More and more recently, it seems people, myself included, have complaints. While I’m sure they are quite valid, I’m becoming equally sure that we really need some humor in our lives. Of course, there is also stuff to be terrified about. Mitch Traphagen photo.
Despite the best efforts by staff, marina restrooms and showers aren’t the best places to hang around naked. My marina is no exception in that regard. In my entire boating life, I’ve seen very few exceptions.
Regardless, in order to actually shower, the above qualifier is necessary, even if it can be unpleasant. The first few days back on the boat are the most difficult. I just don’t want to put all of my stuff and towel into a backpack and go over there.
But somehow, almost as if by magic, it gets easier. I get into a rhythm and marina showering somehow becomes more routine and less frightening. It simply becomes a part of life.
To me, that is, perhaps, a very small microcosm of life itself. We can endure almost anything if we set our minds to it or get accustomed enough to it. That’s not saying we should get accustomed to nasty things such as bad politicians and so on — but that we can.
I’m going to try to remember that when the inevitable day arrives in which I am happily visiting Dr. Satya Gullapalli in Sun City Center and she, as I know she ultimately will, mentions what is among the most terrifying words in human experience: colonoscopy.
I love my doctor. In fact, if she weren’t married, probably with children, I may well ask about adopting her. And thus far I’ve always skipped merrily out of her office, in small part due to the fact that the above word has yet to be mentioned.
But when it is, I’ll go from a 50-something man to a wide-eyed four-year-old, with hands and voice trembling, mumbling, probably too softly to actually be heard: “ooookkkkkaaayyyy then.”
In the meantime, there is something else that I’m having to face up to: my email. Now there is one good thing about being the old-guy-in-the-newsroom, and that is I generally get to write nice and fun stories that don’t generate a lot of hate mail.
Regardless, it’s not hate mail that I’ve started to dread about my inbox — it’s what I’ve come to refer to as complaint mail. Some cosmic switch must have flipped in the past few months because an increasing number of people are feeling pretty victimized out there. In saying all of this, I am not commenting on the validity of their claims — not in the least — well, except perhaps to say that absolutely nothing has happened in Sun City Center or even in Hillsborough County that could possibly be compared to what Hitler did. Seriously — nothing. There is nothing even close.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that we could gather up every single Really Bad Person in Hillsborough County, mash them all together into some seriously vile beast, and we still wouldn’t get Hitler. So I have to respectfully ask that we have a moratorium on the Hitler comparisons. Because there is no comparison. Not even with what your crazy neighbor did.
So, continuing on … I’m certain that much of the complaint mail that I’ve been receiving of late has validity. But the problem is, some people aren’t just interested in solving a problem — they want the entire freaking earth scorched in the process of vindication. Seriously — not everyone wants simple reporting on an issue of societal concern; they want death, destruction and veins in their teeth.
I’m sorry, that’s not going to happen. Not in this newspaper. Not in any legitimate newspaper.
Here’s the problem with scorched-earth philosophies and newspapers: We get a call, an email or even an anonymous letter that some bad person is doing some bad thing. As part of determining if a news article is warranted, we’ll get the writer’s or caller’s side of the story.
But here’s where we run into some trouble with that first person: We’ll also go to get the other, supposedly evil, person’s side of the story. So you might wind up with two people using verbal flamethrowers against each other or you might end up with one flamethrower and a “no comment.”
And speaking of which, when I was too new to be the old-guy-in-the-newsroom-writing-happy-stories, I always strongly discouraged the use of “no comment.” Nothing makes you look more like … well, not Hitler, certainly, but at a minimum a guy with something to hide.
Aside from columns such as this (yes, I appreciate the coincidence), our position isn’t to scorch the freaking earth — at least not without trying to get a comment from the evildoer.
All that said, there really are legitimate complaints — and evildoers — out there. Sometimes we can help. Sometimes we can’t. Almost always, such things involve pain and sadness. There is nothing fun about it. Even when we can help, that doesn’t remove the original wrong.
That there are indeed legitimate victims out there is a problem that only seems to be getting worse, likely because we are rapidly becoming a more stratified planet. People are feeling squeezed for every last moment and every last penny — and while no one entity feels as though they are responsible, the sum total of all of the squeezing is sometimes downright overwhelming.
Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll see the end of that until the day comes when some evil-dabbling corporation’s board of directors is sitting on a Texas death row in custom-tailored suits. In other words, don’t hold your breath for it.
Despite all of that, we really need to find a way to laugh again. I think a lot of people, myself included, need to find some humor in our lives. People are wound really tight, and now and again a seam or two pops. It’s not always pretty.
Certainly, we’ve had our trials over the past decade or so, but I think a bunch of people just stopped laughing entirely when serious suggestions were thrown around about having plastic sheeting and duct tape on hand to build your own survival shelter in a coat closet.
Yes, there are ugly realities in life, but that’s no way to live.
I think that just like world evil and marina showers, we can get accustomed to humor again. In fact, I think it’s more important than ever that we do. It’s getting bad out there, and before you know it, people’s heads are going to start exploding. That would be A Very Bad Thing and certainly nothing to laugh about.
I had a doctor’s appointment last week. All went as would be expected and I skipped out of there giggling to myself. If anyone behind the desk had so much as started to say, “Hey! Wait! You’re due for a col…” — I would have been halfway down Cypress Creek Boulevard flying back to Ruskin laughing maniacally before the rest of it came out.
Colonoscopy. It’s kind of a funny word.
