Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

Some friends of ours were telling us about this spat going on at their church. Two women are making the lives of our friends and other members of the congregation difficult for no obvious reason other than their own spitefulness and small-mindedness. I live in an older adult community and have become quite familiar with the concepts of angry-over-petty-things, totally irrational bitterness, and orneriness just for orneriness sake. I’ve even fallen victim to this geezer malady myself. I hate the insecure braggart down the street and his incessant bragging about his fraudulently earned VA benefits, and I’m really pissed at the lady across the alley. She lets her three damn dogs bark and bark and bark. I get so mad I could…

Why do we get so angry over the little things in life like the pickle jar we can’t open or the neighbor that lets his weeds grow when we’ve got lots of really big global issues we should be getting fired up about? Things like: Living on a planet with an unceasing appetite for rapidly diminishing fossil fuels and no thought of a Plan B. Or are you worrying about the impending global water crisis, its real and its frightening. Then we’ve got our failures to mitigate global climate change along with dealing with idiots like George W. that wouldn’t even acknowledge we have a problem.

If these issues are too big for you then we’ve got plenty of international problems to get pissed about. You should all be up in arms with these ISIS thugs, al-Qaeda, and all of the other murdering, Islamic terrorist groups. Or how about the Taliban, they’re easy to dislike and they’re on everyone’s shit-list. And, are you concerned about the three million refugees that were forced out of Syria. Or the six and half million Syrians displaced by their civil war. And why aren’t you all upset about the Ebola virus. They now estimate it will kill 20,000 people. That’s 20,000 with a capital 2. Or Putin’s cold-war attitude towards Ukraine. He continues to piss me off.

We’ve got plenty to get angry about right here at home. Things like living in a country where no one cares that one in seven adults don’t have health insurance. Or a country where the average cost for a private college has risen to $44,750 per year (Psst – Harvard will run you $60,240). All of this in a country where the per capita income was $42, 693 in 2012. And we like to think of ourselves as living in the “greatest country on earth” and yet our high school students perform 27th out of 34 countries in mathematics and 17th in reading skills. A country with a can’t-agree-on-anything, constipated, do-nothing-but-squabble, severely divided government. Get mad. Write your congressman or better yet oust your congressman. Oust ’em all!

Enough of these big-picture causes. How about the issues right here at home. New Mexico is at the bottom of nearly every list regardless of what’s being studied, health care, education, income, etc. But I found two lists where we lead the nation. We are numero uno in alcohol related deaths and teenage pregnancies. Are you proud of that? No, then get pissed, really pissed and then do something about it, anything.

If you need more, there’s the heartbreaking slaughter of the elephant population by ivory poachers in Africa. Or a great big issue that’s just come to my attention. I was shocked with the size of Nicki Minaj’s ass in her new music video. It’s really big. I don’t think I couldn’t get my arms around something that big even if I wanted to. She should be pissed. Really pissed. I’m pissed that I actually watched the video of her twerking. Twerking with an ass that size. Miley where are you?

These are a few of the causes to get mad about, really mad. I’m sure you can come up with many more, and they’ll all be more satisfying than getting pissed at the neighbor just because he voted for George Romney or has a goofy comb over hairstyle.

And if people get you more riled than issues or causes, I’ll give you a list of some of the people that get under my skin. I find the older I get the longer this list gets. Assholes like: Donald Sterling, Bernard Madoff, Dr. Phil, Michele Bachmann, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, John McCain, Kim Kardashian, Bill O’Reilly, Oprah, Alec Baldwin, Kayne West, Dick Cheney, Jesse Jackson, John Boehner (aka Boner), Terrell Owens, Matt Lauer, Paul Shaffer, Kathie Lee Gifford, Al Sharpton, Randy Moss, David Caruso, Dennis Rodman, Pat Robertson, Star Jones, Bryant Gumbel, Pack Pong-ju, Mariah Carey, Larry Flint, Donald Trump, and Rush Limbaugh. Just to name a few.

Picking one of these turkeys or coming up with someone of your own will be more meaningful and a lot more fun than getting all upset over that guy down the street that refuses to pick up after his dog.

It’s dog shit or global warming? Your call. Your cause.