Grumpy Old Men, Crabby Old Women and Toxic Positivity

Grumpy Old Men and Crabby Old Women are so common they’ve become a cliché, but now that I’ve achieved that Stage in Life (the male version) I think it happens because once you realize you aren’t different and God isn’t making an exception in your case and you are going to get old and die (hopefully in that order) you no longer have the time or patience to put up with other people’s bullshit.

As my best friend from high school recently pointed out, we only have so many good years left and the pandemic just robbed us of two of them and is working on a third, so forgive me if I don’t want to spend any part of one of my days that have dwindled down to a precious few talking about last night’s episode of The Voice or looking at pictures of your grandchildren, although if you want to get in an argument about the use of the Designated Hitter in the American League, I’m totally up for it because pitchers really need to hit even if it’s just for the laughs because laughing is the second-best thing you can do in Life.

(Three guesses what came in first and if you’re not thinking “sex with someone I love or at least like” I really hope reincarnation is a thing because you really screwed up the current round of This Is Your Life.)

Anyway…

Pitchers need to go to the plate and try to hit because it makes them better pitchers when they realize how insanely hard hitting is and I’ve been told that after a couple decades in the American League, the first time Roger Clemens had to go the plate in the National League and saw a major league fastball headed in his direction, he turned to the umpire and said:

“Do I throw that hard?”

(Which may or may not be true, but I like that story so I won’t try to verify it.)

In any case, having to hit makes pitchers realize hitting a well-thrown baseball is really, really difficult and maybe they ought to throw more strikes and move games along and if I can use whatever influence I have to shorten baseball games by 30-or-more seconds I’ll consider my life well-spent.

We have an obligation to future generations and since we’ve clearly fucked up the environment at least our kids and their kids can watch shorter baseball games while waiting to die from whatever ungodly strain of COVID we allowed to develop by our pigheaded refusal to get vaccinated.

So where were we before you got me distracted with your incessant demands that I talk about baseball?

Right…other people’s bullshit

If you’re like me (insert “you have my sympathy” joke here) you find it irritating when a complete stranger tells you to:

“Smile.”

I have yet to act on it, but my impulse is to reply:

“My mother just died.”

Or:

“I just got a cancer diagnosis.”

Which I hope would be a verbal kick in the crotch of the idiots who dispense their “smile” advice to a stranger, because maybe that unsmiling stranger is going through some kind of personal tragedy involving death, illness or the looming prospect of another Donald Trump presidential campaign.

Turns out there’s a name for this enforced happiness phenomena and it’s Toxic Positivity.

It also turns out there’s a book called Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed With Being Happy by someone named Whitney Goodman and it’s 304-pages long and costs $26 so I just saved you a bunch of time and money because people will come up with a decent idea that could be described in a single paragraph, but then sign a book deal and have to stretch that one-paragraph idea out to let’s say…oh…about 304 pages because nobody’s going to spend $26 on a one-paragraph book.

Now here’s what Whitney had to say and if she’d kept it to this single paragraph, I might have read her entire book:

“The core of toxic positivity is that it’s dismissive and it shuts down the conversation. It effectively says, ‘Nope, that feeling you’re experiencing, it’s wrong – and here’s why you should be happy instead!”

(And if you’re thinking the punctuation in that last quote is also wrong all I can say is I got it directly out of the Kansas City Star which recently published the word “shit” in a headline when they meant “shift” so don’t look at me; things have gone straight to Hell ever since they fired me.)

Once you get the concept of Toxic Positivity you realize it’s everywhere and people constantly say dumb stuff that really isn’t true, like:

“Everything happens for a reason.”

Seems unlikely.

The idea that there’s some Puppet Master in the Sky controlling everything that happens means the Puppet Master is kind of a dick because otherwise, why would He and/or She give a child leukemia and let Tucker Carlson enjoy good health?

Frankly, I find Life pretty goddamn random and the idea that you deserve what happens to you or it will all make sense in the end is pretty much bullshit perpetuated by people who can’t stand the thought that we’re not here for any reason other than trying to have as much fun as possible without hurting other people.

Unless…

You’re in a consensual BDSM relationship and if you are make sure you have a safe word and I don’t know why people pick safe words like “unicorn” or “persimmon” which you might forget under pressure when it would make a lot more sense to make your safe word something you’ll definitely remember like:

“Ouch!” or “Knock that shit off!”

(If you get nothing else out of today’s diatribe, that sound advice about safe words makes reading this worthwhile and we’ll now move on to other dumb things people say.)

“Life will never give you more than you can handle.”

Sure it will.

900,000 Americans have died from the pandemic and I’m going to go out on a very sturdy limb and speculate that Life definitely gave them more than they could handle and to say it didn’t is a bunch of crap that somehow makes their deaths their own fault because if they had just “let a smile be their umbrella” they wouldn’t have gotten wet.

Bullshit – Life gives people more than they can handle all the time and I’m pretty sure I have at least 900,000 Americans who would back me up on that.

“Time heals all wounds.”

Nope.

Some wounds last forever and all time does is allow you to temporarily forget you’re wounded right up until someone asks how you’re doing and reminds you that you have an unhealed wound.

When someone suffers a real tragedy like losing a family member or having to attend some dipshit cousin’s wedding who scheduled the ceremony at the same time the Super Bowl was on, I never know whether to say something insincere like “Sorry for your loss” because maybe they finally started thinking about something else and I’m just reminding them to feel sad, but if I don’t mention their loss maybe they’re going to think I’m an insensitive asshole which to be honest is fairly accurate.

I mean, just look at how much profanity this subject is forcing me to use. But let’s be real; when you hit your thumb with a hammer, “Goshdarnit!” really doesn’t do the trick.

So next time someone drops some of that “When Life gives you lemons, make lemonade” bullshit on you, feel free to make up some story involving a dead dog or a kidnapped child or anything else that will make that person feel like a huge asshole and maybe teach them not to say dumb shit in the future.

We’ll call our movement Healthy Negativity and if I somehow managed to nudge you into becoming a Grumpy Old Man or a Crabby Old Woman, you’re welcome and your highly-fictional T-shirt and membership card are in the mail and as you go through what’s left of your life, just remember our group motto:

“Every silver lining has a cloud.”