Curmudgeon Cartoonist

Bizarro is brought to you by Classic Messiah Pranks.

I think I've ranted about GPSs on this blog before, so I'll skip it today except to say that I like the GPS on my iPhone precisely because it has no voice. I find noises very distracting. With a talking GPS, I am habitually telling it to shut up.

I have a lot of bugaboos like that, mostly to do with sound. I love music, but I can't stand to hear music from a source other than my own doing. Like if I can hear a neighbor's stereo, or a car is parked outside with the radio blasting. (In Brooklyn this happens a LOT. Loud car stereos are the mating call of the local species.) Even if it is a song I like, which is virtually never because I'm really picky about the music I like (surprise), I still find it irritating and drift toward thoughts of violence or at least a water cannon.

I think I am unable to ignore sound. For instance, I cannot read in public unless it is quiet. If people around me are talking, I can't NOT hear them, no matter how riveting the book is. Even if I'm not reading, I can't stand to hear other people's conversations. It drives me nuts. I want to tell them to shut up, nobody cares where Robert went on his vacation last year and whether or not he would recommend the hotel he stayed in. In NYC this happens a lot, usually on a bus or the subway. You're right, I should probably live in a suburb or out in the country somewhere, but it's just too boring.

Car alarms make me want to learn to use explosives. People are so used to ignoring car alarms, how could they possibly thwart a theft under any circumstances? So you hear a car alarm and see a guy fumbling with a car door: you root for him to succeed and disable the alarm, or at least drive the car away.

These irritants are becoming worse lately, perhaps it is age. I prefer the term "curmudgeon," but I think I may just be an a**hole.

SPECIAL COMMENT: Thanks for all the caption submissions on yesterday's post. Many of them were funnier than the one I had originally written. Now I'm reticent to divulge it. Suffice to say that many of you have my silent respect.