In Defense of Holly Petraeus: Don't Vilify the Victim

As soon as I saw the first pics of Holly Petraeus surface, I knew someone would put it out there, the contention that, because of the way she looks, she is somehow responsible for her husband David's extremely over-publicized affair with his biographer. And sure enough, a couple of days ago I was caught in the crossfire of just such a discussion, with two people I know contending that if Mrs. Petraeus would've kept herself more attractive, maybe the General wouldn't have had to look elsewhere.

"I solemnly swear to serve this office to the best of my ability. Fidelity? Hmm, that's a tough one. Can I get back to you?"

Seriously? We're still vilifying victims? In this day and age? I mean, do we still think that a girl who dresses a bit skimpily deserves or is asking to be raped, too? I can't believe this attitude still exists.

Anyway, these two guys were saying things like, "How can you blame him?," and "Just look at her," making his infidelity an inevitability, the forgone conclusion of her "letting herself go." Furthermore, they went on to say that they've told their wives that they better keep themselves together, from an aesthetic standpoint, or all bets were off. The justification they provided: if they let themselves go then they would expect their wives to go get a bit on the side, too. "It's just human nature," they said.

So, that's what the bond of marriage -- 34 years in the case of the Petraeus' -- is all boiled down to? How fit you remain? How well you keep your hair and nails? How smooth your skin will be? How flat your stomach will be and

Hmmm.....I thought it was for better or for worse?

I know, I know. I'm just being naive, unrealistic. Maybe it's a sign of the times, when people are placated and placate themselves constantly, so that they never have to wait, suffer, try hard, work through things.

But I don't think so. Not when you hear stories of the the men and women out there who've helped their spouses through the worst diseases, become their caretakers, put the needs of their spouse before their own.

I'm sure the good General didn't mind his wife's big belly when she was pregnant with their two children. And, when the General was battling cancer, maybe Holly should've been given a license to cheat? I mean, she didn't sign up to be married to some sick cancer patient!

Hey, none of us know what the inner workings of the Petraeus marriage is like, which is a good thing. It's none of our collective business, as long as he didn't do anything to put the security of the nation in jeopardy. And I'm old enough to understand that things do happen between men and women that are good, not so good, and bad.

Maybe they, one or the other, fell out of love. Maybe he and Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' coital accomplice, fell in love. Maybe the General is just a weak man. Whatever way you slice it, he did break the vow of marriage.

Holly appears to be a smart, productive woman. Summa Cum Laude from Dickinson University, an impressive career, mother of two, wife of someone who's probably been away more than available for most of their marriage. Maybe that's the problem too. While the General was off playing war games with the other boy soldiers of the world, she was left holding down the fort.

Further, don't put such words into the mouth of the General. He knows why he did it; he knows what he's all about. Don't make assumptions based on your own failings.

5 Things That Really Irk Me: Singing Retail Clerks, Socks With Sandals, Escalators, and More

As a crotchety old man in the making, there are many things I out there that annoy me: politicians, telemarketing, people who drive too slow or too fast. The list goes on. But those things are obvious; everyone hates politicians and bad drivers.

The following list, however, features some of those things that maybe go unnoticed or are forgotten, but  still have a way of settling just underneath my epidermis, and probably yours too, if you’re normal like me:

Hip retail clerks who insist on singing in the store. That skinny hipster with the spiky hair, thin beard, tight reddish jeans, and plaid shirt is supposed to be folding the clothes in the dressing room, or getting a pair of size 12s from the back. Instead, he’s crooning in an annoyingly airy falsetto along with some neo-soul song playing over the store’s stereo system as if the store is his stage and the merchandise is his audience.

People who drag their stuff around behind them in wheeled pieces of luggage. Did you really need to pack so much stuff that you’re unable to carry it like a normal person? It’s bad enough that you exist in the space already granted to you by God and nature; now you want the three feet or so behind you, too, all because you’re too lazy to pick up your bag and carry it at your side. I think it would even make more sense to push the thing out in front of you – at least that way you’d be able to see where you’re wielding that thing! And you gotta love when they decide to release or retract the handle – at the bottom or top of an escalator or stair case – right in front of you. Get a clue, and out of my way!

People who whistle their esses. I don’t know what they’re doing differently than the rest of us to form their “S” sounds, but it’s annoying! Maybe they need to their mouths just a bit more, or open them. Or, try moving your tongue away from your bottom lip, or purse your lips a bit less. Whatever it takes! Just please stop whistling every time you pronounce an “S” sound. It’s like you’re calling your dog 50 times during our conversation, or like a stuttering tea kettle that never quite boils! Seriously (that’s not a good word for you, by the way), I find it distracting and impossible to pay attention to what you’re saying. Here are some other words I think you should stay away from until you figure this out.

Succinct, success, sauces, saucy, Sausalito (in fact, never go there), San Francisco (don’t even try spelling that), recess, abscess, sausages, Caesarian, feces, isthmus, secede, sustain, tresses, trespasses, Mississippi, resonance, resistance, persistence

There’s plenty of other ones, and keep away from pluralizing anything!

Socks With Sandals. Thanks Sudoku-playing dude on the train this morning for reminding me of one of great pet peeves. I almost forgot about this one, but I happened to look down and saw those cotton-covered toesies poking out of the sandals’ front holes. But please remember this simple rule next time you decide to violate this simple rule of fashion:

If it’s chilly enough for socks, it’s too cool for sandals.

Sandal season is officially over at that point! It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Listen, if you have some funky foot ailment that precludes you from exposing them in public, we all thank you for using discretion. But sandals over white tube socks do not a fashion statement make. And any….shoe would be better in that situation.

Escalators. For the majority of people I see using escalators, it’s simply out of pure laziness. Most people who use them are young enough, fast enough, and mobile enough to take the staircase. There’s no evidence of time-saving. In fact, I’m sure it can actually take longer, depending on the circumstances, like when that jerk stands in the “left lane” (the escalator passing lane) just so he can talk to his buddy, rather than move over to the right. My real problem with escalators, especially when ascending, is that you’re way too close to parts of people that we spend our whole lives trying to avoid. Who knows what smoky, gaseous emission is about to emanate from the ass in front of you, which just happens to be perfectly lined up with your nose. I don’t take that chance.

Don't Be That Dude: You Put a Calvin Peeing Decal on Your Car?!

Oh my God, dude!

I thought that was your car the other day, but I said to myself, "Even that dude would never be so corny."

Alas, you are. Why did you do it, dude?

Why did you put that stupid decal on your car that shows an evil Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes on your car? It just doesn't mesh with the whole mini-van, two-kids-and-a-wife, picket fence routine.

The worst part is where you placed it. It looks like Evil Calvin is peeing on the similarly corny white stick figures that are supposed to represent you, your wife, your two kids, and the dog. What is wrong with you?

You didn't realize that? Well, guess what? Your wife did.

What's next?

The bull balls under the rear of the car? Or how about those reflective naked women stickers?

Anyway, I'm very surprised at you, dude!

That's just not you! Do you desire to be some musclebound, meathead, Guido who drives around cutting people off, giving them the finger, and spreading ill to your fellow man? In a mini-van?

Hey, look. I'm not saying you gotta put on the bumper sticker that spells out "COEXIST" in various religious symbols. But this Evil Calvin thing has got to go. It's not you. You were never that little mischievous kid who wreaked havoc on the neighborhood. And, sad to say, you never will be.

So, take it off dude.

And, while your at it, get rid of that sticker that says, "My kid beat up your honor student." Just because your kids aren't bright doesn't mean parents shouldn't be proud of what their kids have achieved.

Don't be that dude.

No Good Excuse for Long Island Rail Road

The customers are onto you, Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). Switching problems, lightning strikes, track fatalities, slippery track conditions, signal failures, police investigations — these are just some of excuses you pawn off on us as reasons for late or cancelled trains.

But as far as excuses go, they’ve become tired and lame.

If you’re going to keep us locked up in one of your frozen, stinky cars for four hours or more during a snowstorm, or turn us into crispy hot dogs on the Jamaica station platform as we wait for phantom trains, then we deserve better. We want to be entertained.

This is a more sophisticated, more jaded society Helena Williams, and we will not be treated like children. Don’t pander to us with these lame reasons for the failure of you or your equipment. Give us what we want!

I mean, I was once trapped inside a train sitting at the Penn Station platform, while we waited for a late conductor. No one ever said word, until we started moving, and they said there had been some “confusion.” Oh, truer words were never uttered from the LIRR.

But there is hope.

What the Long Island Rail Road needs is to establish a Department of Excuses. It could sort of be a covert arm of the current, useless marketing department.

Think of it. You could bring in some of the greatest minds we have from sales, advertising, marketing, politics, and the legal profession, and you’ll have yourself one heck of an excuse-creating machine.

You see, you guys have it all wrong. The trick is not less communication when something goes wrong. You have to give the public — many of whom happen to be your customers, not sure if you know that — what we want to hear, and in huge, heaping, triple-shot-sized doses.

We don’t want reality; just look at what’s on TV. No, we want to be entertained, even when our train is going to be two hours late, and we have to shell out $75 to ride in the back seat of a cab driven by a psycho muttering about terrorists.

So, for once give us what we expect. Give us the best damned excuses you can think of, and then beat us over the head with them.

Once this program becomes a success at the LIRR, and I know it will, you’ll have the perfect “excuse” to raise the fares again. The great part is, none of the commuters will complain, because we’ll be magically quelled by some grand excuse. It’s a win-win really. And then you can roll it out to the rest of the MTA, or even franchise it to other companies.

I mean, Verizon has been telling me for 4 years that my landline keeps going out because the copper cable is susceptible to the rain. How lame is that?! They can do better, and so can you.

Let’s start right here, and right now, LIRR.

Hey everybody on Facebook! Guess What? I’m at the Shake Shack!

So, I finally made it to the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park yesterday, with a bunch of friends from work.

It was OK, we left work early enough to avoid the crazy lines. The food did not live up to the hype, but how could it? The burger was fair. The shake, in all its sugary shakiness, was superb, however.

Anyway, when I got back to work and checked my e-mail, I noticed one from Facebook:

XXX tagged you at Shake Shack, Madison Square Park

(the names have been removed to protect the guilty).

Sure enough, the link took me to a little page on Facebook in which everyone who was at lunch was tagged.

Now, it’s really no big deal. I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I was scarfing down tons of calories, sugar, cholesterol, and fat during lunch. I am dreading having to answer questions from my relatives and friends…”Ohhhhhh, you went to the Shake Shack? How was it? Was it good? I heard it’s good. Are you coming over this weekend?”

I hope this breaking news does not go viral, but I’m sure it will. I mean, who will not be interested in the fact that six co-workers went to the Shake Shack for lunch on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon? I didn’t see anyone else there who fit that profile, so I could see how important it was to post.

Is this really what people do with their smartphones, and Facebook, and all the other groundbreaking technologies that have been invented over the past decade? The hell with curing cancer, feeding the world’s homeless, or improving nutrition choices; I want people to know where I am and who I’m with. So worried are we about the nanny state, but we’re creating it for ourselves.

I shutter, just a bit, when I think about it. Maybe I’m just easing into the role of crotchety old man. Sounds good. Give me a porch, a swing, and a rum and coke!

Don't Be That Dude: Speaking in Movie Quotes

Dude, when you got pulled over that time, and the cop asked you if you'd been drinking, and you said, "That's the fact, Jack!" like Bill Murray in Stripes, that was legendary. You solidified your place in the folklore of stupid things guys do. It's a classic tale.

And when you were at the bar, and that girl asked you what your name was, and you go, "Keyser Soze," that was pretty funny too. Totally unexpected and off the cuff. So what if she called you an ass and hooked up with Sluggo.

But you gotta stop with the movie quotes, dude. Like always, you take something pure and good and organic, and overdo it. You run it into the ground, and drive it like a nail into your own comic coffin.

Oh no? You don't? It's good material?

Uh-uh, dude. No one thinks it's funny, especially when you do it all the time! And you use these lines when they don't even make sense, with bad impersonations too.

Yes you do! Yes you do, dude!

The other day, at work, we were in that meeting. You got up to use the restroom and you announce, "I'll be back," and wink at everyone in the room. Then you start laughing to yourself as you walked out the door.

Then, Joe told me that when you were standing at the urinal, you were still laughing about it, and you go, "Say hello to my little friend" in that stupid Scarface accent. That's disgusting dude!

One of the worst examples, was when we were all over by the water cooler a couple of months ago. You overheard someone talking about a tumor, and of course you pop in and say....

Right! "It's not a tumor" from Kindergarten Cop.

What's wrong with that? Dude, it is a tumor! A brain tumor. We were all talking about why Jen P. hasn't been at work in a while you dope!

And when people ask you how you're doing, you have a bunch of canned responses, most of which make no sense in context to the question. You either say, "Kowabunga, dude", "I'll make ya famous", or "You had me at hello." What the hell does that even mean? Don't you have any original thoughts up in that gin-soaked cranium of yours? Have you really drowned your own reality that deeply in the black waters of Hollywood fantasy?

Well, it's gotta stop, dude. We've had enough of "Go ahead, punk, make my day," and "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse," "Wax-ah on wax-ah off" in that horrible Mr. Miyagi accent, and "It just doesn't matter!"

You really need to get this under control. It's over. It's over dude.

No, don't go into the Belushi speech from Animal House!

Just don't be that dude.

The Mosquito: One Boy’s Losing Battle

My previous post got me thinking about how much I really despise mosquitoes.

A Hatred I Need
I’ve hated the tiny, bloodsucking predators since I was a little kid growing up in the humid, hot, marshy south shore of Long Island.

I remember doing battle with these parasites almost nightly as summertime established itself in late May through the final days of September. Go out after 6:00 p.m. and you risked becoming a universal blood donor to every mosquito within a 10-radius. Your ankles looked like a red, skin-covered mountain range and the itching could drive you to check yourself in at Bellevue Psychiatric.

My mom always told me I was just sweeter than everybody else, but moms are biased.

Let the Buzzing Begin
And just try to go to sleep at night. As soon as the lights went out, and my head hit the pillow, the buzzing began. Like a dentist’s drill in my ear, the mosquitoes would attack, relying on their keen sense of CO2 emissions, and my inability as a human to function at all in the dark.

A slap to side of my head, hoping to trap them inside my ear. Ha! That’ll show em! And then a slap to the other side. Was that the same mosquito, or are there more than one, I’d wonder. I’d itch all over, convinced that there were scores of mosquitoes plunging their malaria-laced sabres into my young, delicate skin. I’d begin kicking at the covers, as if I were drowning in a see of 200-thread-count cotton.

A Desperate, Foolish Attack
Finally, I’d get the courage to leave the bed. I needed to attack, so I’d stumble to the light switch, flick it on, roll up a magazine, and begin the hunt. They were nearly impossible to track down, crafty little bastards, but after a while I’d become somewhat of expert mosquito hunter. Inside a lampshade, out of reach on the ceiling, motionless and camouflaged on a poster or painting — like I said, crafty.

When I’d finally locate one, I’d creep on it, covert and slow. Gripping the magazine, I took aim and prepared to strike…Thwap! But the S.O.B. would inevitably dodge the fire. I’d return, dejected, to my foxhole bed, covers pulled up over my head and pillow over that.

This process would typically repeat several times before I’d fall asleep. In reality, I was only relinquishing my body to their sick mosquito science experiments.

Can’t We Just Eradicate Them?
I’d always figured that, as annoying and even deadly mosquitoes can be, they serve some small but important purpose in the global ecosystem. Turns out, that may not be so, as this article from Nature.com points out: “…In many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms. Life would continue as before — or even better.”