Grumpy Is As Grumpy Does

Ok, Ok, I know that I’ve been featuring 13,589 too many holiday noticements lately (I think I just used noticement in the wrong context, sorry) but if you hadn’t figured it out yet, I am going to come clean with you or possibly for you. When I can’t think of something to write, I know I can always fall back on a holiday that you have either never heard of or that you don’t believe exists and bastardize that for about 1,000 words. Today is one of those days. Actually, so was yesterday and I’m going to go ahead and warn you right now: tomorrow might me too.

Wednesday, May 7 is National Grump Out Day. The name of the holiday can be taken two ways, so I will make sure that by the time you are done reading this that you are fully versed in exhaustive detail about the appropriate way to celebrate National Grump Out Day. Or, I suppose when you are done reading about how to celebrate National Grump Out Day, you might not want to have anything to do with said holiday. The choice is yours. Nah, I really don’t care either way, I’ve just always wanted to say ‘the choice is yours’ one octave lower than I normally speak. For those of you playing along at home, just use the same low voice you would when you read something like this: ‘I woke up this morning and oddly enough, I saw both fire and rain (James Taylor).’

Now back to National Grump Out Day. Initially, you might think that the purpose of the day is to ‘get your grump on,’ as the kids say. It’s kind of like how ‘rock out’ means to start rocking and stuff or how ‘chill out’ means to calm down. In these cases, the ‘out’ actually means to begin, start or commence**. I know, it’s somewhat confusing. Just like that time I was introduced to frozen yogurt. Yes it was frozen, but it was nothing like I’d imagine if I had frozen a container of Yoplait at my house. Unless that’s just me…

Well, despite the proactive nature of ‘out’ in National Grump Out Day, Wednesday is actually the day we are supposed to ‘stamp out’ grumpiness. I guess in this sense the ‘out’ is being used like it is in The Great American Smoke Out, which is nothing like the way it’s used in the term ‘cookout,’ even though for me, cookouts usually become ‘smoke outs.’ Are you following all of this? Good, then you can email me and explain.

So, how does one work on eliminating grumpiness for just one day? Well, is LSD legal yet? I’m kidding, but speaking of LSD (and totally unrelated segues), did you know that it was accidentally discovered by a scientist (who happened to die last week, by the way) while searching for medicinal uses of a wheat fungus he discovered (or something like that)? Imagine how freaked out he was when he unexpectedly took his first ‘trip.’ Now you can put that in your useless trivia pipe and smoke it, in a non-drug type of way, of course. In another completely unrelated topic, you can now see the effects of an irregular heartbeat on the thinking patterns of a person who writes about nothing worthwhile. Not that this is an actual scientific or medical study (which I was tempted to tell you to deflect all criticism of this wayward post), but my thought pattern is all over the place today (oh hey, Paul Simon’s ‘Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard’ just came on. I love that song). See what I mean.

I suppose there are many ways to not be grumpy for a day. For me, the best way to eradicate grumpiness is to not have to show up for my job. As luck would have it, this week is ALSO ‘Flexible Working Arrangement’ Week. I ask you, could it have worked out any better? In fact, I already emailed my boss a proposal about being more flexible in my work arrangement Wednesday. Not only will it allow me to be happy instead of grumpy, but it’ll really benefit my joints. Get it? Flexible? Never mind. I did send him an email about working from home Wednesday in honor of this week and National Grump Out Day, but because I’m having trouble focusing my thoughts, I fear I also mentioned something about a raise in pounds of lobster instead of money and made some demand about having crème brule in the cafeteria or I was going on strike. Now that I’m thinking more about it, we don’t have a cafeteria at my office. Uh-oh.

We are all different and that means that our grumpy triggers are different from everyone else’s, except maybe the Rachael Ray grumpiness trigger because I’m pretty sure that’s a universal one. For some, the way to fight grumpiness may be a walk in the park, petting a puppy or even sledding down the stairs in your home. For others, it could be singing karaoke to the one hit wonders of the ‘70s or even going to a bowling alley, throwing the bowling ball straight up as high as you can, letting it hit the lane with a thunderous thud (thereby forcing everyone to look in your direction) and then exclaiming ‘ sorry, the hole’s a little sticky - -that’s what she said’ before a picture is taken of you, posted on the wall and you are asked scolded to never come back again.

THAT, is a grumpy deterrent. Well actually, it’s a fun deterrent to being grumpy, but I think that was self-explanatory. No matter what YOU decide to do, have a very happy National Grump Out Day!


**At least I think that’s what it means. In all actuality, I’m just guessing and taking a proverbial stab in the dark with my shiv made of bad grammar and random assumptions.

By the way, are you hungry? This is where I go to get my fix. Well, that and McDonald's and Islands and Chili's and Bucca Di Beppos and The Wood Ranch and, well you get the point. Seriously, visit here to read a great food blog by the LaVerne and Shirley of food blogs. You know, I probably should have checked with them before referring to them that way...