Calendars

As I annually remind pholks, I long ago abandoned the practice of making New Year's resolutions.

Instead, I've tried to start each new year with a more concerted effort to work on a problem area. No specific goals which would set me up for almost instant failure. We all know how long those resolutions last.

A couple of days before the end of this past year, I decided I would try to be somewhat more tolerant of the rudeness of cell-phone users. I had no intentions to change my attitude toward the rudeness to which most "normal" pholk are bombarded each and every day. Instead I figured I would do my best this new year to temper my reactions.

Well pholks, to hell with that. A brief trip to two stores, one of them a supermarket, on the next to last day of 2002 was too much for me to handle. In the market I encountered 16 people in the moderately filled market jabbering on their cells as they strolled the isles. At least five of the "adult" air-heads had the cell-phone glassy-eyed expression as they blocked passage while walking in a stupor. Two others were stopped in front of the items I was shopping for and were so into their banter they didn't even see me. Several others I encountered were jabbering about some personal issues which had nothing to do with shopping. And at least four people were "team-shopping" with their spouses or some family member who probably was talking from a car or a restaurant. All the time they wandered aimlessly among the mushrooms, onions, bagels, and pork chops.

So pholks, I have found something else to work on this new year, if I happen to escape alive or without maiming injury from a cell-phone incited physical encounter in the next 12 months.

My 2003 goal--not a resolution--is to pay closer attention to unique calendars, a commodity which seems to be approaching epic proportions.

Dogs, cats, bikini and non-bikini clad babes, hunks, classic cars, airplanes, flowers, national parks, birds, quilts, trains and hundreds of other things long have been popular calendar subjects.

But pholks, I gotta tell ya there are calendars these days for things a normal person shouldn't even think about. Some examples:

--Duh! The Stupid History Of The Human Race.
This calendar is organized, according to promoters, with such categories as "Idiotic Politics," "Stupid Sports," "Military Unintelligence," and focuses on "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Stupidity But Were Too Smart to Ask." One excerpt deals with a guy from England who confused hemorrhoid cream with SuperGlue and ended up with his buns glued together.

--America's wackiest 911 calls are celebrated in a calendar entitled "What's the Number of 911?"

--George W. Bush Daily Boxed Calendar.
This is a collection of some of the more humorous quotations attributed to the 43rd President of the whole United States of America. Such as: "Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children," or "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures," or his contention that "They misunderestimated (sic)me."

--1001 Sex Secrets. (Probably comes in a plain brown wrapper).

--Ferrets.

--365 Stupidest Things Ever Said.

--Hot Buns (plain see-through wrapper ?)

--Construction chicks

--Cats Are People Too

--Cats are Better Than Men Because...

--Medical Bloopers

--As Good Ass it Gets--(donkeys and jackasses) and Your Ass is History

--Church Bulletin Bloopers

--a daily calendar

Now pholks, here comes the one which sums up my contention that there are calendars for practically anything:

--Monthly Doos. This calendar provides its owner or reader with the scoop on poop. The calendar, with photographs described as "so beautiful you can almost smell them," also includes fun facts and quotes about man's best friend, and man's best friends's "best work."

There is not much more to say except that the "Monthly Doos" certainly would be more worthwhile than putting up with the crap I will encounter from the cell-phone social rejects in 2003.

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