Fighting the inner curmudgeon
 

I am a cranky old fart. My wife is exactly the opposite. She is so relentlessly cheerful it makes me sick. She has this thing where she makes one person smile every time we are out. It works for her. Standing in the checkout lane or wherever, she says something to someone and suddenly they are like best friends.

Me - not so much. Just leave me alone.

But she has challenged me to try, and sometimes I do OK. For example:

Last fall I was in the grocery checkout line behind a guy whose wife obviously left him with the cart. Her purse was in it. So I said to the guy, "Nice purse." He was the coolest dude! He said it's getting on to fall, and he was thinking of changing to a different color and some other stuff. His wife came back and heard us talking about purses and was like "WTF???" It was hilarious.

Some guy was parked in the middle of one of our narrow country roads. Pickup with a gooseneck trailer. I was pissed. GTF out of the way! Then he started backing up. There was a cut in the line of brush beside the road that was so narrow I almost didn't see it, and darned if there wasn't a little strip of a gravel drive in it. He backed that 24 or 28 foot trailer straight into the gap with 2 feet to spare on each side on the first try. Once he was in I pulled up and stuck my arms out the window and applauded the guy. Big smile from him.

A couple of days ago I was in line at the grocery with three things in my hand and a woman with a little girl was in front of me with a cart full. She invited me into line in front of her! There was a rack of candy bars right by and I asked the girl what kind of candy bars she liked. Long story short I bought her a candy bar and told the girl to tell her mother "thank you."

I was in line at the check out which was getting longer as I waited. I purposely didn't unload my cart as I felt a new checker was about to open up and they'd take the next in line who had stuff in hand or cart.
Sure enough another checker opened up and asked for the next in line to be helped which was me.
As I'm getting my cart unloaded some woman came running up saying 'I only have one item, I only have one item!' fully expecting me to give way. She hadn't even been in line at the other checker. I just looked at her and she backed off as I said "Good for you, I only have three items."

Yeah, it felt good to give that 'special person' a bit of reality.

It sure made my day to have that happen to me that day.

I'm a grumpy old guy some days, others not so much.

When I'm out in public, I usually find it easy to talk to people (I've had several jobs in life interacting with the public). My wife is always asking me, "Did you find a new friend?" Otherwise I mostly keep to myself. Maybe is my curmudgeonly side showing itself, but I don't feel the need to make space for other people.

I'm always actively fighting my inner old grumpy man.

I don't embrace it because I am unqualified, as most of us are here on a porsche forum, to be grumpy. On the right side of the grass, healthy and stable family, always food on the table, always safe. I don't mind when people complain but they have to earn the right and I haven't.

The glass is half full, it may be partially contaminated, but its still half full

I am still just a young coot ... livin' it day-to-day ;)

As the years click by I find myself becoming very intolerant of incompetent and or lazy workers at restaurants/stores. I have got up and left, told off managers etc. (My wife then lets me have it on the drive home.)

I also now have zero tolerance/respect for liberals or alphabets (I used to at least tolerate some of them to some small degree).

Don't get me started on all the folks with tats and piercings all over there faces/necks and hands.

I learned to talk to anyone long ago. I guess it was from hearing "class this is Glen the new kid" every year in school from 1st grade to 11th grade. I went to my wife's 50th high school anniversary, and se was busy talking to former classmates. I had a great conversation with one of the guys in her class she could never get to talk to her.

At this stage in life , there are zero fks to be given anymore .
Im just living my life and letting the rest of it roll off .
The one thing that I have learned , and I have been making a real effort , is to be friendly to people . It is so easy to pay a simple compliment , greet someone with a smlie, hold a door or make a polite gesture . 90% of the time, you can tell people are recptive to it and softens the interraction .
Just the other day at Target , I told the nice lady what a beautiful rack she had.
My super power is, I can ghost *******s like its my job, and never look back .

I want to be like my grandfather was late in life. To him everything was just a great big laugh. He didn't take anything or anyone too seriously.

Pretty much me too. I don’t have a list of people I can’t tolerate, I have a list of people I don’t give a fk about.

Ironically, one thing that does piss me off is people who are perpetually pissed off.

Been wondering why Fred and Patrick haven't called me lately :D

The older I get the more I want to make the lives of other people better so I try to do that with the exception of pick-ups doing 68 in the left lane and NC, SC, GA and FL drivers doing 65 max in the left lane. These special people I try to force of the road into a fiery crash. So there's that.

^^^ As a baby coot I just learned to pass 'em on the right side lane ... for years. Richard Petty got pissed on I-85 near here decades ago ... gave the slow-poke a luv-bump... it sorta ended The King's political career back then.

Different times.... :D

One of the things I figured out years ago was for many situation the choices are get angry, sad and cry about it, or laugh at the issue. Angry, just makes you feel bad like crying. Just laugh it off, and get on with life. That does not work for all situations, but many of them.

At a certain point life becomes a long goodbye. Its during this time your intangibles are the one thing you will be remembered for. Cultivate them with your family and leave a legacy. The average person is lost from history in two generations.

Yep, those folks just make the drive more interesting, like mobile chicanes.

Wednesday, after playing at the care home which has been my MIL's residence for the past couple of years, I mentioned I had used her grandfather's file to do some finish smoothing on a latch striker for the barn. I feel it is important to assure her he will be remembered after she passes. My granddaughter knows who he was and where he lived.

Best
Les

A very worthwhile & grounded observation.

Well said and very very true. In the grand passage of time, none of us really matter all that much.

I generally try to get along with everyone unless they totally piss me off and I tend to go scorched earth. My wife is much more the “get off my lawn” type. I’m just happy on the rare occasion that she isn’t mad at me.:D

LOL ... y'all need a "Get Off Our Scorched Earth Lawn" sign!