like my response and I could hear her talking to her friend and then laughing hysterically. My guess is she was maybe 16 years old, so I’m about 46 years her senior. It was the mid 1970s when I was her age. We were still deeply involved in the Vietnam war, classic rock was just called rock, and gas was like fifty cents a gallon. We spent most of our time cruising up and down Main Street in my little New York town, looking for something to do. Now, instead of cruising Main Street, kids browse the Internet for something to do.

So, I guess it’s good that the girls were doing something creative. Photography is a worthwhile endeavor. Unless, of course, you’re one of those annoying people who takes pictures of me and then posts them on Facebook. Bleh. My wife used to do that all the time. I’d tell her to just enjoy what we were doing and not worry about posting photos so everybody in the fuckin’ world knows what we’re doing. It took her a while before she finally stopped. I think it was years. It wasn’t until we were swarm trolled over something I posted that she finally realized that it wasn’t a good idea to post things about us on the Internet. Of course, it was my foolish mistake of making a seemingly innocuous post and then two days later, there was a mass shooting and crazy people decided that I was somehow responsible. I was even contacted by the police who warned me about the threats to my life. It turned out, the shooter was of the same mindset as the people threatening me.

Yep, there are a lot of crazy people out there. It seems worse now than at any time in my life. I don’t know if that’s actually the case, but it sure does seem like it. Maybe it’s because I don’t drink much anymore, so I see things more clearly than I used to. I could be suffering from an alcohol deficiency. Or maybe it’s easy access to information. Who knows? Whatever it is, it’s not making me like people any more.