(Note from Lee Cuesta: I am offering this light-hearted guest post amid this temporary national emergency with the intention that it might bring some humor and levity to your periods of self-isolation and social-distancing. As noted at the end, you have my permission to reprint this in your publication or on your website if you’d like a short, humorous piece for your audience.)
Guest post by Don Delfeen*
My first pet-peeve:
The New ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
People who are starved for attention; i.e., people who believe that nobody pays them enough attention: these people are classified as having Attention Deficit Disorder. They are people who suffer from an attention deficit. So what do they do? They go overboard trying to generate more attention for themselves. This is the new definition for ADD. Some examples:
⦁ well-to-do retirees in muscle cars or hot-rods. Although they want me to smile, nod and acknowledge their fancy wheels, my passive-aggressive nature forces me to look the other way.
⦁ the customer who walks into the home improvement superstore with a large tropical bird, either brightly colorful or pure white, on their shoulder. They are begging the public to admire their bird, and by extension, to notice them as well. They are starved for attention.
⦁ insecure individuals covered with tatoos, or the ones with ultraviolet hair. They are silently screaming, “Look at me!”
⦁ people who sigh heavily, expecting me to acknowledge them for this reason.
⦁ people who laugh because of something they see on their smartphone, expecting me to ask, “What are you laughing about?”
Finally, there are people who ask me “How are you?” solely because they expect that I am going to turn it around and ask how they are, because they have some sickness or ailment or medical procedure they want to tell me about. So I will never reciprocate with that question because I don’t want to know how they are, and I refuse to open the door for them to tell me.
As I just said, my passive-aggressive nature forces me to look the other way and ignore all those are starved for attention, who suffer with the new ADD. When you hear about this new disorder later, remember that you read it here first. Thanks. I need the attention.
#2. Urinalphobia
What’s up with the modern masculine male identity? In the restroom at the home improvement superstore, there are two urinals separated by a wall, which is one of those restroom “partitions.” Nevertheless, if I am already standing at one of the urinals, other men will inevitably go into a stall to use a toilet, even if only to urinate.
Now, there does seem to be an age factor in this characterization. In general, the older gentlemen — around my age — exhibit no inhibition while they walk up beside me and unzip their flies. On the other hand, younger guys — such as Millennials and younger — will never walk up to the urinal beside me.
It is as if they’ve been feminized and domesticated so thoroughly that they don’t even know what a urinal is. Either that, or they are so self-conscious and shy that they cannot comprehend standing next to another man with both their penises exposed. They suffer from urinalphobia, but what are they afraid of?
In the restroom of a local grocery store that is part of a regional supermarket chain, the urinal is one of those old-fashioned styles that goes all the way down into the floor, and there is no partition between them. Now that might feel intimidating to some insecure punk.
Here is the main reason why I find this urinalphobic behavior so annoying. The sit-down toilet in the stalls is an AquaVantage HET (high-efficiency toilet) by ZURN, and it consumes 1.28 GPF (gallons per flush). Plus, using motion detectors, they flush automatically every time. This is very wasteful for eliminating only liquids. So I want to photocopy this statement and post it inside the stalls, which these urinalphobes will clearly see and read as they are standing there pissing:
“If you are facing this note, then you are peeing.
Don’t be a wasteful moron.
Next time, use the urinal, and not this toilet.
This toilet wastes 1.28 gallons every time it flushes, even to simply remove your liquid pee, you moron.
The urinal uses only 0.125 gallon per flush. That’s why it is called The Pint.
So next time you pee, be a man and walk up to the urinal.”
On the other hand, at my current age, I must admit it is kind of nice not to have one or two other younger guys come and go at the urinal beside me while I’m still standing there waiting for my penis to finish its business.
* A three-minute open-mike performance featuring comedian Don Delfeen
can be seen at the leecuestalive channel on YouTube.
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Text & Artwork Copyright © 2020 by Lee Cuesta Enterprises and Associates (LCEA). Permission is granted to reprint this article in its entirety with the condition that its source (this website) and its author (Don Delfeen) are both acknowledged.