Am I Suffering from EOC?

I'm beginning to suspect that I'm falling victim to Early Onset Curmudgeonhood. EOC is an ugly disease, causing vital young people like myself to become ornery and cantankerous, and to behave like crotchety old people. Its symptoms include rants about whippersnappers, rambling stories about how things were "back in the day", and the tendency to predict armageddon by attributing society's decline to current youth fashion trends and popular music.

Curmudgeonhood normally occurs when a person reaches advanced age. This is a period where daily activities consist solely of reading obituaries, eating mashed potatoes, and chasing neighborhood kids off your lawn. The curmudgeon is generally a person who has long since retired from an industry that no longer exists, who listens exclusively to music recorded by dead people, and who wears pants that buckle above the navel.

I do not yet fit that definition. I'm decades away from retirement, for one thing. And if it weren't for statutory requirements to the contrary, I would rarely even wear pants, much less buckle them above the navel. I don't have a lawn, and I am still totally hip to the latest trends in music, like Ricky Martin, Milli Vanilli, and Puff Diddley, etc.

I'm a young, happenin' dude. And yet...

I find myself annoyed that they closed the schools today. Why, back in MY day, the only times they closed the schools were when the snow was so deep that even the plows couldn't get through. All we have here today is some zero-degree temperatures and an inch of snow. Zero and an inch? I laugh at such trivial weather. Ha ha!

Seriously, what's wrong with these people? Has our entire society become so wimpy that we're afraid to send our kids to school unless the roads are completely dry? Whatever happened to Nietsche and Darwin, and all the "adversity makes you stronger" philosophies that caused our parents to throw us off the pier for swimming lessons, and toss us into pits of snakes to "toughen us up"?

And then there's this:



Good lord. It used to be that milk was considered to be a healthy food. In fact, an essential food. And now it's appearing on warning labels as a danger to mankind?

It makes me sad, dagnabbit. I think somebody should do a study to see if there's a correlation between the increase in milk allergies and the number of snow days. I bet you that if the nannyfication of our society continues, by the time I'm actually old enough to qualify for curmudgeonhood there'll be warning labels on bananas and apples...and schools will only be open during the two perfect days in the spring and in the fall. It just chaps my breeches, it does.

Oh well, I don't suppose there's anything I can do about it, other than shaking my fist and flapping my gums. So I suppose I'll just go along with the trend; I'll cower under the covers and refuse to go out if there's any hint of preciptitation, or if there's rumors of rogue chocolate about. The best way to avoid bad stuff is to do nothing at all, so let's all get on board with that idea, OK?

Have a great day!