Dorothy Rosby's Blog

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When I saw the headline What Your Little Finger Says About Your Personality on my internet news feed, I thought, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Then I clicked on it.

And I’m glad I did. According to the article’s author, I’m sensitive, dedicated and focused. And she knows that without ever having met me simply because the tip of my little finger reaches just above the top joint of my ring finger. She says when people with pinkies like mine set our minds on something, we make it happen. Right then, I set my mind on bringing about greater understanding among people of all finger types by sharing this information with you, my readers.

But I wonder if my little finger may be mistaken about me being focused because I got distracted and started wondering if the rest of my hands have as much to say. Turns out a lot of people think they do. A quick internet search on the subject of hands and personality garnered more than five billion results. That’s billion with a B. I’m not making that up. I had to ask Siri what a five with nine zeros is. 

I chose the first result because I didn’t have time to read them all. It was a personality test based on hand proportions, fingerprints and palm lines. And I’m happy to report that, according to my hands, I’m a disciplined person who ignores distractions. That’s me all right. In fact, I was almost able to ignore a link to an even more interesting article, What Your Feet Say About You. Almost, but not quite.

The article listed five types of feet: Greek, Roman, Celtic, German and Egyptian all based on toe length. Apparently heels and arches have nothing to do with personality, so when someone calls you a real heel, it shows how little they know.

I have Egyptian feet—toes angling down from big to small in an orderly fashion. This is odd since my people came mainly from Germany. Maybe that explains why my feet don’t know me very well. According to them, I’m moody and impulsive which contradicts what my hands say about me. They also show the world that I escape reality by daydreaming, follow my heart instead of my head and let my emotions overrule my thoughts. Well that’s just a lie! I was so annoyed I kicked my desk and decided to get off the internet.    

And I would have if I hadn’t seen another link to an article concerning face shape and personality. But I didn’t like it any better. On the bright side, my somewhat rectangular face says I’m very logical which contradicts my feet. But it also reveals a tendency to overthink things. I can’t argue with that given how much time I’ve spent wondering what my feet and hands say about me.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more confusing, I saw another link to a story with the most interesting headline yet: Can Your Belly Button Tell You Anything About Your Personality? There’s no scientific evidence that it can, but that doesn’t keep navel gazers from floating theories and me from wasting time reading them.

According to the article my navel reveals a complex and emotional personality which is in line with what my feet say but that I “struggle to settle down and find my path” which contradicts my hands and face. 

Until there’s a more accurate way to assess personality, I’m going to leave my shoes on and avoid wearing crop tops. I might also want to spend less time on the internet.

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Photo by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay.

I was leaving a parking lot when I saw a man jump out of his car, wave his arms, shake his fists and rant at a woman in a car that had nearly collided with his. Given the particulars of the near miss, it’s hard to say whose fault it would have been had they connected, but I can tell you whose side I would have taken. The guy was—and I mean no disrespect whatsoever when I say this—a bad-tempered, ill-mannered meathead. I rolled down my window and asked as gently as I could, “A little cranky, are we?”

No, I didn’t do that. Instead I decided to channel my dismay at the incident into educating grouches everywhere that the proper time for public displays of grumpiness is October 15th and only October 15th. That’s National Grouch Day, a day set aside to honor everyone’s favorite grouch, Oscar from “Sesame Street,” and to celebrate, or at least tolerate, all the grouches we know, possibly including…well…us.

If there’s a grump in your life, allow them to be as irritable as they want to be on October 15. Say nothing while they whine, complain and generally wallow in their misery all day long. But come October 16, tell them you and everyone else are sick and tired of it so they ought to just knock it off right now. That should cheer them up.

If it doesn’t—and it might not—try the following tips I found on that font of all wisdom, the internet.

1) Gently explain to the grump that exercise causes our body’s natural pharmacy to release endorphins which are associated with feelings of happiness. Tell him he should take a long walk…off a short pier. Then say, “Haha! I’m joking! Isn’t it great? Laughter helps cure crabbiness too.”

2) Give her a stick of gum. Apparently the repetitive action of chewing gum can be soothing. If that doesn’t do the trick, offer her a chew toy.  

3) Tell him doing something nice for someone else is a sure cure for crankiness. Then tell him what you’d like him to do for you. 

4) Give her chocolate. Eating chocolate makes some people happy. I’m one of them. So if she doesn’t care for chocolate, she should see rule number three and give hers to me. Then we’ll both be happy.

5) Pets make people happy. Try giving the grouch a puppy. 

6) Decluttering has a calming effect, so tell the cranky person his house is a mess and he’d feel better if he’d just get himself organized. Who doesn’t love to hear good advice?

7) Tell her to smile. The simple act of smiling can cheer us up. So the next time you encounter a crab, tell her as sweetly as you can to turn that frown upside down. It will either work or she’ll punch you.

8) Tell him that rearranging furniture is a great day brightener. Changing an environment can help us feel refreshed. If he doesn’t want to move his furniture around, tell him he’s welcome to move yours.

9) Play her some music. Music can turn a bad mood around. If there’s no music available, sing to the cranky person. If that doesn’t make her feel better, it may at least make her leave you alone.

10) Encourage the crabby person in your life to count his blessings. Explain that if he keeps thinking about everything that’s wrong, his negative emotional state will continue. Certainly, he has much to be thankful for. For one thing he’s got you to advise him.

 

 

(Dorothy Rosby welcomes gum and chocolate. Please no puppies.)

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I had selfish motives the first time I donated blood. I was just out of college and searching for full-time employment. I would have been living on Ramen noodles except I hadn’t heard of them yet. As it was, my diet consisted mainly of popcorn and grocery store samples.  

I definitely didn’t have an entertainment budget. So I was excited when I learned that the sponsor of a particular blood drive was giving away free movie tickets as an incentive. I’m your basic chicken so I was naturally apprehensive. But I really wanted to see the movie. If my memory is correct, and there’s no guarantee of that, it was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. And I figured if the tickets were free, maybe I could afford popcorn too. You know, dinner and a movie. I rolled up my sleeve.

I like to say I got a perfect grade on my paperwork that first time. I know that’s not what blood bank folks mean by A+ but I still like to say it.

And I’m proud to report I recently achieved another perfect score at the blood bank: 100! Not 100 percent though. No, I have now given 100 pints of blood at the center I currently donate at. I don’t know how many pints I donated before I started there, but I do know I got an A+ on every one of them. You stick with things you’re so good at.

I haven’t received any more movie tickets for giving blood, but I have gotten some really cool T-shirts over the years. And I also get a free mini checkup every time I donate. The fine people at the donation center check my pulse, blood pressure, temperature and hemoglobin level and I don’t even have to involve my insurance company.

Best of all, giving blood is the only volunteer activity I know of where I get to sit in a recliner and read a book or stare at my phone for the duration.

After I’m finished donating, the phlebotomist always tells me to take it easy and avoid doing anything strenuous for the rest of the day. I probably wasn’t going to anyway. But I like to think they’ve pegged me as the type who’d go jogging or rock climbing later if they didn’t tell me not to.  

They also always say I should make my next meal a good one. I take that to mean I should eat out. Besides, I find cooking strenuous.

And they encourage me to rest for as long as I’d like in their comfy waiting area and to help myself to the snacks they provide for us donors to replenish our electrolytes with. I’ve wiled away many an afternoon just lounging there and replenishing my electrolytes with corn chips. There are so few volunteer opportunities where you get to do that. Too few really.  

It may sound to you like I’m still donating blood for purely selfish reasons. But that’s not true. I believe we should all do what we can. Some people have money to give. Some people have talents to share. And some people have time to volunteer. If that’s you I have some laundry you could do.

What I have plenty of is blood. In fact, I have around a gallon of it, which is way more than I have of time, talent or money. Plus I can always make more. Based on my scores at the blood bank, I’m really good at it. 

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Dear Greeting Card Person,

I just had a milestone birthday. I won’t say which one but I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t my tenth.

I’m writing to suggest some changes to your birthday card line and I hope you can implement them before my big day next year. Before I get into that though, let me share a little background.

I remember my fortieth birthday as clearly as if it were yesterday. It wasn’t, and not by a long shot, but I still remember waking up feeling like I was twenty-one and ending the day feeling like I was seventy-seven.

I knew it would be that way. That’s why I liked thirty-nine so much. It was the oldest I could be and still not be forty. I might’ve been thirty-nine years and 364 and a half days old but I was still not forty. Still, thirty-nine wasn’t perfect either, mainly because no one ever believed me when I said that’s what I was. Then I turned forty and learned what real abuse is.

It actually started the night before my birthday when I told my then four-year-old son I would be forty years old the next day. He asked innocently, “Are you going to be as old as Grandma?” Grandma was eighty-four at the time.

The next day a now former friend asked which birthday I was celebrating. When I told her she said, “I thought you were getting up there.”

Up there? Forty isn’t old. It used to be. But it isn’t anymore, though it was without a doubt the oldest I’d been up to that point. It’s also true that I thought it would take a lot longer to get there.

Then there were the cards. That’s where you come in, Greeting Card Person. When I was young my birthday cards came with money and good wishes. Later they contained only wishes and not all of them good.

But starting on my fortieth birthday things really went downhill, and not just my cards. But let’s stick with those. Ever since I turned forty my birthday cards have mainly contained insults and ridicule. You know, like “So many candles, so little breath.” “You’re not getting older. You’re getting fatter.” Very funny.

Even the well-wishes are thinly disguised insults. “Here’s wishing you success in all you do. But you better get started. You’re running out of time.” Those kinds of wishes would make a fifth grader feel old.

This, Greeting Card Person, is why people don’t discuss their age. Best to keep it to ourselves. Otherwise, if we don’t feel old before our birthday, we will after it’s over.

After dealing with it yet again this year, I decided it’s time I appeal to your decency. Mature people deserve respect. So do I. And I know you can do better. Anyone can come up with insults, even me. And I’m not a professional greeting card person—or elected official or late-night talk show host. How about these:

Don’t let anyone tell you you’re old. Older people are wise and mature. And you’re neither of those.

Welcome to middle age, that magical time in life when you see better in bright light but look better in dim.

Middle age is a great time to get tattoos; you have more room for them.

Don’t let the fact that you were born in another century make you feel old. By the way, which century was that?

See? Easy. Also a lot more fun than it should be. But anyone can do that. You’re experts. Why not put your skills to work creating cards that are respectful without being gooey? May I suggest something along these lines?

You deserve to be treated like a queen on your birthday. You relax while I clean your house and make dinner for you.

Happy birthday to one of the wisest people I know. You were right all along.

I’m so sorry for all the insulting birthday cards I’ve sent you over the years. They were the only ones on the rack.

The first two might be a stretch but the last one is almost true. So dear Greeting Card Person, I suggest you create a new line of birthday cards that honor the wisdom and knowledge those celebrating birthdays have gained. And if we haven’t gained any, I don’t think our special day is the best time to say so.

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A friend of mine says she’s not creative. I tell her of course she is. She puts Cheetos in her tomato soup and French fries in her chocolate shakes. If that’s not creative I don’t know what is.

But she’s not the only one I’ve heard deny having what I think is an inescapable characteristic of being imperfect humans. We’re all creative in our own way. But creativity takes many forms, and some are a lot more fun than others. To find out how creative you are, take the quiz below.

Creativity Quiz

1. Do you ever imagine in exquisite detail how your life would be different if you lived somewhere else or had a different (circle all that apply) job/house/car/spouse/family/waist circumference?

a) No, my life is perfect and so is my waistline.

b) Yes, I imagine the grass is not only greener on the other side of the fence, it’s easier to mow too.

c) Yes. Just today I got an overdraft, had an argument with my (circle all that apply) spouse/child/boss/Uber driver and discovered I could no longer zip my favorite jeans. I immediately visualized myself slim and trim, independently wealthy and living in a palatial and clutter-free home on a coast somewhere.

2. Do you ever daydream that your life would be better if you’d done things differently?

a) No. I’m happy with every decision I’ve ever made.

b) Yes. And I comfort myself by telling everyone I know colorful stories of how close I came to incredible success and why I didn’t quite make it. They enjoy them almost as much as I do.

c) Yes. I’m convinced that if I’d gotten (circle all that apply) a different degree/spouse/job/tattoo, I would have been gloriously happy/gotten rich/won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar or both.

3. Do you ever worry?

a) Never. What do I have to worry about?

b) No. I do, however, envision in vivid detail every little thing that could possibly go wrong.

c) Yes. I’ve worried about some horrifying things over the years, none of which have happened to me and probably no one else either.

4. Do you ever lie?

a) Absolutely not.

b) Lie is such an ugly word.

c) My accountant says she won’t do my taxes anymore.

Now give yourself zero points for each “a” answer, one point for each “b” and two points for each “c.” Then tally your score.

0 points: You’re either perfect, completely uncreative or lying. If you’re lying, change your answer on question number 4.

1-9 points: Depending on your total, you’re somewhere between exceptionally creative and creative genius. You’re probably the kind of person who, thanks to your ingenuity, could one day actually find yourself in the green grass on the other side of that mythical fence. Of course once you get there, you’ll discover that the crabgrass is just as bad. I could lecture you on how we can’t run from our crabgrass, that we must work on the crabgrass within.

But this is a column about creativity, so instead let me point out how creative you have to be to imagine that lush world over there with it’s perfectly mowed cross hatch. Oh, and that gazebo in the middle of it where you while away the afternoon as members of your household staff mow, wash your Lexus in the driveway and top off your lemonade.

Unfortunately depending on your level of creativity you may also spend many nights lying awake dreaming up all sorts of terrifying things that will never happen. Think back on the worries you’ve had over the years. Could a non-creative person have come up with all that? This kind of creative outlet is a leading cause of daytime sleepiness so I recommend looking for other uses for your extraordinary creativity. For example, you could take up painting or write a novel. And then come mow my lawn.

(Dorothy Rosby will not be disclosing how creative she is.)

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A friend of mine says she’s not creative. I tell her of course she is. She puts Cheetos in her tomato soup and French fries in her chocolate shakes. If that’s not creative I don’t know what is.

But she’s not the only one I’ve heard deny having what I think is an inescapable characteristic of being imperfect humans. We’re all creative in our own way. But creativity takes many forms, and some are a lot more fun than others. To find out how creative you are, take the quiz below.

Creativity Quiz

1. Do you ever imagine in exquisite detail how your life would be different if you lived somewhere else or had a different (circle all that apply) job/house/car/spouse/family/waist circumference?

a) No, my life is perfect and so is my waistline.

b) Yes, I imagine the grass is not only greener on the other side of the fence, it’s easier to mow too.

c) Yes. Just today I got an overdraft, had an argument with my (circle all that apply) spouse/child/boss/Uber driver and discovered I could no longer zip my favorite jeans. I immediately visualized myself slim and trim, independently wealthy and living in a palatial and clutter-free home on a coast somewhere.

2. Do you ever daydream that your life would be better if you’d done things differently?

a) No. I’m happy with every decision I’ve ever made.

b) Yes. And I comfort myself by telling everyone I know colorful stories of how close I came to incredible success and why I didn’t quite make it. They enjoy them almost as much as I do.

c) Yes. I’m convinced that if I’d gotten (circle all that apply) a different degree/spouse/job/tattoo, I would have been gloriously happy/gotten rich/won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar or both.

3. Do you ever worry?

a) Never. What do I have to worry about?

b) No. I do, however, envision in vivid detail every little thing that could possibly go wrong.

c) Yes. I’ve worried about some horrifying things over the years, none of which have happened to me and probably no one else either.

4. Do you ever lie?

a) Absolutely not.

b) Lie is such an ugly word.

c) My accountant says she won’t do my taxes anymore.

Now give yourself zero points for each “a” answer, one point for each “b” and two points for each “c.” Then tally your score.

0 points: You’re either perfect, completely uncreative or lying. If you’re lying, change your answer on question number 4.

1-9 points: Depending on your total, you’re somewhere between exceptionally creative and creative genius. You’re probably the kind of person who, thanks to your ingenuity, could one day actually find yourself in the green grass on the other side of that mythical fence. Of course once you get there, you’ll discover that the crabgrass is just as bad. I could lecture you on how we can’t run from our crabgrass, that we must work on the crabgrass within.

But this is a column about creativity, so instead let me point out how creative you have to be to imagine that lush world over there with it’s perfectly mowed cross hatch. Oh, and that gazebo in the middle of it where you while away the afternoon as members of your household staff mow, wash your Lexus in the driveway and top off your lemonade.

Unfortunately depending on your level of creativity you may also spend many nights lying awake dreaming up all sorts of terrifying things that will never happen. Think back on the worries you’ve had over the years. Could a non-creative person have come up with all that? This kind of creative outlet is a leading cause of daytime sleepiness so I recommend looking for other uses for your extraordinary creativity. For example, you could take up painting or write a novel. And then come mow my lawn.

(Dorothy Rosby will not be disclosing how creative she is.)

I’ve been wondering lately if I might be a wimp. I’m not asking for your opinion, so don’t write and share it with me. I’ve just been considering the possibility ever since my sister and I compiled the stories our mother used to tell of growing up on the prairies in South Dakota. My mom was born in 1916 which was before online shopping, social media and frozen pizza came along. I think it’s a testament to her lack of wimpiness that she survived.

By the way, I know what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to calculate my age based on when my mother was born. If you guessed 29, you’re correct.

Anyway, after finishing our project, I went directly to my laundry room and hugged my washing machine. Then I went to my kitchen and kissed my microwave, my refrigerator and my dishwasher. I would have kissed my cellphone too, but I couldn’t find it. Then I got really upset and wondered how I could possibly live without it for an entire hour until my husband came home and I could have him call me so I could find it. That’s when I started to wonder if I might be a wimp.

They didn’t have smartphones when my mom was growing up. Or even landlines. Or even party lines. My phone is not only my chief means of communication, it’s my camera, watch, alarm clock, appointment book, dictionary, encyclopedia, calculator and library full of time-squandering games. How did they ever squander their time without one?

One does what one has to do to survive and I suppose I would have managed somehow had I been around back then. But I know for sure that I would have griped a lot, especially about cooking. I gripe about that now and I don’t even have to grow, pick, catch, hunt and in other resourceful ways acquire my food before I can even put it on the stove. That’s what my mom’s family had to do, and it seems like a lot of trouble to go through for dinner. It makes my weekly trip to the grocery store seem like a cake walk—and sometimes it is.

And then there were the dishes. Today’s kids argue about who has to load the dishwasher. When I was growing up, I argued with my siblings about whose turn it was to do the dishes. If I’d grown up back then, I’d have fought with them over whose turn it was to haul water from the well to wash them with. That puts loading a dishwasher into perspective. I still don’t want to do it though.

I’d have had issues with the cars back then too, the main one being there weren’t any, at least not in my grandparents’ garage. Actually, they didn’t have a garage. Maybe that’s why. And as far as I know, there were no heated seats in the buggy and no DVD in the back to keep the kids occupied. Probably no GPS device either. I’d never have found my way to town.

And they couldn’t check the weather, look up useless facts and settle senseless arguments over what band was singing on the radio because Siri wasn’t born yet. Also, because they didn’t have a radio.

If I’d grown up back then, I’m sure I would have complained that we had no central heating and air conditioning, no laptop computer and no television to watch the Hallmark mystery channel on. And my family would have said, “no what?” I’ve always been a wimp ahead of my time.

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Moms, if you want to use guilt as a parenting tool, try this: Put your hand to your heart, sniffle and say to your child, “A woman named Anna Jarvis was so devoted to her mom that she proposed a national holiday for mothers in 1908, and you can’t even pick up your socks for me.”

 A daughter also spearheaded the nation’s first Father’s Day in Washington State in 1910, so fathers can use guilt as effectively as mothers can. In other words, not very.

 Unfortunately, Father’s Day wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm as Mother’s Day had been. One florist claimed that dads don’t have the same “sentimental appeal” mothers have, but I think that’s just florist speak for no one will buy flowers for dad.

Fathers didn’t help the cause though. One historian said men saw the holiday as an attempt to “domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving…” Many also derided it as a gimmick to sell gift items they’d probably be paying for themselves.

Finally in 1972, in the middle of his re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday. Maybe he was courting the dad vote.

That was 58 years after Mother’s Day became official, and Father’s Day has been playing catch up ever since. There’s one measurement that shows just how far it has to go: spending.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent 9 billion dollars more on Mother’s Day gifts than they did on Father’s Day gifts in 2019. Maybe that’s because Mother’s Day comes first. When you spend 26 billion dollars in May, you’re bound to be short on cash come June.

But I think there’s another explanation: Father’s Day gifts are…how can I say this diplomatically…too dumb to buy. At least the ones I can afford are. Many of the things my husband likes would require him to cosign a loan and that would take the surprise out of gift giving.

When I went to the internet to research more affordable Father’s Day gifts, I worried he was going to walk in, see my computer screen and think I was buying him a leather beer holster or a toilet bowl mug. If he really wants one of those, he’s going to have to buy it himself.

Cuff links are also touted as great gifts for fathers. You can get cuff links that look like tiny Rubik’s Cubes, gear shifters and brass 40 caliber bullet casings. I can’t remember the last time my husband wore a shirt that required cufflinks but if he ever does, I just can’t see him accessorizing with bullet casings.

Grilling equipment is another common dad gift and my husband does enjoy grilling, mainly because it involves fire. But I feel like giving him a grill cleaning brush for Father’s Day is a bit like giving me a broom for Mother’s Day.

You also find plenty of alcohol and alcohol accessories when you go searching for gifts for fathers, the inference being we’re all driving dad to drink.

The cliché of a Dad’s Day gift is, of course, the necktie and there are many. I saw a tie that looks like an eyechart, which would be great if your father is an optometrist. Another looked like piano keys, which would work for a musician. And I found one covered with lipstick kisses. I’m not sure what kind of dad that would be good for.

When my husband was an elementary school principal, he had a closet full of goofy ties he wore for the kids. But I think even he would draw the line at a necktie that looks like a giant strip of bacon.

The bacon theme is big for Father’s Day. There are bacon-scented candles, soap and shaving cream all of which you can wrap in bacon-scented wrapping paper. I’m not making those up. Mom gets flowers or jewelry. Dad gets bacon he can’t even eat.

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I’ve only unfriended one person on Facebook since I joined it more than ten years ago and he had it coming. Before the last election Misguided Fool (not his real name) started posting a steady stream of mean-spirited phooey. I realize that one person’s phooey is another person’s entertainment but civilized people of all political persuasions should recognize mean when they see it.

I put up with Misguided’s venomous drivel for a long time because, not being especially Facebook savvy, I thought Mark Zuckerberg might send him a personal message saying, “Dorothy Rosby thinks you’re a dolt and she doesn’t want to be your Facebook friend anymore.”

But then one day, Misguided shared a doctored photo of a certain politician’s family member that was as idiotic as it was cruel. His comment was, “Photos don’t lie.”

That did it. I started typing. “Haven’t you ever heard of Photoshop? Maybe you should try it on your picture. You might even be able to look intelligent with enough Photoshopping”

Then I sat back, took a breath and deleted every word. And I’m glad I did. I see Misguided in the real world occasionally and it might be awkward if I’d told him on Facebook that he looks as witless as he apparently is. I unfriended him instead, but only after determining that Facebook wouldn’t tell him that I did it.

Unfortunately Misguided isn’t the only wackadoodle out there. Unless I take a hiatus from Facebook, I’ll have to continue dealing with others like him. More importantly, I’ll have to deal with myself. Facebook is just another battleground in that civil war that is modern politics. Militaries have rules of engagement, and in preparation for the battle, I’m sharing mine.

1) I will not indulge in Last Worditus. Last Worditus is what happens when we see a post from someone who is deluded, misinformed and as wrong as a tuxedo with tennis shoes, and we’re overcome with the urge to tell them so. I’ve been sucked in before. On more than one occasion, I’ve decided to make a witty, spontaneous response to someone’s obviously erroneous post. But it takes me a long time to sound witty and spontaneous. I carefully crafted my comment only to have them comment on my comment, apparently unconvinced. Also, apparently faster at being witty and spontaneous than I am. Then I commented, they commented and days passed with me looking at my phone every few minutes to comment on their latest comment.

2) I won’t believe everything I read on Facebook, even if I really want to, and sometimes I really do want to. But before I muck up the news feeds of people I care about with the latest chowderheaded thing some politician did or said, I’ll go to Snopes.com or one of the other debunkers/verifiers of internet rumors. And even if a sordid rumor is true, I still won’t share it. That’s what cable news is for.

3) I pledge to be respectful to all, even those I believe to be a few chads short of a full ballot. I’ll leave the name calling to politicians. This is not only polite, it’s practical. I’ve never been persuaded to change my mind by someone who called me names, so I imagine I’ll never change anyone else’s mind using that technique either, tempting as it may be.

4) I will never behave as badly as the people I think behave badly. There’s a race to the bottom on social media and, while I normally don’t do well in races, I think I could win this one if I choose to participate.

Two columnists I know, one from each side of the political aisle, have both told me that, based on feedback from their readers, the other side is obviously ruder. I would have made the following insightful comment to both of them, except I didn’t think of it in time: Well, duh. Of course the side that agrees with you is more polite—to you. They may not be so nice to someone they disagree with. If you doubt that, check out what they share on Facebook.

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I don’t hold out much hope for humanity anymore, not since I read the following startling statistic: The average person will spend more than six years of their life on social media—six years debating politics, envying their friends’ vacations and drooling over pictures of other people’s lunch.

Not only that, if we’re average, we’ll spend more than eight years of our life watching Naked and Afraid, Jerry Springer reruns and other inspirational television programming. In other words, if we’re average, we’ll have around 78 years on this planet and we’ll spend almost 15 of them on drivel.

Before you go thinking that leaves us with more than 60 years of productivity, let me remind you we’ll spend around 26 years sleeping. One third of our lives gone, poof, and we haven’t even gotten out of bed yet. Then we’ll get up and eat for around four years, which is a really long lunch—even for me.

We’ll walk around for a full year looking for our reading glasses, car keys and whatever else we regularly misplace. We’ll stand in line for five years of our life and we’ll spend 43 entire days listening to recorded messages asking us to please hold because our business is so darned important.

I couldn’t find any evidence to back this up, but I figure we’ll spend the remainder of our precious time on earth deleting spam and blocking robocalls. But I found the rest of these shocking statistics on the internet. And it took me approximately 12 years to do it because I kept getting sidetracked by fascinating headlines like “The Best Tacos in Every State” and “Are You Making This Huge Mistake with Peaches?”

At any rate, if my math is correct, and there’s no guarantee of that, the most productive thing we’ll do for almost 50 years of our life is sleep and eat—and, if we’re lucky, find our reading glasses.

Mind you, these are averages. I’m sure I’ve used my allotted one year looking for misplaced items, and quite possibly a couple months of yours as well. And I know I’ll spend way more than 43 days of my life on hold, since that’s how I spent the entire month of March.

Even if you don’t believe everything you read on the internet, and it’s probably best that you don’t, it’s clear we’re wasting a lot of time. How will we ever make progress as a species if we only have 78 years on average, and we spend so many of them doing so little? We have met the enemy and he’s sitting on the couch eating chicken wings and binge watching NCIS reruns.

I see a ray of hope in the statistics though. It appears that researchers have failed to consider the amazing ability of average folks to watch television and eat lunch at the same time.

Plus, while we’re standing in line for five years we’re staring at our smartphones going through our social media feeds. And while we’re wasting seven years of our lives trying to fall asleep, we’re watching TV and tweeting while we’re doing it. That may explain why it’s taking seven years to fall asleep.

The point is, all those years sleeping, eating and standing in line are running concurrently with our TV and social media years. Thanks to multitasking, we should still have plenty of years left over to save the world—or play computer solitaire. Way to be productive, average person!

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