Today’s Complaint

OK, that’s actually “Today’s Complaints” because I’ve got a few of them…

If you think about it—which I have—comedy is mostly complaining; stand-up comedians don’t spend a lot of time complimenting the efficiency of airlines, the wisdom displayed by politicians or the reasonable attitudes of the opposite sex and if you think I’m wrong feel free to file a complaint.

(But make it a funny one.)

And every so often I have a complaint about something and start writing because having a blog is much cheaper than therapy and it begins well, but then I realize it’s not long enough for a post so I save those curtailed complaints like grievances to be brought up in later arguments – “Oh, yeah? What about that thing you did three years ago?” – and when I have enough complaints they can make a full-length post like today’s.

And we’ll start with…

Planned Obsolescence

So my cellphone is taking longer to charge than the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” and I’m thinking it needs a new battery and I take it to Target because they sell Consumer Cellular products there – “Consumer Cellular, the cellphone company you choose when you’re finally ready to admit you’re a Geezer!” – and the Consumer Cellular dude looks at me like I’m nuts and informs me my Samsung Galaxy cellphone does not have a replaceable battery.

Say what?

Turns out, when your phone’s battery calls in sick you are now expected to buy a brand new phone.

Which seems a lot like not being able to buy new tires and when the ones you’ve been driving on wear out, being expected to buy a new car and let’s hope nobody from the Automobile Industry reads this essay or they’ll smack themselves in the forehead and say: “Why didn’t we think of that?”

Anyway…

At some point, businesses figured out they could make more money if their products were shitty and wore out quickly and couldn’t be fixed, so these days you don’t repair your flat-screen TV, you buy a new one and throw the old one in a landfill which is bad for the Earth, but don’t worry, if you’re getting your phones from Consumer Cellular you’re so damn old you’ll dead long before your landfill chickens come home to roost. That’s your kids’ problem and haven’t you done enough for—or possibly “to”—them already?

But what about products that don’t break?

Here I’m thinking of Photoshop which I need to churn out political cartoons and doctor selfies so I don’t look like the Michelin Man on Facebook and the first time I bought Photoshop I actually “bought” it and owned it and could use it forever, but then I screwed up and bought a new computer (because the hand crank broke on my first one) the Photoshop people had figured out they were being idiots by letting me buy their product and now I have to rent Photoshop and pay a monthly fee forever and ever or until those landfills make the Earth unlivable, a project the Trump Administration is currently working on.

And my semi-new computer (OK, it’s actually 15-years old) recently informed me that Windows 10 will no longer be “supported” and I won’t get those mysterious “updates” that somehow protect me and I’ll be on my own in an internet landscape filled with scamsters and brigands (which would be a great name for a Metallica album) and if I don’t want to get symbolically sodomized (which would be a great name for a Guns N’ Roses reunion tour) I need to update to Windows 11 which might be free if I was born in a month without a full moon and the letters in my name add up to a prime number, but if not, I’ll need to buy a “pro” license – which sounds like something they pulled directly out of their ass – and my “pro” license might be as much as $200.

OK, so there’s complaint Number One, next (and it’s phone related)…

Business Texts

So you make an appointment to get your hair cut or see a doctor or get a massage with a “Dissatisfied Ending” (because after Donald Trump got reelected, happiness is too much to ask for) and they immediately send you a text confirming the details of your appointment.

OK. Got it.

Then a few days later they send you another text and want you to confirm you that you actually plan on showing up at the scheduled time which you’ve already agreed to.

Next, you get a text the day before your appointment reminding you that your appointment’s tomorrow.

Then the day of the appointment you get another text reminding you to show up.

Then after your appointment you get another text (or possibly an email) thanking you for your business and asking you to give them a positive review or take a survey about your experience and if they really want me to feel positive about my experience the answer is pretty simple:

STOP SENDING ME FUCKING TEXTS.

I’m guessing somebody somewhere is somehow making money off all those texts and I’m wondering if my Windows 11 “pro” license will protect me from the scamsters and brigands behind all this unnecessary texting.

And now…

Inconsistent Political Correctness

Standards keep changing and some things that weren’t OK before are OK now and some things that were OK before aren’t OK now and there’s always someone with a politically-correct 2-by-4 shoved directly up their butt willing to correct and admonish someone for doing something that when they did it was considered OK.

For example:

You can now get in trouble for imitating some accents, but imitating other accents is still OK as long as you pick the right accent and to make my point we’ll talk about Texans.

“Slicker’n owl shit on a hot tin roof” is funnier when said with a Texas accent and I know for sure because one of my best friends is from Texas and he constantly makes me laugh by saying things like:

• “You make me want to dip snuff.”

• “She’d make a freight train take a dirt road.”

• “Eat me, beat me, pee on me…make me write hot checks.”

And he says it in that Texas accent that turns “you” into “yew” and makes me wish I had one because “Ah thank Ah’d be a whole bunch funyer if Ah daid an’ yew cain’t tell me A’hm wrong.”

As far as I know it’s not yet politically incorrect to imitate or laugh at Texas accents, but attempt a Chinese accent or laugh at someone else doing one and you’re a damn racist. (And if you’re currently thinking, “Yes, Lee, but the Chinese are a different nationality and Texans aren’t” you clearly haven’t spent much time in Texas.)

And how about our Neighbors to the North, eh?

Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas played the fictional McKenzie Brothers with exaggerated Canadian accents and that’s part of the joke:

Do the same sketch with exaggerated Mexican accents and you’d quickly have your show cancelled and wouldn’t go on to play the clueless neighbor in Ghostbusters or the father in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but you’d probably make up that lost income by becoming a featured speaker at Donald Trump rallies.

And if you’re now saying, “Lee, you only find it funny because somebody else is getting ridiculed; how would you feel if it was you?” I give you The Californians:

As an actual Californian I can tell you we don’t all have blonde hair, exaggerate our vowels or obsess about which highway we took to get where we were going or call I-70 the I-70 so I guess I could choose to get offended about an unfair depiction of my home state’s residents and I just might do that right after I stop laughing.

While looking for those other clips I came across Monty Python’s Communist Quiz Show sketch and this one is now definitely considered politically incorrect, which I guess makes everybody in Monty Python and all the people in the Hollywood Bowl audience retroactive racists because they laughed their asses off, so if you watch this clip make sure you don’t laugh because that would mean you’re a racist, too:

Making fun of Karl Marx is still OK, Mao Zedong not so much and it occurs to me we’re pretty inconsistent about our politically correct outrage.

Mike’s me wanna dip snuff.

OK, that’s it for today and I’m sure I’ll soon have a new collection of complaints because infuriating things just keep happening and if you don’t believe me, buy a newspaper and start your own list.

Talk to you soon.