Member-only story
15 Things I Don't Like — Rants From An Old Boomer
I'm late to the party, but what else is new. I'm new(ish) to Medium, and like many, I need good writing prompts to stir my creative juices every now and then.
I've always had a cranky streak. In my twenties, a friend said, "I had the personality of a cranky old man." Now that I’m in my mid-50s, I decided not to deny — but embrace.
In that vein, here's my list of the 15 things I don't like, written with all the subtlety of Frank Costanza airing grievances during Festivus.
Telemarketers
They fucking annoy me. I'll be writing, and the words are flowing onto the page when the phone rings. It's some idiot trying to convince me to extend my car warranty or convert my home to solar. You ruined my flow asshole. Now I'm going to torture you. On a good day, I can make a telemarketer cry.
Sitting In Traffic
I live in New York City, the area where Robert Moses is celebrated for building bridges and hundreds of miles of highways, parkways, and expressways.
However, this genius didn't account for one thing — traffic.
Pick your poison; you can sit in weekend traffic on the Belt Parkway or in a parking lot on the Van Wyck or Cross Bronx Expressways all day.
Sitting in a bottleneck for 45 minutes then realizing it was caused by cars slowing down to get a better look at the accident in the other lane. makes me want to rip my nose off with a can opener.
People Who Are Always Late
My dad was obsessed with punctuality; it’s ingrained in my DNA. Being on time was never good enough. It was better to arrive 15 minutes early. My brother and I have memories of arriving at banquet halls hours before the event and watching the waitstaff set up the room for the evening.
God showed me he has a sense of humor, by surrounding me with people who are fashionably late for everything.
