THE UNCOORDINATED!

If you were ever the uncoordinated kid in class, or the brainaic in Harry Potter thick glasses wearing a bookworm facade then you are very familiar with being the last one picked for sports. We short folks were never worth the selection when it came to basketball and might have never been on a team had the Little Sisters of Righteousness School not inspired that everyone must play. With a kind word, a bizarre hand held clicking device, and rulers that could make your knuckles feel like they had just been hit with basketball-sized hailstones in a Midwest summer storm, the sisters enforced equality at the end of a wooden gun. Still that feeling of being left out and unwanted were stigmas after such drama played out on the court. Silently we hid the scar tissue on the inside lest we be seen as sissy mommas boys or crybaby little girls.

With the ever aging baby boom generation coming into its glory, can I tell you that all I see are signs of crisis? The adult teams are being chosen around me and now the world doesn’t have Sister Mary Guilt-A-Lot to tame it. Many are about to be stung all over again. Being one of those baby boom mentioned types looking at big numbers of candles on my birthday cake I must say that aging is nothing like I thought it would be. Who would have thought that wearing diapers, eating pureed food and crying until someone comes to hold you would carry the same weight at both ends of your life? Actually I didn’t spend enough time thinking about what it would be like at all!

As Young Turks we all think of ourselves as invincible; boys profess this outright while girls seem merely to believe it. As we grow from our indestructible teen years and early twenties into our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond it becomes apparent that there are certain things we will no longer be able to enjoy completely. For guys, long distance whizzing is out of the question, and ladies need a medical device around their neck in case they get down on the toilet and can’t get up again!

Like the prepubescent geeky years, here comes the constant reminder that we are no longer worthy. Young girls in phone calls talking about whether the cute guy is going to be at the party tonight no longer includes you as the person they might be talking about. Second glances thrown your way from a good looking member of the opposite sex is one resembling a reaction more of horror than one of lust. No one is checking out your shape anymore unless they want a person to model their Humpty Dumpty costume for the community playhouse.

Amidst all of the missed opportunities of your life it seems like the ones you felt strongest about yet never achieved come haunting. Licking the whip cream off of the thigh high boot of a buxom blonde behind the bleachers of the soccer field is not going to include someone with as much gray hair as you. You’re more likely to be the one snapping photos of the pair under there but you’re also predictably going to be hauled off to the hoosegow to be charged with being a pervert. It’s all because no one ever warned you to live life beyond the fullest. They always told you to settle down and spend your life with that special someone. That is a great life I’ll admit it. However, when you come out on the other end of the aging tunnel you can see back to the beginning and the things that filled your loins with passion and vigor all belong to a younger generation.

There could be worse things in life than not being picked for the ball team unless it’s a toss up between you and Norvall the one armed, one eyed, paraplegic midget who talks with a lisp, and tends to drool allot. Still, as you age and the great creator in the sky starts calling the geriatric class home for his ball club, you might find that being picked last for that team is a lot like winning the lottery. You’ll get to see all of those contemporaries of yours who made your life so miserable go before you. You’ll get to witness more sunrise’s and sunsets, and who knows you might get lucky with Granny Gertrude in the old folks home that the kids put you in, if she happens to have narcolepsy and is partially blind. Perhaps she was never into sports and doesn’t mind that you pitch a baseball like a girl.

When you’re a hundred eight years old and your body acts like it at every turn creaking and offering new insights into the true meaning of the words ache and pain you might long to be chosen for that great gig in the sky. Many of us who fought for life never ending might find that being selected last still sucks as much as when you were a kid. Live large and ride a wild one as long and as often as you can before doing so causes you to bust a gut or fling your dentures across the room. You might poke someone’s eye out. Then they wouldn't want to pick you for their team!

HORNY DRIVERS

There are parts in automobiles primarily as safety devices. Modern vehicles have air-bags, padded dash-boards, and specially designed head rests. Simple devices such as seat-belts were auto after-thoughts long after baby boomer childhoods. I have the radio button pocked-forehead scars to prove it. We’ve come a long way, or have we? The most misused safety feature on a car is the horn. Never mind that roadways are strewn with carnage like fans in the aftermath of a World Cup soccer match gone awry. Spend any time driving in rush hour traffic, and you’d think you were at a Green Bay Packers football game during the Lombardi era. These abundant loud blasts emanating from cars carry the sentiment much worse than a Bronx cheer.

Originally designed to warn other motorists “Hey don’t drive in front of me that’s dangerous,” has more aptly become Honk, “you stupid @%$!& moron, who the #@&”!$% taught you how to drive?” Often the horn is accompanied by specific hand gestures, and uncontrolled contorted muscle gesticulations. Now in a split second after someone cuts us off on the highway we shoot our anger down our arm through the horn and right at the offender. It’s almost like turning on an electrical switch to a bolt of lightning. If we were in a James Bond 007 hot-rod we would have hit the rocket firing button to vaporize the road perpetrator into a mere Ford Taurus dust cloud.

Today the horn has become somewhat more of a safety device not to warn other drivers, but to curse them once the offense has been committed. Thus it keeps the offended safe. Driving down a roadway going the speed limit, and having someone pull their car out in front of you ten feet before you arrive is frustrating, and bruising to your brake pedal foot. Then when they have the audacity to drive 7 milers per hour in front of you afterward, it sends most drivers’ hands to the steering wheel to sound the alarm. Eventually you pull behind them at a stop light, and if you hadn’t blasted your horn you might get out and confront the #&%@%*% knucklehead. So the horn performs a service for you without having to actually exercise your body by getting out of your car, pulling them from theirs, and beating the crap out of the inconsiderate @%$#&!%.

Of course doing so is the result of the much dreaded and conveniently invented “road rage.” Let’s face it; some people deserve a good smacking to stimulate their driving skills. Getting a driver’s attention after all is the main design of the much dreaded “speed trap,” utilized by the authorities. Teenagers, soccer moms, little ol’ ladies, old men over 80 years old, and folks who can’t see over the steering wheel should not have licenses. However, any one of these is confrontable once they’ve misguidedly slid in your lane like a black cat crossing your path. As such, something bad is going to happen. It can be a simple horn blast and raised finger, or it could be worse.

Your mother would think you crazy if you got out of your car to vent your displeasure with other drivers. She’d say something like “what if that person was built like Mike Tyson or something? You don’t know what they’ve got in their car!” Aside from potentially having your ear bitten off, telling the other driver what you think of their performance is an American tradition. We have only in the last decade or so decided to deliver the message in person. The horn protects us from such hazardous work. After all those other guys always drive like @^&%$#* imbeciles, and you are the model of highway perfection.

If things don’t escalate after you are perturbed enough to jump from your car and visit their front door at the stop light, you still might find yourself being shipped off to anger management classes if the scene is witnessed by the “police officer donut patrol.” So ya see it might be better just to stay in your car and channel your distress via the horn. However, if you have a compact car with the horn volume similar to that of an annoying yapping Chihuahua, you might want to install a super decibel delivering Mack Truck size diesel horn capable of delivering a rear window shattering blast. That would teach those #$@^%’s to stay out of your way, or at least make you memorable, with a great story to tell in anger management class!