PRONOUN MANAGEMENT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-05-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     They are out there living among us, and you may not even know they exist. And that's because you always thought that they were him or her, but now they are they. How did this happen? It happened because since the beginning of time, society has told us that little boys are made of "snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails." And since the beginning of time, there have been little boys who have said, "EW! We are  not! And what is a snip, anyway?"

     The first time I heard the letters "LGBTQ" I assumed it was a subway line. Why would anyone want to go to La Guardia, Brooklyn, Texas AND THEN Queens? It's going to take forever, and what if I get stuck in a car with one of those panhandlers that says he was in the Vietnam War but he only looks about 29? Then someone told me that it was an acronym for the gay community, and I was shocked that there was a gay community in Texas. But that was a long time ago, and I've been more enlightened since then.

     I'll admit I was pretty clueless for most of my life. Why didn't Liberace have a girlfriend? I guess he was playing the field. Cary Grant? A "confirmed bachelor." What about Tony Randall? Actually Tony Randall wasn't even gay. Sometimes "coming out" is a rite of passage that doesn't have that doesn't have a whole lot of effect, like me going through my confirmation at church. I had to use a cheat sheet to remember the books of the Bible during the test, and after I spent the rest of the day dodging bolts of lightning, I realized that the religious life just wasn't for me. And when Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian I was absolutely SHOCKED that she might have thought that there was anyone out there who didn't think she was a lesbian.

     And over time it became more complicated. Men dressed as women weren't just drag queens, and women dressed as men weren't just tomboys. Turned out there are transgender people, cisgender people, people who are gender neutral. I was hesitant to go along. "He" or "she" is one person, and "they" are a bit of a crowd. Dealing with the sheer numbers is going to be time consuming. But when I thought it over, which for me is also time consuming, going along seemed like a small thing. If it makes people happy if I call them "them," I guess I can get used to it. It's no worse than me insisting that people call me Rick, even though it isn't the name I was assigned at birth. It seems like the real reason that change has come slowly is that human nature wants everything to fit into an Excel spreadsheet so we can sort it and then re-sort it if we don't like how it came out. But eventually Excel comes out with a new version and we have to learn where everything goes all over again.

     Take Barbie for instance. We always assumed she was a girl, because she knows how to accessorize so well, but so does Elton John. She's never actually said what she is, and we don't really have a definitive ruling on the subject. If you look at things biologically, (and I have), there is little actual evidence either way. Up to now it's been the rest of the world telling you whether you are a boy or a girl, and then telling you what you should do about it. But people are taking back their own self-identities, and the rest of us are just going to have to get used to it. Bruce Jenner used to be thought of as a "man's man." Men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him. Now all of a sudden Bruce Jenner is Caitlyn Jenner, a "transgender's transgender." Transgenders want to be like them and transgenders want to be with them.

     There's a term that these people give use to show the rest of us that we are more confused about the whole thing than they are, and that term is "gender non-binary." Which sounds like words they used in a math class that I had to take two or three times because I couldn't figure out how to use a slide rule. Society isn't all in quite yet. When you watch a western there is a guy in a black hat doing evil things, and there's a guy in a white hat who wants to bring him to justice, and everybody knows what their role is. But then it turns out that the guy in the white hat cheats on his taxes, and the guy in the black hat helps old ladies across the street. Just about everything in life has a gray area.

     Nothing is ever easy, and there are plenty of questions. Should there be separate men's and women's bathrooms anymore? What do we do about transgender athletes competing with women? Are we going to need to order more asterisks to put in record books? Is it impolite to ask for a DNA test on the first date if things are going well? Then again, if you ask for the DNA test, might that be the end of things going well?

     I guess we'll just let people decide for themselves what they want to be. I wish I had taken some Home Economics classes when I was in Middle School, because I like to cook. And my wife wishes she had taken some Shop classes, because she likes to tell me what I'm doing wrong. One of these days you're going to be at a "gender reveal party" where clear smoke comes out of the balloon, and everyone will shout, "They're non-binary! YAY! I just KNEW it!" Just for the record, there's no confusion on my end of things. I'm all guy, all the time. I'm as manly as a man can be who loves the Carpenters, struggles not to cry at sad movies and wears a size 16 dress sometimes on Halloween (it has blue sequins on it and a daring neckline). Gray is "they," and it's the new black and white.
 

THE QUIET CAR

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-28-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic


     As long as we're on the subject of Thanksgiving, and we've already given thanks for our great friends and family and our health, and all this great food, blah, blah, blah, I'd like to give thanks to whoever came up with the idea of a Quiet Car on my Metro North commuter train. The 8:04 out of Goldens Bridge is the train of my dreams, because I spend the entire ride asleep. I take a little nap on the way to work, I snooze a little on the way back, and I subtract if from the night and stay up each night watching "Forensic Files" until 1:00 in the morning.  My train doesn't have a king-sized water bed for me to float around on, or comfy pajamas or a glass of warm milk, so the conditions have to be just right for me to get my beauty sleep. The Quiet Car is the best invention since the electric hairbrush that my Dad once bought for my sisters that pulled all their hair out.

     I know you're probably thinking, aren't the terms "quiet" and "me" mutually exclusive? And the answer is, not when I'm asleep. It's such a great idea that I got to thinking that maybe they could have an Odorless Car too, where you're not allowed to eat Chinese food or a banana that stinks up the whole place, or a Car For People Who Have Watched "Game of Thrones" the Night Before, so they don't spoil what happened during the Battle of Winterfell for everybody else.

     The conductor gets on the PA system and delivers a flawless monologue, possibly regarding the benefits and charms of the Quiet Car, and about how anyone disregarding the rules of the Quiet Car should not sit in the Quiet Car, and how the Quiet Car is the best invention since the electric hairbrush. However, he leaves his compartment door open during the announcement so that all you hear is the word "Quiet Car" several times and a bunch of feedback. After the announcement he moves through the Quiet Car yelling, "GOOD MORNING! TICKET PLEASE! THANK YOU!" to every customer, so loudly that they can be sure to hear it even if they are at home watching "Forensic Files."

     And wouldn't you know it, after all that, some guy is yakking on his cell phone. I say to him, "Excuse me, but this is the Quiet Car." "Sorry, I had no idea," he says. "Didn't you hear the conductor give an announcement through a bunch of feedback that may or may not have said that this was the Quiet Car?" "Actually, I didn't hear anything because I was taking a call at the time."

     All of a sudden I'm a librarian, enforcing the rules of my library. "Hey you: put your feet down! Do you do that at home?" "Yes, of course." I do, too, come to think of it. "Well, do it quietly. If you'd like, I can point you towards the periodicals, and also we have some great stuff on microfiche." Then the train stops and a family with a crying baby gets on. What am I supposed to do now? I did the only thing I could think of, and directed the baby over to the reference section.

     That guy's cell  phone rings again and I don't want to yell at him, because I would be violating the rules of the Quiet Car. Using American Sign Language, I explain to him in no uncertain terms that I do not know American Sign Language. So I had to continue the conversation using the rules of "Charades." He tugged on his ear, which I assumed meant "sounds like," then I pointed to my nose, which I assumed meant "smells like." He pointed to his shoe and my rear, which I assumed meant "where are the paperbacks?"

     Just then two people started coughing at the same time. Were they trying to communicate, in violation of section 22.7 of the Quiet Car Regulations? It sounded like Morse code so I started to write down the short coughs and the long coughs as I heard them. When I was done, it was obvious by looking at the conversation that my wife is the only one who can read my handwriting. If you're going to cough, at least use your library cough.

     I finally get to sleep, but I'm awakened five seconds later by the train's air horn at 150 decibels, because the Quiet Car is located in the head car where the horn is. And now there's a guy with a dog, and the dog is sneezing, some would say deliberately. And there is a persistent rumble, and I can't figure out where it's coming from. It's probably somebody receiving a text message, so I walk around the car looking over everyone's shoulder to see if anyone recently received a text message, and from whom. The people in the Quiet Car are up to some unusual things, if you believe everything you read.

     I sit back down but the rumbling is still there. I whisper quietly to the guy next to me, "You hear that rumbling?" He says, "I think it's your stomach." I can't wait until somebody invents a Pizza Car. Even with all its problems, I still love the Quiet Car, and I would shout it from the highest mountain top if it weren't in violation of section 64.3 of the Quiet Car Regulations.

     Well, I didn't get enough rest on the train and I fell asleep during "Forensic Files." It's okay, I've seen the episode twelve times already. It's the one where a lady is killed on the train while using her cell phone, and everyone assumes the husband did it, but is that really the end of the story?

PET PROJECT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-21-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic


     I forgot to mention this but October 29th was National Cat Day. I hope you took the time to hug your cat and tell it how much you tolerate it. I wanted to hug my Cat so I went over to its expensive cat bed to grab it while it was asleep and snog the crap out of it but it saw me coming and ran under the desk. I almost nabbed it but it bolted out of the room at the last second and I hit my head on the bottom of the desk trying to stand up, which is something that gets harder and harder each day. I caught up with it under the dining room table, but it took me on a wild goose chase in between the legs of each chair so that I could wrench my back. I grabbed a cat treat out of the cat treat bag and pretended I was eating it. "MMMM! Here, Cat! I bet you want one of these don't you?" It absolutely did not once it saw the face I was making when I got a good whiff of it, so I put it on the floor, and when the Cat came over to see what all the fuss was about I grabbed it by its tail and picked it up as it was scratching my hand and hissing at me. It saw that I had ruined my back, bonked my head and sustained several small lacerations, so it started purring quite loudly in my arms, and National Cat Day was officially under way.

     The love/hate relationship I have with cats has been going on ever since I realized that cats love to hate me. We once had a Cat that had no tail to grab. I think it was part Sphynx and part Manx, so it was probably a Spanx, which was appropriate because it could fit into a catsuit even at an age when most females would have given it up. It was as sweet and adorable as a cat could be, until it was just me and her alone in the dark room together. Then it would get out an emery board and sharpen its claws, looking at me and smiling. I would ask, "Whatcha doing?" And it wouldn't answer, but just sit there and shake its head. "You planning to use those claws on ME? I control your food source, you know." Still no answer, but it would rear onto its haunches with its claws up and hiss at me, and then snicker and shake its head some more when I flinched and hid behind the bed. It knew very well that my wife controlled the food source, and my wife LOVED the Cat. "I'm not afraid of you, I eat cats like you for lunch," I'd say, but the Cat knew I was terrified of it, and it also knew that I'm so picky about food that I would never eat it for lunch unless it was on the Kids' Menu. So I would resort to verbally taunting it, thinking I could win a war of words but not absolutely positive about that, even though it never spoke when I was around. "You don't even have a tail so I bet you have no balance. HA!" But the Cat actually had better balance, because it could sit up brandish its claws at me while resting on that little stub with no tail to get in the way.

     It had such good balance that once my wife cooked this fabulous Indian meal for her parents, to get them to take their mind off the fact that she was probably going to marry me. There were all these plates of food on the table, and the Cat jumped up onto it and ran the entire length straight at my face as fast as it could, hurdling all the plates of food like an obstacle course and narrowly missing my face as I ducked at the last moment. Her parents were absolutely shocked, not at the Cat but at the fact that my wife was probably going to marry me, and once again the Cat got off Scot free.

     The Cats we have now are from the veterinarian's office, where somebody had abandoned them, and I'm surprised that this doesn't happen more often. You drop your cat off at the vet for a worm shot or something, and come back the next day and the bill is $1400 dollars. Wow, $1400 bucks for some worms? I should have taken the worms in to have the cat removed, and I bet it would have been cheaper. "Yes, when you remove the cat just save it in a paper bag, and don't let the cat out of the bag." Most people get the cat for free at the ASPCA, so when you find that it's worth $1400 dollars to repair it's a shock. "My cat is ready? Oh, okay, great, I'll be right back with the money," and then you change your phone number and mailing address. I finally had a heart-to-heart talk with the Cat telling it that it was adopted, in case it wanted to go and find its birth mother, but it's still here.

     One of the Cats still chases its tail at the cat-age equivalent of, say, 55 years-old. That's like me still only eating foods that you would order off of a Kids' Menu. It's no use trying to reason with it. "That's kind of embarrassing at your age. And anyway, you shouldn't chase things that come out of your butt. Furthermore, where are you going to keep that tail if you ever catch it?" I'm not concerned about that because the Cat never catches ANYTHING. In the olden days the main reason you would get a cat is to control the mice population, but cats have evolved to the point where they can't really be bothered, and are content to just sit on the crossword puzzle that you're trying to do and knock your pen off the edge of the table.

     The Cat is still purring loudly as it celebrates National Cat Day, even though I'm forcing it to sit on my lap against its will, and that's part of the paradox of being a cat. It leads a life of leisure that few other creatures enjoy, and never lets us forget how lucky the rest of us are that it does. If my dog ignored me anywhere near as much as the Cat does it would be out the door in five minutes, but for some reason the smallest morsel of affection from the Cat seems to make all the other objectionable behavior worthwhile. An expensive new cat bed just arrived from Amazon in a cardboard box and the Cat absolutely LOVED it. Not the bed but the cardboard box. We can't even return it and get our money back because the Cat won't leave the box that it came in.