Maude McDaniel, Columnist
Back when I was young (and wrote with a quill pen), I never got tired of anything. For years, the whole world was new and wonderful, mostly. In those days I didn’t know about the rest, and my elders were not as anxious as they are nowadays to let us in on everything, so soon.
(Of course, nowadays, you can’t stop the young from learning everything there is to learn, whether you want them to or not. Nothing is hidden, darn it.)
Anyway, I am now old enough that I can get tired of anything I want.
The Salahis, for instance. You know, that gorgeous couple that took over the television a few weeks ago, earning their little spotlight of celebrity for crashing the White House State Dinner? Little did we realize how lucky we were before that. We will never be free of the Salahis again. But I must say, far more upsetting than that, was her hairdo. You may say, “What hairdo?” and you would be right, for it consisted of perfectly straight hair sloppily cut. Granted it is considered stylish now, but we used to go to the beauty parlor to get rid of that kind of hair. Well, she went to the beauty parlor, all right (say the news accounts) for six or seven hours on the afternoon of the great day, and many hundreds of dollars — and she came out with that? Now you know, I could understand all the effort and money, if this were France in the time of Louis XVI, when women wore ships on their heads, and miniature villages. But anyone with a manicure scissors and a wet hairbrush could have gotten the same effect as Ms. Salahi got for al her time and money. Oh, yes, I forgot, she was blonde too. Hair dye of all shades is available for $20 at your nearest Wal-Mart, ma’am. Good to keep in mind for your next adventure..
I am tired of claw foot tubs. Tune in to HGTV and all you hear about is claw foot tubs, claw foot tubs Somebody on one of their programs paid $1500 for a claw foot tub, for heaven’s sake. I was brought up in a claw foot tub, so to speak, and they ain’t that pretty! Worse yet, you have to clean under and behind them, which involves leaning over, using some sort of long-handled brush, and a lot more effort than it deserves. Lose the claw foot tub obsession. Please.
I am getting tired of the “Got milk?” ads. Maybe because I never liked milk (except frozen.) But those things will never change my mind. And it seems to me that someone who can’t be bothered to wipe his or her mouth while eating and drinking is not a great role model, even for milk lovers.
Other commercials are beginning to get to me too. I am tired of the Schmuckers and Goya commercials which somehow seem to find it legal to use pretty much the same slogan. (“With a name like Schmucker’s, it’s got to be good” and “If it’s Goya, it’s got to be good.”) I thought there were laws against that, but I guess not. I do have to admit that I do like some commercials no matter how often they come on. Like the guy who is flatulent in three languages.
I am also getting tired of the common expressions of amazement that we are all using these days. You can’t watch any HGTV show (I admit it — I watch a lot of HGTV) these days without hearing dozens of “Wow!”s per night. But more grating are all the “Oh my God”s. (Sorry, I’m conservative in this respect, I know.) Mostly, for some reason, from females. Now, it’s all very well to call upon God at moments of emotional fervor, and I am all in favor of it when spiritually amazing things happen. But when you see the ratty wallpaper in the living room of a house you are considering buying? Or, in the store, when you see exactly the sweatshirt you’ve been looking for all day? Come on, folks, let’s leave God out of it and substitute that good old euphemism, “gosh.” (Or even my old standby, “goodness,” if you don’t mind sounding like the 1940s) Somehow it seems like a good idea to save the name of God for real emergencies.
I’m very tired of emails that threaten you with a fate worse than death if you don’t send them on within the next three minutes or so. Sometimes the messages are good and I hate not to send them on — but I refuse to be bullied.
I am getting tired of my towels. I didn’t realize this until a daughter gave me a spanking new set of bath towels and wash cloths for Christmas. The leap of joy in my heart was unbelievable. I hadn’t even realized until then that the tacky old towels I’d been using for the last 57 years (all of them dating back to original wedding gifts) were hopelessly shabby, scruffy, and frazzled. After that flash of insight, I am now working on getting up the courage to throw some (a lot) of them out and replace them with bright, fresh perky new ones.
And I am getting tired of new expressions. What, for heaven’s sake, is a “bucket list?” What are “memes?” And does “redacted” mean “censored?” What was wrong with the old word, that we had to adapt something else to mean the exact same thing? And “angst?” (We used to use that in school but we pronounced it “Awhngst,” not “aankst. ‘) “Charismatic” used to mean something like channeling God. It’s a bit of a comedown that now it seems to be just another adjective for someone with an attractive personality.
Oh, yes, and I’m tired of snow too.
Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.
