Finally, A Day for Me

I don't remember what the reason was I decided to do a search on Google regarding a day for grumps, but I did.  The search yielded a single day, Oct 15, as "National Grouch Day." 

Grouches, you see, know no bounds.  There are grouches in every demographic. "Red, yellow, black or white, we are grumpy in His sight," the refrain goes in our anthem we lift high every year at this time.  At our most recent conference, held on Zoom!, the meeting broke down at the start when we couldn't come to an agreement about the purpose for holding a meeting shortly after the anthem was lifted.  Some felt it was that the meeting was on Zoom!  Others felt as though it happens at every meeting, face-to-face or online, but the fact remains that we saw the agenda and we didn't like it.  In fact, the minutes (yet to be approved for the last 10 years because we never make it that far) show that the meeting breaks down shortly after the meeting is called to order.  "Chaos ensued, pandemonium, all hell broke loose, meeting called and the grumps went to the bar where they continued the argument well into the night" each year reads almost verbatim.

The grump is not amused by direction.  The direction could come from someone in authority, or from a well-meaning but naive person, or from someone who just can't help but insert his or her unwanted or unsolicited thought into the middle of our presence. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and..." as we sit with our beer and leer at the person speaking with that look.

So, are you grumpier given current events in 2020?  Are you kidding?  We are grumpy when times are good, bad or indifferent.  2020 is just another year stacked on the ash-heap of grumpdom.  It's certainly exposed the soft spots in our world that grumps are annoyed by, but they are here year in and year out anyway.  It's not a glass half-full, half-empty, or wrong glass to begin with argument.  It's that it is my glass, and I just got it where it was broken-in and you just washed the thing. (Yeah, that's a run-on, deal with it.)

A grump thrives on being grumpy.  His or her satisfaction is being "in the grump." There is no eliminating things that are opportunities to gripe about.  In fact, to attempt to do so gives the grump the ability to have even more to gripe about.  "You just gripe to gripe," is the refrain I've heard most of my grump life, to which I reply, "And your point?" It's more than just attitude or response, it is a total way of being.

So, somewhere in the history of mankind, someone designated a day to "grouches." October 15, it seems, has been that day.  I'd loved to have been around to see how they even came to one day on a calendar to dedicate to us.  I bet it was some well intended person who has that outlook of, "Everyone deserves a day." While we will certainly take time to pause and celebrate who we are, if that person is still around, they probably don't need to come to our grump convention.  To do so would be to invite abuse.  "Who asked you for the favor? We were perfectly content not being recognized for our achievement."

The fact is you know a grouch or a grump.  You know what sets them off and you know what topics not to veer into.  He or she needs no recognition, no moment of silence in honor of, no flyover at the "Grump Games," no banners, no songs.  A grump is perfectly content stewing in his or her own juices at the end of a bar, scowling at the TV, or at home in his or her chair, staring ahead wishing for nothing more than solitude and aloneness, grunting at items that pass by in writing or the spoken word on tv or radio (or streaming).  There is contentment in being a grump, a curmudgeon, a grouch.  Leave us alone and let us be content in simply being.  That's all a grump ever asked.