Conundrums - Part III - Summer Doldrums

Conundrums Part III ~ Summer Doldrums

Just what the heck is a conundrum?! Many people endure the vexation of conundrums. A current one is the fact that at one of the year’s best times, Californians are experiencing the hot, lazy days of summer, commonly referred to as the Summer Doldrums. How do I know? The geese are tired from back-talking fledglings and sending them off to play in our local streets. And, many a car which hasn’t been to the Quick Quack in months, is permanently dusted with the grime of life. Staff at the drive-up window at fast-food places can’t hide their melted attitudes and grimaces when they utter the phrase, ‘Have a great day!’ Politicians, unable to find new clichés to describe opponents, are dusting off and trying out old favorites.

The Summer Doldrums can be a perfect time when people can and should try to set their spinnaker to get the briefest of wind, so they can heel into new adventures. One new adventure is figuring out the pros and cons of things we or others have encountered or could encounter. During our entire lifespan, we learn the pros and cons of a lot of things. No one should EVER ask:

‘What are the pros and cons about hiring an unlicensed, recently paroled handyman to renovate my kitchen, bathrooms and build a new sunroom?’

‘Should I buy this really cool, but recently-reduced-in-cost car that was towed out of a hurricane-flooded underground parking garage?’

One that ranks up there as one of the most stupid questions of all time is when your husband asks, ‘Was okay for me to use the chainsaw to prune your prize-winning heritage roses?’

To make the most of the Summer Doldrums, I opted to write about conundrums in which the pros and cons are separated by a fairly narrow dividing line. Some include the following:

Sassing What are the pros and cons of sassing a person of authority? On one hand, at the tender age of six, one can learn the fine art of negotiating. On the other hand, at the pre-pubescent smart aleck age of 12, one can learn how sassing can result in awful results. Who really enjoyed beating ALL the school’s blackboard erasers on the outside gym wall, after school, on Friday afternoon or got grounded until the end of time?

Pepper X What is good and bad about eating an extremely hot chili pepper as a challenge? NOTHING! The cons? A favorite Dangerous Dare Delight is the Ghost Pepper (170 times hotter than Tabasco sauce or 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)). The Carolina Reaper (rated at 1 million SHU) and the Dragon’s Breath (rated at more than 2.4 million SHU) don’t even come close when chowing down on a contender for the record books. Pepper X, with its scorpion-like tail, has a rating of 3.18 million SHU. One might be better off ordering an extra-large bowl of molten lava.

Cursing What are the pros and cons of cursing? Forever, humans searched for pain treatments, especially headaches. Trepanation, or drilling holes in the skull, was used to release the demon causing the head pain. In the 18th century, putting someone in a centrifuge could force the blood from the head to the feet, giving relief (or swollen feet) from the ‘nerve storm.’ Today, too much Acetaminophen can destroy your liver or ruin your wallet.

But wait! There’s more! When George Carlin developed his 1972 list of ‘Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV,’ few thought that by the beginning of the 21st century, they’d be uttered on regular TV channels during the dinner hour. Pain relief for headaches brings me to the fine art of cursing. Researchers discovered using vulgar language can help people deal with pain! Well, ding dang, Sunshine! My headache’s gonna be gone when I’m through using the ‘F’ word as a noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection (unless a child, Mother or someone’s Nana are nearby)! Despite the fact some think blaspheming reeks of bad manners, being a potty mouth supposedly has its benefits! Though we may remember people who said, ‘Only uneducated people use profanity,’ it’s not necessarily true. Swearing may be a sign of intelligence, honesty and creativity!

Stub your toe, got cut off in traffic or couldn’t remember why you went in the other room? Cursing like a sailor can help deal with the issues! For the first 40-years of my life, at least not in front of me, Mother never once uttered a profanity. Though riddled with pain for much of her adult life, she was funny, creative, enormously smart, calm, honest to a ‘T’ and always told us, ‘Look for the good in everything and everything.’ Not long after Daddy died, she used a nasty word to describe how mad she was about something. Another time, she said she didn’t give a $h17 what so-and-so thought about something. The final straw was after she returned from a road trip with her similar-age cousins (early-70s) and dropped the F-bomb. I was aghast and said, ‘Mother!!!’ She replied, ‘You told Daddy dirty jokes since high school. I can use dirty words, too!’ I know under her breath Mother probably said, ‘So, put that $h17 in your pipe and smoke it, @$$h01E!’ I should have grounded her!

Though my siblings and I never verbally sassed our parents, there were times our ‘faces were going to stay that way!’ Plus, I didn’t use profanity around my children until they were adults (and only in self-defense!). Prior to that, I used spoonerisms like dad gum it, dag nabbit, shoot, Jiminy Cricket, fudge, cotton-pickin’, dad burn it, doggone, darn tootin’, tarnation and others. If we look at the pros and cons regarding the use of censurable or irreproachable language, we have to agree it doesn’t make the person, especially since it’s what’s in his or her heart that counts. If cussing stops a headache or other pain I’m all for it. But, I’m very hard-pressed to congratulate anyone who’d think spewing vomitus words will quell the solar temperatures in their mouth caused by a dares to eat a Chili Pepper that can destroy the Universe!

Until the next conundrum arrives, I must call a friend and apologize for us letting loose a stream of expletives during a multi-hour period of the doldrums while sailing Lake Thunderbird. Back then, we didn’t appreciate the tranquility of the Summer Doldrums.

Many people endure the vexation of conundrums. Though the sun will rise in the East in perpetuity, mortgages and credit card and utility bill will always need tending to and Time will always accompany all living things on their journey into the future, I'll ask again, '.Just what the heck is a conundrum?!'