A Smidge Of Crazy E-Book

Barbara Venkataraman

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A collection of humorous insights into important topics ranging from being targeted by annoying ads ("Nowhere to Hide"), to resorting to symbols when you've forgotten your words ("At a Loss for Words"), to figuring out what door that extra key opens ("My Extra Key").

Other essays examine how sitting is the new smoking (whatever that means), what it means to have stamina, and why it is just so hard to focus when you have the attention span of a gnat.

Leseprobe

A SMIDGE OF CRAZY

QUIRKY ESSAYS FOR QUIRKY PEOPLE BOOK 3

BARBARA VENKATARAMAN

Copyright (C) 2018 Barbara Venkataraman

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

CONTENTS

Books by Barbara Venkataraman

Nowhere To Hide

At A Loss For Words

A Smidge Of Crazy

My Extra Key

Let Them Eat Cake

Mental Health Day

Don't Mind Me--As I Read Over Your Shoulder

The New Me

A New Year's Tale

The World Turned Upside Down

An Ode To Howard Parks

Try To Focus

What's Your Thunder?

Family Ties

Sitting Is The New Smoking

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About the Author

BOOKS BY BARBARA VENKATARAMAN

Death by Didgeridoo (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #1)

The Case of the Killer Divorce (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #2)

Peril in the Park (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #3)

Engaged in Danger (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #4)

Jeopardy in July (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #5)

Malice in Miami (Jamie Quinn Cozy Mystery #6)

Jamie Quinn Mysteries Box Set: Books 1-3

Jamie Quinn Mysteries Box Set: Books 4-6

Jamie Quinn Mysteries Box Set: Books 1-6

I'm Not Talking About You, Of Course (Quirky Essays for Quirky People #1)

A Trip to the Hardware Store (Quirky Essays for Quirky People #2)

A Smidge of Crazy (Quirky Essays for Quirky People #3)

Teatime with Mrs. Grammar Person

If You'd Just Listened To Me In The First Place

The Fight for Magicallus

Accidental Activist: Justice for the Groveland Four (Co-Author)

Scary Shorts: Flash Fiction

Holiday Shorts: Flash Fiction

Valentine Shorts: Flash Fiction

Dog Days of Summer Shorts: Flash Fiction

A Year of Shorts: Flash Fiction

NOWHERE TO HIDE

It started with an ad for Depends. It was popping up everywhere and following me all over the internet. Personally, I rarely notice advertising, whether it dances on the edge of my news articles, or wedges itself boldly between the paragraphs, or even when it hijacks the entire page and forces me to click on the 'x' to close it--but this one caught my eye. I couldn't decide if I was annoyed or amused, but I was definitely curious.

What kind of demented algorithm had determined that I was a candidate for Depends?

While I was pondering that question, ads for single men in their 50's started popping up. Yes, I am in my fifties (which isn't hard to figure out, since my state sells my voting information and my birthdate is right out there in plain sight), but I'm happily married and have never given anyone cause to suspect otherwise. It made me wonder if my husband was being bombarded with ads for single women in their fifties or worse yet, given society's double standards, single women in their thirties. But when the ads for 'plus-size flirty dresses' came along, I got mad. Look, I could stand to lose ten or twelve pounds but, seriously, this was too much.

Still, I knew it wasn't personal--how could it be? After I'd researched boarding schools for a story I was writing, I was bombarded with ads asking, "Do you have a troubled teen?", and offering suggestions for where to send my problem child. And when I visited the website of a pool builder, let's call it 'Joe's Pools', ads began to pop up so frequently that I finally called them and begged them to stop hounding me. The owner was quite apologetic and explained that he had paid someone a lot of money to 'get his name out there', but that it wasn't his intention to 'haunt people's dreams' as I’d put it.

I realize that everyone has overhead and that advertising pays the bills but let's get one thing straight; my biggest purchases are buying books and dining out. In other words, valuable advertising dollars are being wasted on the likes of me. I remember reading George Orwell's "1984" in middle school and cringing at the idea of advertising so ubiquitous that there was no escaping it—even pillowcases flashed toothpaste ads. Well, I'm ready for that pillowcase now. And once I post this essay online, I'm sure ads will pop up for pillowcases--as well as linens, comforters and mattresses, in every size, color, and price range imaginable. I can hardly wait.

Since I can’t do anything to stop the deluge, I will do my best to ignore it. I am still optimistic that one day an ad will pop up for a product or service that I actually need. After all, I don’t want to be a moocher, getting my news for free and not buying a damn thing. And when that happens, I promise you I will order whatever it is immediately and without hesitation. But honestly, I hope it's not Depends…

AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

Can you guess how many words there are in the English language? I bet you can’t. According to the Global Language Monitor, the number of words in the English Language is 1,025,109. Even more surprising, a new word is created every 98 minutes for an average of 14.7 words per day. The average English-speaking adult has a vocabulary of about 20,000-30,000 words. For myself, as an attorney, writer, English major and geeky logophile, I like to think I'm above average but, too often, I find I'm at a loss for words. Not technical terms or high-brow concepts, but plain old words. I could blame my age (I just turned 55) or I could blame my iPhone (where Siri is at my beck and call to answer any silly question, day or night), or I could blame myself for not trying hard enough. A myriad of concepts, movies, books, and people have decided my brain is too darn crowded, so they hit the road and left me with my only two vague and useless phrases: That…thing, you know what I mean and that…guy, you remember him…

I believe the true culprit is convenience. For example, I remember every important phone number from my childhood, including my grandparents' number--and they have been gone twenty-five years. Today, the only phone number I am confident I know is my own; every other number is stored on my phone. Here is another example, say I want to know the definition of a word I've typed; I can simply right-click on it. What's more, I can translate it into dozens of languages including Hindi, Swahili and Mandarin. Just now, I right-clicked on the word number and learned that its synonyms are: amount, quantity, sum, figure, numeral, digit, and integer. Sure, I could have come up with those words without a lot of effort, but why would I bother? I know I have better things to do, even if I can't think of any at the moment…

There is a second culprit I blame for my diminishing vocabulary, for rewriting my life story into a mystery I call "The Case of the Purloined People, Places and Things". Rats, I meant nouns, of course. That culprit is the pictograph, a pictorial symbol for a word or phrase. You know them as emojis. The endless supply of clever emojis has led me to forgo words and replace them with pictures: hearts, fireworks, sad face, mad face, caterpillars--you name it, I've used it. If you think about it, the oldest cave painting in the world is 40,000 years old (pre-dating the oldest known alphabet by 36,000 years) and we have been perfecting spoken and written language ever since. Or so we thought. Given my reliance on emojis to communicate, I realize we have come full circle. Maybe there was nothing to perfect, we had it right from the beginning and all this time we have been chasing our tails. I don't know about you, but I feel so much better knowing that I don't need to scrounge around for the perfect word anymore. A symbol works just fine. :-D