Unhinged Alaska: Grump Month

I’m not sure what it is about October that puts me into a mood that my wife refers to as my “Grump Month” but it has happened every year since I spotted my first gray nose hair.

It’s not an aging thing, trust me.

I’ve accepted that aggravating process with the grace of a moderately constipated grizzly.

October is a turning point where annoying things that I’ve let slide throughout the year finally overload my laid back psyche and the dark side of my Id starts firing snarks at the butts of the pseudo intellectual clueless.

Take the politically correct insanity sweeping the globe.

In Tokerville Seattle a school has renamed its Easter eggs “spring spheres” to avoid causing offense to people who do not celebrate Easter.

It is obvious that the town has a perpetual exhaled fog problem that isn’t weather related. It must be weird to live in a burg where your feet never touch the ground.

In the UK a city council has banned the term “brainstorming” and replaced it with “thought showers” because local lawmakers were worried the term might offend epileptics.

Rumor has it that they are a Sister City to the aforementioned stoners who are constantly trying to finish coloring their little spheres before some gender-nuetral, chocolate addicted, rodent steals their egg stash and distributes it to areas where school administrators have passed drug screening.

I’ll let this last one speak for itself.  

A job recruiter was stunned when her employment advertisement for “reliable” and “hard-working” applicants was rejected by the job center as it could be offensive to unreliable and lazy people.

Moving along …

I’d love to go on a rant about the denizens lurking in the vast swamp of TV reality shows but the landfill of characters is too expansive to give it a shot without being heavily self medicated.

Real quick … have you ever caught at least 10 seconds of a Kardashian show?

Most of those prima donnas wouldn’t stand a chance in a game of patty cake with an acutely concussed bivalve mollusk.

‘Nuff said because political correctness, bonehead reality shows, 2- for-1 TV product ads, disturbingly insulting online dating promos, and a weenie shilling cars while dressed in a dollar icon suit became minor irritants this year because of November 4th.

There’s an election barreling toward us and the war drums are beating.

Already some organizations claim that if we don’t vote their way polar bears won’t have bergs to park their heinies on and may have to breast stroke to Antarctica to add penguins as a supplemental food group.

Others claim the population is doing just fine.

Opposition supporters feel that the bears are healthy and great for the economy as tourist attractions or throw rugs.

They offered up the example of a reality TV camera crew that went north about a month ago to film a series about a pack of polar bears feeding on remains of whale carcasses. The title of the show was “Sharing Muktuk with the White Giants of the High Arctic”.

Unfortunately, the series featured just one partial episode, but on the upside, the funds garnered from auctioning off the recovered gear went toward the purchase of an armored vehicle should future Hell’s Kitchen contestants want to roll north to take a shot at creating blubber sautés and whale’s tail dunking strips.

Obliviously, parts of those bear anecdotes were made up but some elements have a tinge of truth just like most of the political ads filling the airways and our mailboxes.

To be candid, what really gets me riled up is the myriad of attempts by candidates to impugn their opponents.  

Throwing toxic innuendos at a rival to see what sticks comes across as being on the same stylish level as an individual applying for an executive management position while sporting a lavender leisure suit, matching suede ankle boots, a pimped out panama hat and massive grin featuring a hunk of spinach the size of a rain forest stuck between recently bleached incisors. Both approaches reflect the leadership potential of road kill.

Nominees should reflect class and adhere to touting their qualifications and fact-based talking points on the issues.

Leave the dirty fighting to troglodyte supporters lurking in local bars who have nothing better to do than sit around quaffing Duck Farts shots while spreading rancorous rumors until the equally bombed opposition takes umbrage and flattens them with their breath. 

No one with a functioning brain cell is going to believe that an opposing candidate comes from a long line of carnivorous trolls or that their family fortune was gleaned from running giant puppy mills in the mid west.

Lay off the claims that various contenders were expelled from preschool for plagiarizing a classmate’s ABC doodles or played amateur water polo with baby otters.

Who’s going to buy off on such tripe unless it’s Rosy O’Donnell after pounding a quart of Grey Goose vodka?

Give it a rest out there. Open a manhole and start searching for your self respect.

So ends my annual October vent. I now have a slate clean of angst for the holidays.

Is that cool or what?

Nick can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com.

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