“Lost” . . . “confused” . . . “senile” . . . .”senior” . . . What do these words have in common?
Well, as anyone who reads this blog knows, all are sinonims . . . all are cinanims . . . all are synumnims . . . all are wurds that meen the same. To call someone a “confused senile” is redun. . . is not necessary; no need to add the “senile” part to that term, nor, for that matter, not necessary to add the “lost” part either since all seniors down here are both senile and lost.
The other day a “Silver Alert” was issued for some 85-year-old loon (let’s call him “Roy”) who was following his wife (let’s call her “Ruth”) from Maryland as they made their way in two cars to (where else?) here in Florida. Now, the surprising thing is not that Roy got lost on the way; the amazing thing is that Ruth even realized Roy was missing in the first place. For reasons she probably now regrets, Ruth did report Roy lost and after old Roy was found driving in circles somewhere looking for a post office to crash into, Roy and Ruth continued their trip south.
If ever there was a pointless alert it is this “Silver Alert.” As soon as the Silver Alert “lost” are found they go right back to getting lost again. In fact, the natural condition of these lost folks is, of course, lost . . . and confused, and angry, and irate, and stubborn, and argumentative, and greedy, and did I mention dangerous? Who in hell wants to “find” these so-called lost people? Let ‘em go, sez I. With a little luck maybe they will all drive or walk into one of our many canals or sink holes.
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Better Lost, Than Found—Seems like there are any manner of “alerts” here in dysfunctional Florida. Now, our local sheriff’s department has issued a MEAA (Missing Endangered Adult Alert) for one Mike Toth. Seems Toth, 23, was last seen leaving the Smokey Phantom Hookah Lounge last week where he was a co-owner. Why anyone would sweat a young man running wild for a few and report him lost is a mystery, but I think this is one character we might just as well leave lost. Toth is a mental who was discharged from the army for head reasons and he has been “noncompliant” in taking his meds. He has some pretty scary tats that suggest a life of violence is his raison d’ etre (cup of tea). Come to think of it, perhaps this “mental alert” is designed not so much to “find” Toth as to warn people to get the hell out of his way.
UPDATE—A “Found Alert” has been issued in the above “Lost Alert” of Mike Toth. Seems, as suspicioned, Toth was just hanging fire with a “friend” this past week. Sigh. Too bad some of this “sequestration” budget cutting rage doesn’t hit Florida and we do some sequestration castration on some of these totally useless Alert systems.
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Geezer Rant #2—Little did I truly realize when I wrote the blog a bit back (“Fun With Crime” 2.21.13) just how dangerous it is for cyclists here in Florida when these half-dead geez return south from their cold crypts in the North. It is just the strangest of ironies that the Dutch lady who ran into me the other day was youngish, smart, pretty, and usually, I adjudge, very alert to her surroundings. Had an addled elder ran over me—which, by the law of averages, is what should have happened—then I would be dead, dead, dead and they would still be searching for the tires that match the tread on my head and belly since the “confused” driver would still be totally unaware that he ran over anything.
Take today for example. An ancient driver pulled right in front of me at an intersection, right across the bike/pedestrian lane, and never ever did he see me . . . at least not until I was forced to screech to a stop almost right against his window. He smiled! He waved! He drove away!
Another “lost” driver was puttering down a residential street in front of me, and oblivious to either your blogger, or the cars bearing down on your blogger. Nope, he just kept moving, then stopping, moving, then stopping, right in the middle of the street, as if looking for some street or address, as if halting right in the middle of the street was a perfectly normal option. As mentioned in an earlier blog, it is this horrible indecision that is so dangerous about these fossilized motorists. They simply lack good judgment. When faced with even the simplest of decisions on the road, they generally just freeze. Never EVER assume that an old person will make a right turn onto another street like normal folks do, i.e. quickly. If you assume that very quickly you’ll be pulling your head out of your own windshield.
If car accidents were a quick way to get rid of these damn menaces, I would be all in favor of it, but they seem to never kill themselves. WE get killed trying to avoid them—we the young people and we, the pre-geezer t’weeners—but nope, like drunk drivers who survive after killing a van load of sobers, geezers seldom seem the victims of their own crazy driving.
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GMO—The Possibilities Are Endless
