By Aimee Hoffer
I am a judgy curmudgeon, one of many. We are not a rare breed. There are judgy curmudgeons in every neighborhood in the world, and sometimes there are several on the same street. Sometimes there are several in the same house, which makes the holidays interesting. We have to deal with the world around us on a daily basis, and trust me, I can get why some fellows in the really old days became hermits. There are some days when stepping out your front door and facing the world and all the people it contains is more than you can take. Still, we endure.
Curmudgeons have a long history. We have been around since the dawn of time. I’m pretty sure that some of the one-celled organisms that first inhabited this world had their curmudgeons, too. I like to think the T-rex was a curmudgeon since he had evolved the perfect way to make the other dinosaurs run away from him: lots of sharp teeth and a big appetite. Ape tribes must have had their curmudgeons before humans came along, and once they did and started talking to each other, they must have created the word “curmudgeon” or its reasonable facsimile to describe the individuals of their tribe who were easy to annoy and even harder to please.
One of the earliest curmudgeons was a man called Diogenes. He lived in a barrel, I think, in the marketplace of Athens, and he once so annoyed a man with his curmudgeonliness that the man had to literally beat him off with a stick, which proved that people will act on their lesser impulses. Diogenes used to go around town in the daytime with a lighted lamp, and if someone asked him what he was doing, he told them he was trying to find an honest man. When not making people question if he was right in the head, he’d wander around making people certain that he wasn’t right in the head by criticizing society and everybody in it. He said that the structures of society were the source of people’s ills and that everybody would be better off without them. There are times when, as a curmudgeon, I am tempted to agree.
Curmudgeons have a difficult row to hoe due to the number of non-curmudgeons around them. To put it delicately, non-curmudgeons irritate the ever-living heck out of curmudgeons, and our threshold for such irritation is very low, due to our curmudgeonly nature. In every situation curmudgeons find themselves in, they end up encountering non-curmudgeons. Each encounter with a non-curmudgeon is difficult for a curmudgeon to navigate since non-curmudgeons want to take up time asking how you are and remarking on the beautiful weather and did you hear the latest gossip about Mrs. So-and-so down the street. Curmudgeons prefer to skip asking how anyone is since you can only be fine, sick, or dead; we’d prefer a rainy day so no one has to remark on the beautiful weather; and we wish Mrs. So-and-so would move away so we can stop hearing gossip about her.
At this point, you’re probably agreeing with me that I am a curmudgeon. Good. It bugs me when people want to argue a point that’s self-evident. You’re probably wondering why I called myself a judgy curmudgeon in the first line. I’ll tell you: all curmudgeons judge. I know there’s something in the Good Book about not judging others, but it’s human nature to judge others based on their words and actions and sometimes their fashion sense. The difference between a curmudgeon and everybody else is that you know where you stand with a curmudgeon. You know for a fact that a curmudgeon will be honest. If you’re not sure what to think about that new politician campaigning, we’ll be sure to tell you. A curmudgeon will also judge that new gadget that just came on the market and be sure to tell you if you should waste your money on it or something else. If you’re not sure how you look in that new yellow checkered zoot suit with shoulder pads that escaped from the eighties, then any curmudgeon within a hundred-mile radius will say you need help, son.
Why is a judgy curmudgeon like me writing this? It’s easy to tell. Due to our nature, curmudgeons often get tired of repeating ourselves over and over again. You ever try talking to a brick wall? Try talking to people that don’t have a lick of sense, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. We talk, and people don’t listen. I’ve heard that people don’t read much these days, but I know there are some rare souls out there that do, and I’m hoping that these people will share these words with others so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. I’ll write about all the things that curmudgeons find difficult to bear so the information can be shared, and hopefully we curmudgeons won’t have to talk so much with so many people when the majority of people irritate the ever-living heck out of us. Read on. I’m sure you’ll find something that’s either useful or entertaining.
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