Looking for an image, I stumbled across an article on WikiHow titled, How to Become a Curmudgeon. Today, October 15, being National Grouch Day, it is a good day to share the article – link is at the bottom of this posting – and a good day to release my blog post into the wild.
To begin with, I did not realize that there are souls among us aspiring to be curmudgeons. I thought it was something you simply grew into as you became older and wiser. Or alternatively, by the proclamation of a tender and loving spouse, this millstone of a label was hung around your neck.
However, in my case, one of my younger brothers – the only type I have – called me out early and frequently as a curmudgeon, perhaps even the stereotypical curmudgeon. What is that old and tired aphorism about the pot calling the kettle black…
Early in my blogging career, I did have a reader take exception with me for calling myself a curmudgeon. He was under the impression that it must be thrust upon a person by third parties. He did not know of my fellow curmudgeon, who claims brotherhood, so labeling me an epoch earlier. Nonetheless, I do believe (can I get a hallelujah) a sufficiently aware (is that awoke nowadays) individual knows when they have achieved curmudgeon-hood, and thus has the right to self-label (but please, never by an open window, trust me on this one).
Without a doubt, there must be some old souls among us as I have known some very young curmudgeons. Discarding the common dictionary definition of a curmudgeon as a grumpy old man, I have known more that a few curmudgeons among the fairer sex (I suppose that is no longer politically correct, also). Would they be known as trans-curmudgeons? I stay confused anymore on all these labels we have invented for gender roles, sex roles and even buttered dinner rolls.
And yes you can be a Luddite and a curmudgeon coincidentally or separately.
I am strongly under the very informed (since it is mine) opinion that if you are truly a curmudgeon, you do not need any coaching. But even a curmudgeon coach is now available on the living, breathing, world-engulfing organism that contains the width and breadth of human knowledge and human insanity, commonly referred to as the Internet.
And so it goes… as another and very famous curmudgeon was fond of saying.
Here is the promised link: How to Become a Curmudgeon
hallelujah
One of my readers passed on this article to a friend. The friend’s comment, “That guy puts in too much thought and effort to be a natural curmudgeon.”