Into the wind

by Paul Kandarian

CASUAL OBSERVATIONS in a chaotic world:

I just realized something: windows are made of glass!

I noticed the other day a habit of mine, rolling down the window to drive slowly by an address I’m looking for, or to peer into the woods looking for mushrooms (I’ve taken up foraging lately), as if the window weren’t made of glass and was instead a solid black pane of wood so that when I opened the window my vision would be like a revelation, like a blind man suddenly gifted with sight. I have no idea why I do this. I just do it.

I think this is the same principle as turning down the radio when looking for exit signs or street names. I’m passing this off as evolution still trying to keep our vision and hearing sharp to avoid predators like sabre tooth tigers. I’m pretty sure that’s why people still run as a hobby – instinctively they sense that something sees them as food and is chasing them because honestly, why in God’s name would any sane human find running fun and do it voluntarily? Virtually everyone I’ve ever seen running down the road has a look of agony on their face, as if they were being chased by, say, a sabre tooth tiger. Evolution’s got a ways to go, I guess.

Why do restaurants have signs that say “Don’t flush anything but toilet paper down the toilet?” Is someone going in there and saying, “Dammit, now I have to find another place to get rid of this dead body I dismembered and stuffed into my pockets.” Same thing as “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.” If you have to tell someone to wash up after dropping a deuce in the loo, I don’t think you want to eat there.

Most confusing sign I ever saw in the john was one reading “Flush the urinal AND the toilet!” in that demanding tone. For one thing, my arms aren’t long enough to reach both at once, and suppose I only use one? Why do I have to flush both?

To keep the toilet theme going, I stopped at a very new and modern Cumberland Farms gas station recently in Seekonk, went into the men’s room and was standing at the thing that men stand in front of in men’s rooms doing my business when I heard this woman’s voice and I panicked thinking for a split second I was in the wrong restroom but it was actually the stunningly realistic audio quality of the very new and modern Cumberland Farms PA system that I swear sounded like she was right behind me, but she was talking about the really crappy food offerings they sell there and not admonishing me for being in the ladies’ room.

Speaking of restrooms, and this is such a guy thing, but in the public realm of urinals, for the longest time I was, as the saying goes, “pee shy,” that frustrating condition of standing next to another guy doing his business. Not sure why, but one day long ago I must’ve gotten it into my head (the top one) that if another guy’s next to me, I’ll choke up. If it’s a friend, it’s fine, I can just talk as usual and do what I gotta do. But talking to the stranger next to you is a strict violation of men’s room urinal protocol, like taking the urinal immediately adjacent to a stranger if there are others you can use.

Oddly, as I’ve gotten older and the urge to go to the bathroom gets as powerful as the urge to eat, drink, and sleep, standing next to another dude doesn’t bother me one bit anymore. I gotta go, I go. Thought you’d like to know that. You’re welcome.

If you’re of a certain older age, you remember when you had three channels to watch and maybe a handful of shows, great shows like Bonanza, The Andy Griffith Show, All in the Family, etc. It’s not like I ache for those days, but now you finish watching a series on Netflix or HBO or Amazon Prime, and you have to find another. There’s no rest. You feel compelled to move on to the next show. You’re paying a boatload of money to watch TV now that used to be free, so you have to get your money’s worth.

Case in point: We just finished watching The Undoing recently, loved it, and before that, Schitt’s Creek, and actually cried when we made it to the last episode of the sixth season, which I never did even in my Lassie years. And we immediately set about trying to find another series to watch and settled on The Crown, which is lovely but should come with subtitles because even though it’s British and therefore technically in English, some of those accents are so bloody thick they all sound like a drunk Winston Churchill with a cigar in his mouth.

But the rub is that there is so much TV to watch now, we cannot possibly keep track of what’s out there. Social media does that and people suggest this show or that, and if you missed anything, you can always binge watch entire seasons. Which seems like way too much cerebral work. It’s like wanting to read six books that interest you and come highly recommended and then forcing yourself to read them all in a few days. Makes my brain throb just thinking of it.

My mind can’t take that kind of strain anymore. So I just watch Bonanza reruns. And of course, Lassie.