Skip to main content

Bloggy Blog #16

 I guess I'm either just old-fashioned, or an old fart (probably both), but a brief moment during this year's Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show made me cringe for what remains of our culture. Lost among all the captivating bulldogs, dalmatians, sheepdogs and other breeds was the lack of care by some human beings during what should be a considerable duteous moment.

The guilty party in question? Some gal in the stands. That's right, in the stands. She had nothing to do with the show at all. Well, she kind of did. She paid her $55.00 to get in and watch all the adorable doggies. Totally worth the cost of admission, sure. But what she did...what...she...did...!

Unfortunately I do not have a screen grab of the incident. What I do have, however, is a grab from a sporting event that depicts the exact same thing. Maybe it's the same girl, who knows.

Can you spot it?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of patriotic nationalist or anything of the sort. You don't have to place your hand over your heart during the National Anthem. Heck, if you're ill enough you don't even have to stand. People take their hats off, and that's respectful. What's not respectful is texting while the anthem is happening. This is probably the lowest of the lows, perhaps right up there with flashing middle fingers up in the sky, or maybe even inciting a brawl right then and there. There's simply no place for this. You have the entire 2-3 hour game or event that you paid to get into to text your BFFs - so why do you need to do it during a brief, and I mean brief, maybe four minute song beforehand? Put the damn phone down. 

Or wait, you can't put the phone down, can you? We live our lives now with screens in our faces eighteen hours a day. We keep these screens in our faces while eating breakfast, maybe brushing our teeth, driving to work, sitting at work, walking down the street, happy hours at the bar, while our kids talk to us at the dinner table, after dinner, laying in bed. Guess I'm just expecting too much for others to put the phone away for an important moment. But like this girl above and the one at the Dog Show, why should we? If it's not on our screens, it's irrelevant, right?

Popular posts from this blog

Bloggy Blog #84

The first time I visited, I had to park across the street in the lot of an abandoned gas station. The lot itself went up a slight hill, and the station's sign would occasionally spin some slow turns whenever the town spirits wanted to have some fun.  She lived in a questionably constructed building on the second floor of this sleepy Revolutionary War town, adjacent to a craft store that was hardly ever open. In the basement sat a four-lane bowling alley and a small bar. It was by appointment only, which really meant the building's landlord had to be there to serve drinks and keep an eye on the action. I didn't get a chance to bowl down there, but seeing the construction of the building, this was probably a good thing. When she moved out of her place, part of the process involved placing a three-foot wide plank over the bowling alley basement stairs, in order to move big furniture out. Needless to say she left the heavy lifting to the moving experts.  The new plac...
Read more

Bloggy Blog #97

   A few weeks ago, the last of my father's counter top appliances went kaput. It was an unnecessarily large microwave. I used it from time to time to heat up frozen dinners for him, or to reheat my own leftovers. He used it a whole lot more than I ever did, specifically to reheat coffee. He'll brew his little hotel-sized pot of coffee every morning around six-thirty, pour it into a cup, place a lid on it, then let it sit on the kitchen table. About two hours later I'm up and moving around, and that cup is still on the table. He'll reheat it before 9:30, then leave it covered on the table. Sometimes he will reheat it two or three times, thirty seconds to a minute each, in the span of an hour. I don't know what the proper temperature he desires for his coffee, but most of the time, whatever it is, is not it. So he puts a lid on it and just...walks away.  My parents moved into this apartment fifteen years ago. I was living three time zones away at the time, unable to ...
Read more

Bloggy Blog #93

  In all fairness, I've just stopped counting the years. I mean, I know how old I am today, sure. I just don't care to tell anyone. And there's nothing wrong with this approach, really. I'm not lying on any application forms, nor any other random documents that ask for my date of birth. Those who need to know, know. And that should be good enough, right? A friend recently asked if I knew what time I was born. For some reason I thought this was listed on birth certificates, but they are not - at least not back then at this particular hospital. I remember my mother saying sometime in the very early hours overnight, to perhaps sometime at dawn. I also remember her saying I was supposed to be born on the 16th. That must have been pretty annoying for her. Imagine hoping to get some rest overnight and then BOOM, it's time. Guess I needed an extra day's nap in there? Who knows. I do share a birthday with a handful of celebrities and great people. Michelle Obama, Jim Ca...
Read more