Today is Sunday, December 16 and there are only 9 days until Christmas! By now you should have most of your gifts wrapped and should be getting started on writing cards to people that you received cards from but didn’t mail one to. Today we remember the birthdays of Catherine of Aragon, Jane Austen and Steven Bochco. On this day in 1631 Mount Vesuvius erupted, in 1893 Anton Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” premiered and in 1953 the first White House press conference was held with President Eisenhower and 161 reporters. In Bahrain it is National Day, in Nepal it is Constitution Day, in South Africa it is Dingaan’s Day and in the US it is National Chocolate-covered Anything Day.

I was grocery shopping recently and it occurred to me that I am becoming, at best curmudgeonly and at worst a curmudgeon. The former means that I am still the “me” I have always been, but things can get me peeved. The latter means that everything gets me peeved and I am not the loveable guy I used to be. I want to believe that I am curmudgeonly, at least for now.

I realized that many of the things I experienced on my shopping sojourn set me off. The drive to the store entailed riding behind every 90 year old with a driver’s license. I swear that one woman in front of me had to alternate between seeing where she was going and using the gas and brake pedals. There was no way she was doing them at the same time. I managed to get behind one guy that made me want to run up to his car and ask if he was okay. He drove as if he was in the middle of a seizure or something. I found myself complaining out loud, as if it would help. For information purposes let me just say that it does not.

When I got to the store parking lot, it seemed like every car in front of me was waiting for the same handicapped parking space to open up, although I did think that a couple of the old guys were just napping. At least one third of the lot was empty, but most of the cars were waiting for people to load their groceries and leave so that they could take the space and not have to walk an extra 10 feet. Maybe if they walked a little they would not have a butt the size of Rhode Island. The problem was getting by them to the open spaces. These people who are so reluctant to walk pull their car up in such a way that you cannot get by them. I guess they feel they are preventing you from getting their space. What makes it worse is that they pull up so far that the car in the space cannot get out. Now they have to back up which creates a whole other set of problems.

Let me just tell you something else I discovered. Early afternoon is not a good time to go grocery shopping. Unless, of course, you like putting yourself in situations that make you want to strangle people. I was behind one man who walked down the middle of the aisle.  He would take seven or eight steps, stop and look around as if on a tour, take another set of seven or eight steps, look around and on and on and on. Fortunately, the rows are not that long and after 15 minutes we got to the end and I was able to get around him. When I was finished and leaving the store I saw him again and he was about one third of the way through the store and only had six items in his cart.

Understand, I do not expect everyone to move through the store at the same pace as I do. My pace is motivated by a desire to get done and out of there and by the need to do so before I have to hurt someone. I really think that you should have some idea of what you are shopping for before you go to the store. The best idea would be to have a list.  This way you can go in and find the items that you need and then get out. There were people in that store who were not even sure where they were, let alone what they wanted. Of course, you have to remember to bring the list with you, but that’s a topic for another time.

One thing that bothered me was my concern that in a few years I will become one of those people who were driving me crazy. I suppose that will be my revenge for all the times I was made crazy. Maybe I will be lucky and will be a vexation for the family members of the people who were such an ordeal for me. 

The ride home was no better. The second shift of crazies was out and this was comprised of the same old folks as earlier, with the addition of moms trying to get things done before they went to school 45 minutes early to get a parking space so they could pick up their offspring. The whole “don’t park too far away” and Rhode Island butt thing was at work there, too. I managed to get behind one person who was apparently practicing to pull a float in the Tournament of Roses parade. Based on our progress, this person is set to go.

As I said, I wonder if I am curmudgeonly or a curmudgeon. I would like to think that I am the former, but it won’t take much to move me to the other side. So, watch it and stay out of my way!

This week our fact tells us that our sun has an expected lifetime of about 11 billion years. My question is – when did that number start counting down? Do we still have several billion years before it becomes a concern or do we only have 100. How do we know that there will be light when we wake up in the morning? If there is no sun how will we know it is morning? These are some questions that should brighten your day.