June 26, 2006
 
COMMENTARY: Running from the AARP – and Other Modern Foibles
 
By Mark Patinkin
The Providence Journal
 
Thoughts at Large:
 
News reports said Zarqawi was killed while meeting with his spiritual adviser. Am I wrong, or do they need higher standards over there for licensing spiritual advisers?
 
Don't you think that running political ads with a really bad picture of your opponent is kind of immature?
 
AARP keeps coming after me, but they'll never take me alive. Nestle's purchase this week of Jenny Craig is the perfect business model: Fatten them up with chocolate, then charge them to slim down. The runaway bride and that guy aren't getting married after all? I'm shocked.
 
Why couldn't God have given the oil to Luxemburg and Sweden instead of Iraq and Iran?
 
You know you're old when the only gifts you get from your adult children and grandkids are pictures of themselves.
 
If the defense of the Enron execs was true -- that they had no clue what was happening at their own company -- remind me why they were being paid millions a year in salary to run it.
 
I understand that 15-year-old boys have their own rituals, but I don't see the appeal of staying up in the basement until 3 a.m. and sleeping on a TV chair until noon.
 
If gasoline cost as much as coffee, it would be about $20 a gallon. And last I looked, they don't have to drill coffee from a mile under rock, process it in refineries and ship it by tanker around the world.
 
My household aquarium's algae eater spends all day hidden behind the filter intake. Is it possible for a fish to have agoraphobia?
 
Recent e-mail subject: "Underpaid? Not appreciated?" I don't know any employee who feels that way.
 
Jimmy Buffet sings: "... blew out a flip-flop, stepped on a pop-top." But does anyone under 25 know what a pop-top is?
 
The weather service issued the following advice for hot, humid conditions: "Drink plenty of non-alcoholic fluids." Did people think they were supposed to drink beer after jogging?
 
Watching six straight movie theater previews raises a question for our times: Are teen girls the only audience they make films for these days?
 
I like summer, but give me cold over 100-and-humid any time.
 
I thought my 16-year-old collie-lab mix has been deaf for two years, but the other day, I shook a box of dog biscuits by the front door and he came loping over from the back yard. Obviously, the whole thing was a scam.
 
Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda sure make me miss the Cold War.
 
Wise observation by a comedian: "Never get between your woman and chocolate."
 
I'll bet that, back in 1860, people were more in wonder at getting cross-country mail in 10 days than they are now at getting it electronically in 10 seconds.
 
We also take for granted cell phones, the Internet, Wi-Fi, cable, iPods ... I think we have wonder-fatigue.
 
Every time the people at the Fed talk, the market goes down. Will someone please tell them to shut up?
 
Is there anything more annoying than leaving behind your sunglasses on a cloudy day and within a half hour the sun is out and killing you?
 
If my family could only stop going to the grocery store, the gas station and CVS, my credit-card bills would be a lot more reasonable.
 
And a final thought from my 81-year-old father: "I've seen a lot of changes in my day, and I've been against every one of them."
 
Contact Mark Patinkin at mpatinki@projo.com
 
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