Dear Dr. Babooner,

I spend so much time doing my work-from-home job on the computer, I’ve set up a desk in my bedroom so I can take quickie naps when a work lull allows for it.

Lately I’ve been having this recurring dream where I become lost in a storm. Unsure of my bearings, I don’t know what to pay attention to anymore.

My world is transformed into a blizzard of information bits, all of them flying past my head in a swirling cloud of text and images that seems driven by some unyielding, spontaneously generated wind. Too tiny to catch but too big to ignore, each individual know-flake feels terribly significant until I look closely enough to see that it is made up of absolutely nothing. As I stumble through these mounting piles of apparently urgent but ultimately pointless distractables, I have a growing sensation that I am missing something crucial that I will never, ever find.

I always wake up the same way – tangled in the electronic device cords that form a hot, dusty web in the tiny space between my desk and the wall.

What does it mean?

Desperately,
Digital Dreamer.

I told Digital Dreamer she should stop sleeping in the same room with the computer. Your brain and the Internet are just two different types of electronic networks, and it is not healthy to bunk your precious noggin so close to all that commotion. Try resting next to a houseplant instead.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Today is the (supposed) anniversary of the (rumored) incident involving Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev hammering for emphasis with his shoe during a diatribe at the United Nations in 1960.

I was 5 years old at the time, so I don’t remember many of the details, but it did make a significant impression on me that a guy could get so much attention by taking off his shoe and banging it on a hard surface. When I tried it at the dinner table, I found out the rumors were true!

Did the incident really happen? Accounts differ. Some say he merely waved the shoe while pounding the desk with his fist. Others note that he couldn’t have removed the shoe while sitting at his U.N. desk, because the desk was too small for him to reach under there and he was too fat to bend over while seated. One account claims the shoes were new and painful, so he took them off before sitting down. When he got wound up and wanted to drive home the point, he noticed a shoe nearby and took advantage of the situation. A crime of opportunity.

Khruschev’s tirade was the most famous angry thing (possibly) done with a shoe up to the Richard Reid “shoe bomber” incident in 2002. In both cases, there is no video evidence to verify the incident for future generations, though You Tube is full of attempts to re-create Khruschev’s rant.

Whether or not it actually happened, for Cold War kids like me, the bogeyman became an angry old bald man banging his shoe, telling us the kids will become Communists and shouting “We Will Bury You!”. And now I have become an angry old bald man whose feet hurt. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

Describe your favorite pair of shoes.

Here’s a fresh note from our perennial sophomore, Bubby Spamden of Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

I know people your age like to gripe about us high school kids because we’re “soft” and “lazy” and “ungrateful” and we’re addicted to our “gadgets.” I know I’m guilty on all counts. But my Life Skills teacher, Mr. Boozenporn, says you guys weren’t all that different when you were in high school. He says every generation is accused of being dumber and weaker and less excellent by the generations that came earlier. And while overall test scores may be down a bit, the pressure to be super as an individual keeps going up and up and up.

What do I mean?

There’s this girl – Brianna Amat. She managed to get on the football team at Pinckney High School in Michigan because she’s such a good kicker on the girl’s soccer team. Fair enough, I guess. But then she went and got voted to be the Homecoming Queen and got to go out on the football field at halftime and get a tiara put on her head while she was wearing her uniform! And then when the Pinckney Pirates were one point behind in the second half (because she missed a point-after in the first half), she kicked the field goal that beat their archrival, Grand Blanc!

So she managed to corner two of the most prized roles in high school in the very same night – homecoming queen and football hero. The only top roles she left on the table are The Kid Who Always Has Money and The Kid Whose Parents Are Never Home. That’s pretty amazing. It means she’s probably got, like, a record percentage of other students at the school with a crush on her. And it lifts up the bar for anybody else who wants to be really, really celebrated.

People say kids today are a lot more open to all kinds of people doing different things they aren’t “supposed” to do. That might be true, but I don’t think anybody else will ever be able to equal Brianna’s feat, even though I know for a fact that there are a couple of guys at Wendell Wilkie High who would very much like to be Homecoming Queen. No big deal, they just really feel comfortable in tiaras.

Anyway, I guess the point is that not everybody my age is good-for-nothing. Some are good-at-everything. And some, like Brianna Amat, are living out pretty incredible stories.

Your Pal,
Bubby

I told Bubby that forty years ago, as both homecoming queen and football hero, Brianna would have been required by unwritten high school law to date herself. So I’m glad to see things have changed. Compared to the old days, there are many more opportunities for high school kids to get that feeling of being celebrated today. Brianna gets our attention because she happened to corral two of the classic favorites.

What was the high school honor you most wanted to win?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

During a recent conversation with my son, I inadvertently let it slip that I think his children, a pair of girls aged 14 and 12, are selfish little heathens who exhibit all the social decorum one would expect from a pair of hungry wolverines.

One example: They put their elbows on the table, lower their faces to a scant 2 inches above the plate and proceed to gnaw and inhale their food, always accompanied by a cascade of grotesque slurping and chewing noises reminiscent of a National Geographic special about the food chain on the African savannah.

In response to this observation, my son said “manners are dead”. “I’m raising these children to be ‘natural creatures'”, he said, “wild and free and unencumbered by the petty rules of society.”

And he pointed out that Emily Post herself considered good etiquette to be a style of behavior intended to help other people feel comfortable. If his children feel comfortable eating their pizza as if they have just buried their faces in the warm entrails of an exhausted antelope, what right do I have to judge them?

He suggested that it was bad manners for me to even bring this up, and especially uncouth for me to pretend that I just let the criticism “slip” when in fact I have been brooding over this for years.

Dr. Babooner, while there may be some truth to the assertion that I have been thinking about this for a long time, it was never my intention to attempt to correct the atrocious behavior of these young barbarians. They are irredeemable. I would sooner try to convince voracious Asian Carp to swim back downstream.

But if etiquette is all about helping others relax, why must I always be the one to sacrifice? How come no one changes his or her behavior to help ME feel comfortable?

Sincerely,
Crabby Gramps

I told Crabby Gramps I was alarmed by his use of the world “irredeemable”. That strikes me as a shockingly final judgment for one to level against young relatives. And frankly, I said, his son is correct. Etiquette is dead – finally killed by the Internet in the same way table manners were done in by the State Fair, along with the table itself.

As for feeling “comfortable”, that must come from within. If you are looking for someone else to MAKE you feel comfortable, you are likely to wait for a very long time. Rather, C.G. should just decide to approach dinner with the mindset of a wildlife biologist. Observe and take notes. These are fascinating creatures who cannot be tamed!

You might also just “let it slip” that any “wild and free” creatures roaming in your house will have to wear radio collars and ear tags for the duration – for their own protection, of course. And one can never rule out the judicious use of tranquilizer darts.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Today is the birthday of the British Music Hall star Stanley Holloway, who entered the world on October 1st, 1890, and proceeded to work through some amazing years of transition in the world of show business, performing on radio, stage, in TV and movies. Holloway’s greatest fame came as Alfred P. Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” both in the original Broadway production and in the 1964 film.

He strikes a familiar note for us with this old music hall favorite:

This is a classic example of humor made out of something that wouldn’t be funny at all if you actually witnessed it. Here’s another from Mr. Holloway:

Heads chopped off by selfish husbands, children eaten by lions. Har, har, har.
Don’t get the joke?
Guess you had to not be there.

When is it OK to laugh at the misfortune of others?