In Praise Of Cotton-Heads

Here's the hierarchy of the universe:

Dogs rule, kids drool, and old people are cool. (oh, and Frasier is a tool, and Chapeau is a fool.)

Seriously, old folks totally rock. Yeah, they can be annoyingly stubborn and set in their ways, and they've been known to make mountains out of molehills. But what's better in life than hearing their stories, helping them out, and just plain old hanging around them?

Yeah, that's right. Nothing.

There's this old lady I'll call Grandma. She's the epitome of a cool old person. She rocks, she rolls, she rules.

Yeah, she rides herd on her dogs a little hard sometimes. But she doesn't do it to piss anyone off, canine or human. She does it because, well... That's just how she is. It's a combination of age and personality and world-view, and it is by-god harmless.

She's of an ethnicity and an era that make her, um... thrifty. And that's really cool, because it means chocolate eyeballs for Christmas.

No, that's not as weird as it sounds. Let me explain. There's always candy left over from Halloween, including those spherical chocolates that are wrapped up to look like eyeballs. Grandma is frugal, thus she would never waste said candy. So on Christmas, when she's putting together the goodie bags for her loved ones, she puts the eyeballs in with the Nestle Crunch bells and the Ferro Rochers.

It's cute, and charming, and very Grandma.

Grandma also tells cool stories. And she steals steins from German beer gardens. And she orders huge dinners in restaurants, and hoovers down every bite.

How can you NOT love someone like that?

And she's not alone. The world is full of old folks, with their eccentricities and their wisdom and their great old-people ways. Sometimes those closest to said old people find them annoying, and I guess that's understandable. They are the ones who have to deal with them, day in and day out.

But, ya know, children are a lot more annoying than senior citizens, and yet everyone's expected to be all smiley-nice with the sproggies. Somehow it doesn't seem fair that it's okay to be short-tempered with the oldsters, but the youngsters get a pass. Far as I'm concerned, Grandma has earned her right to do whatever the fuck she wants to. Bratley and Snotley have earned no such right.

So here's to every day being Cotton-Head Appreciation Day. Love 'em while you got 'em, folks. They won't be around forever, and you'll miss everything about them when they're gone.

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