Stay away from mummies and people who name volcanoes while drinking

PHOTOS

Click on image to view.

DISCUSS

Comments Comment on this story

Lately, my mind has become a veritable broom closet of thoughts and questions about life.

Maybe this is what happens to seniors when they approach mach age and brain bytes become jumbled, soaring from clarity to wonder, especially in this tech age when you just learn to use something and they invent a better one, which works faster, is more complicated and does everything but the laundry.

I carry both a digital camera and a cellphone in my purse, and half the time I don’t know which one I am supposed to use to take a picture and which one calls people. I think they both perform both functions. Well, maybe my camera doesn’t call people. I’m not sure.

For instance, the main question that swirls in my mind daily is, “What in heaven’s name is this world coming to?” I got a message yesterday on my computer offering me a fake university diploma. Honestly, I’m not kidding.

“We design our degree or diploma certificates and transcripts to look 99.99 percent identical to world famous originals, including identical security grade transcript paper, identical water markings, raised-ink crest,” etc.

I might be wrong here, but isn’t that a crime? Can you advertise criminal activities now? Like, “Excellent bank robbing offered. Just call us and we’ll rob the bank of your choice. You name it. We’ll even let you drive the getaway car, and we’ll split half the profits with you. ”

Or maybe, “Authentic, fake Rembrandts for sale, cheap. We fool even art dealers and art museum aficionados!”

Then, have you noticed the name of the rock bands that are playing in your area? Just pick up one of those free magazines that advertise local happenings in clubs. I have one here that advertises these rock bands: Guitar Godz, The Black Order, Here Come the Mummies, Dead Girl Sorry, Kill the Rabbit and Smokin’ Gorillas.

Well, I must admit that the last name, the Smokin’ Gorillas, intrigues me because I have yet to see a gorilla smoke, and that would be a heap better than seeing a dead girl who is sorry. What are these people thinking? Whatever happened to Lawrence Welk and his bubbles and Les Brown and his Band of Renown? What is this world coming to?

Even Iceland can please me no more. In a recent magazine I read, “Thar she blows! Iceland … A year after the Eyjafjallajokull eruption grounded intercontinental travel, the volcano Grimsvotn spewed smoke and ash, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.”

What in the world, were they thinking when they named those volcanoes? If one, were erupting near you, how long would it take the emergency crews to warn you because it would take them at least an hour just to figure out how to pronounce it?

I guess the sad thing is that just about everything is irritating me nowadays. They should make a movie titled “Grumpy Old Women.” Even rubber bands have been irritating me lately.

I truly am beginning to think that life is about rubber bands — the small things in life that irritate you.

There are lots of rubber bands — thin red ones, thick beige ones and an occasional green one. Have you ever noticed how much time you spend picking up rubber bands off the floor or collecting them off your desk, your end tables, your counters?

Rubber bands and paper clips, they seem to be lying around everywhere, and they multiply in the night. They come on the Sunday paper, thick and beige and if you stretch and break one, they snap your fingers and hands. You’ll find them on your produce to keep asparagus from separating.

They’re handy little things, but they are part of the details of life. They meant it when they said that the devil is in the details, the details of life — the small things.

The guy that cuts in front of you in traffic and gives you the finger, the paper bag that breaks and spews your canned goods all over the sidewalk — I know you’re not supposed to sweat the small stuff, but what do you do with it if you don’t sweat it or complain about it?

Well, life is all about rubber bands and how you handle them. You can let them irritate you or you can use them to keep stuff together and be thankful for them.

You’ll be better off, I think, if you do the latter.

However, I would stay away from mummies and people who name volcanoes while they’re drinking.