It seems counterintuitive, but the Cranky Old Guy gets a lot of mail. A fair amount of the correspondence is from people who want the old dude to cheer up and snap out of it and consider the brighter side of life. These are the same people who rescue pets and marry broken people that they think they can fix.

But most of the electronic mail is from people in search of answers; fellow travelers seeking enlightenment on those random topics that enter the human brain when the mind wanders, like when they’re waiting for a bus or in the deli section looking at unsliced meat. Some people think being cranky brings special powers … so they ask the odd man odd things.

Question Asker: “Is a walk as good as a hit?”
Cranky Old Guy: “No, if a walk was as good as a hit the guy with a “good eye” would be just as popular as the guy who hits home runs. The concept of a walk being as good as a hit was the invention of a Little League mom trying to provide false hope for an eight-year-old who couldn’t hit. Alas, the attempt to help the little bastard with his self-esteem backfired because once mom planted the seed that walking and hitting are the same thing, he never risked swinging and missing again. It can be handy from time to time to get on base any way you can, however, getting on base because the pitcher can’t throw strikes is like getting promoted at the company your dad owns, that is, you didn’t earn it and we only value what we earn.”

QA: “If you were buddies with a guy a long time ago but you haven’t seen that dude since 1980, are you still friends?
COG: “No, by definition friends don’t intentionally avoid each other for decades at a time. Naturally, you’ll still think fondly of that person, maybe even long to see them, but people we don’t communicate with for our entire adult lives are called strangers. It’s nothing you need to feel bad about. The people you used to know and the things you used to do create the memories that enrich our existence and then we share those memories with our real friends who end up, mostly, being the people we are related to.”

QA: “Do you catch a cold from being out in the cold?”
COG: “No, that’s a myth perpetuated by the jacket-and-coat industry. You catch a cold by coming into contact with undesirables and by sitting in the middle seat of an airplane. Think about this: two guys walk out in the snow, one in a t-shirt one bundled up with a parka and scarf. The guy in the t-shirt avoids obvious germ carriers while the parka guy shakes hands with a sketchy dude who just blew his nose, who gets sick?”

QA: “What will they call football when there’s no more kicking?”
COG: “Stupid. They’ll call it stupid. Football needs more plays that involve kicking, not less. I think you should get more points if you kick a football and it hits the upright or crossbar (you have to call it first). They should award extra yardage when a QB successfully completes a pass by kicking it to the receiver. There should be a fantasy football league just for punters. In our society the people who make the most money are the ones who A) have a highly specialized skill and B) are willing to take the most risk. The problem with socialism is that it gives someone else the authority to make decisions for your life – it gives society the license to protect people from themselves. That doesn’t work. If someone wants to risk his neck by running down after kickoffs, so be it. He’s measured the tradeoff between risk and reward. Non-players shouldn’t be able to politicize the foot out of football.”

QA: “What’s the surest way to become really, really cranky?”
COG: “The fast-track to becoming super cranky is to believe that you’re right all the time. If you think you’re always right, then virtually everything people say to you will piss you off – it’s like instant crankiness. You might also try listening to a continuous loop of Guns & Roses and U2 which guarantees being cranky. And another good technique is to have unrealistically-high expectations of mankind, this will ensure that you’re disappointed daily leading to consistent crankiness.”

QA: “What’s the rule about seeing old rock bands, like how many original members do there have to be?”
COG: “As a general rule, it really only takes one live original member of a band for you to be able say, ‘Ya, I saw that band!’ Of course, you’ll run into guys that will brag about seeing the original lineup back in 1967, but you don’t have to take a back seat to those guys, just don’t talk about when you saw a band … talk about the venue and drop the name of the band member who’s still alive. For most bands this one-original-member policy holds true but there are exceptions. Many bands have one or two signature/transcendent players, and that changes everything. If you saw Queen without Freddie Mercury, then you never saw Queen. Journey without Steve Perry? Doesn’t count. If a dude like Eddie Van Halen leaves the building he takes the entire concept of seeing Van Halen in concert with him. You get the idea, but rock on.”

QA: “About how many cigars should I be smoking a week?”
COG: “I think eleven. You should smoke one cigar each day during the business week, something solid and reliable, and then two or three of your best cigars on Saturdays and Sundays. I ran into a guy who said he used to smoke cigars but quit because he could never get the cigar taste out of his mouth, he was smoking a couple of cigars a month. I said, ‘There’s your problem! You’re not smoking enough. How do you expect to get good at something if you don’t practice?’ I changed the man’s life that day.”

QA: “Is golf a sport?”
COG: “Of course not, golf is something rich people do to pass the time while drinking. The two most important requirements for playing golf are time and money, and if doing something is totally predicated on having hours and hours of idle time and tons of discretionary cash then, well, it can’t be a sport. There is a degree of dexterity that seems to be involved, but sweeping the driveway takes dexterity too and just because I do it wearing a $400 collared shirt with breathable fabric and use a graphite broom doesn’t make fuckin’ sweeping the driveway a sport.”

QA: “What’s the smartest thing about a Smart Car?”
COG: ” We all know that according to the technical definition (that being smart means possessing some form of intelligence) there is nothing ‘smart’ about the Smart Car. Still, it does have some interesting features. Like, did you know that when you’re done driving a Smart Car you can simply fold it up and put it in your pocket? Yep, imagine the money you could save on parking? Pull up to a sporting event, and when they ask you to fork over twenty dollars for parking, you simply get out fold the dumb little car up and walk away with it saying, ‘Twenty bucks to park what?’ Also, in a Smart Car, you can poke your left elbow out the driver’s window and then at the same time hang your right elbow out the passenger window, pretty nifty.”

QA: “How come you never call me?”
COG: “There’s really no reason for a grown man to talk on the phone. We can maybe talk the next time I see you.”

Photo credit: adesigna on Best Running /CC BY-NC-SA