Karma

It is a well known fact that as a human being ages, his senses go dimmer.
He sees a bit blurred. He hears a bit muffled. And so on.

It's probably all for the best. The world being what it is, there's no point in seeing so well or hearing so sharply anyway. Especially when the neighbour's kids are playing their music.

Here's the song they were listening to that day, exactly 20 years ago.



From his bedroom, old Jeremy listened.

He began to hum along.

"Come - a - come - a come - a - curmudgeon," he crooned. He thought that's what the song said. "You come and go, you come and go. Loving would be easy if you just shout and scream, just shout and scream ..."

Old Jeremy hummed.

For a while, he hummed without thinking about the lyrics.

"Come - a - come - a come - a - curmudgeon,
Just shout and scream, just shout and scream ..."

Then, slowly, the words began to make sense. They were singing about a curmudgeon.

Quickly, he looked it up on the internet, just to make sure. Yes, there it was, plain as could be:
A curmudgeon is a cantankerous, difficult, and bad-tempered person, who is usually also an old man.

To think that kids thought it was cool to be a curmudgeon - so cool, they actually sang about it! They liked bad-tempered old men, they thought them to be macho heroes and lovers!

No wonder he wasn't popular, no wonder he wasn't a hero. He was just old Jeremy, who gave out 2-cent candy bars on Halloween. That was all he was famous for, his 2-cent candy bars. (Yes, you still get candy bars for 2 cents, but Jeremy isn't going to reveal his source.)

Well, he was going to change things NOW.

He was going to be a hero, a lover.

He was going to be cool. So cool, that he was the one the lyrics described.

"Come - a - come - a come - a - curmudgeon,
Just shout and scream, just shout and scream ..."

Old Jeremy is now the most feared man in the district. Nannies whisper to their juvenile charges: "Eat your vegetables, or we'll call old Jeremy." Teachers don't threaten students with 'the Principal' any more. They just have to say 'old Jeremy' and students march in line, return library books, stop splashing around in mud-puddles ... whatever. Why, even sales clerks in the shops give a little extra discount when old Jeremy comes a-buying.

And he frightened the widow Sanchez so much, she married him. So he's met every bit of the lyrics - he's a hero, he's a lover. And he intends to keep it that way forever.