Getting Crankier by the year

It seems to me that somewhere in our human programming is a self destructing gene called patience...as you get older it slowly deteriorates until at some designated time, it self destructs, leaving us just a tad bit, well, nasty with others.


I have always seen it. In my grandmother, who gripping her steering wheel for dear life yells at those "teenagers who speed so fast, where are they going in such a hurry." Now mind you, "those teenagers," I am pretty sure were a woman in her 60's, but when you are 92 whose counting? And the "speeding so fast," was probably about 40 in a 35 MPH zone. In fact, the 60 year old was probably loosing her mind behind the white knuckled 15 mph lady driving in front of her, because at 60 I am pretty sure the patient gene has already self destructed.


I have seen it in my dad, but that has almost always been with cars or computers. If something doesn't work, bang, bang, bang it again...isn't that how that saying goes? Oh, well that is how it goes in our family. Square pegs CAN fit in round holes, if you have the right tools...like a saw and a sledge hammer.


I have had heard it many times over, "damn kids," "Damn old people," "Damn dumb asses... what have you. In fact my husband and I used to watch that 70's show, and I used to secretly laugh because Red reminded me so much of family members...which will remain nameless for fear of of the anger gene coming my direction.

This all occurred to me today as I was riding in the car with my kids listening to Hannah Montana and me saying "all these songs are starting to sound the same..." Before I could reach out and pull them back in, those words my mother used to say to me, were out there. Floating around the car like some demented smiley face laughing at me. Reminding that every year my boobs get lower so does my threshold for noise!

It isn't just me though, I have been telling my husband that all the kids are going to be scared of him when he is older. They are going to call him "Old Man Lowery" as in "Don't go down to Old Man Lowery's house, he'll shoot you with his BB gun if you get in his yard." I can picture him coming down the driveway with his cane, yelling at the whipper snappers, and popping their football and throwing it back at them. "this is what you get for playing so close to my yard!"


I should say that this image has gotten so vivid in all of my families' heads now, that when he is getting crabby we all call him Old Man Lowery. Which thus far usually cures him for the time being. But secretly, I think he enjoys this image, and behind closed doors he is polishing up his BB's waiting for the day he can get away with it. Instead of getting arrested for being a horrible man, the police would just laugh and call him an eccentric old man.


I am sad to say that I think that mine is starting to deconstruct too. The young girl with blond hair whipping out the window of her "ShitVette," pedal to the metal and still only going 30 mph, music blaring, has been replaced by an over tired, short "I don't' want to have to fool with it" haired, yelling at the kids to turn down their headphones or they will loose their hearing, mom, whose music has gone from the Violent Femmes and Butt hole Surfers, to something lighter, like NPR...(I am however proud to say that Yanni or Zamphir, the master of the pan Flute has yet to float throughout the airwaves in my car. But I will say when I start jamming to Cher I am going to commit myself.)

So I guess it happens to the best of us. I just hope that I can hold on a little longer...I mean I do still love Green Day...just at the appropriate volume!