What I Want

Did you ever want something? Well here are a couple dozen things I want, today.

I’ve always wanted something or other depending on my age and the situation at the time; a VW bus, a Nehru jacket, a lava lamp, some bell bottom jeans, a guitar, some blue suede shoes, a double breasted suit, out of the Army, all my family healthy and happy, the latest hot golf clubs and the ability to use them. Once again I’ve found some things I want. As I shuffle through my 83rd year these wants are compelling, don’t you think?

I want fewer and shorter commercials on the TV. Good Grief there is more commercial time in an hour’s program than there is program. The majority of the commercials are just plain ignorant, they insult me.

I want to choose which cable channels I get. I don’t have any use for 90% of the channels I am forced to have, because they are a part of a package, so I pay for channels I never watch.

I want packaging I can easily open. Cereal boxes, cracker boxes, plastic wrapped products, plastic containers that open without seeking the scissors, or a knife, or the pliers. Most cereal boxes do not open so that you can easily close them again. Those little cardboard tabs tear and are useless; plastic packages that say they are self sealing again, not always. How about bottles that require Superman to open?

I want to talk with someone who speaks clearly in English when I call a company’s customer service department looking for some help, or registering a complaint, someone I can understand and have an intelligent conversation with. I don’t care if they are foreign I just want them to speak so I can understand them.

I want waiters and waitresses to stop asking me, “how is everything?” Hell, I don’t know, I didn’t have everything. I just had what I had, not everything!

I want clerks to stop saying “Have a nice day.” That is way too iffy and weak. I prefer “Go make a nice day.”

I want young boys to hitch up their britches, so I don’t have to see their underpants.

I want children to put down those electronic devices from time to time and go outside and play. Make snow angels, play hide-n-seek, play kick the can, build a snow man, play on the jungle gym, ride a bike, play baseball in a vacant lot, play jacks and hopscotch, play tag and blind man’s bluff, build a snow fort, get muddy.

I want politicians that are actually interested in what they are doing, not just trying to keep their job. Politicians that can sit down across a table, and solve problems in the best interests of the people they represent. I want them to stop the divisiveness and the adversarial attitudes. Stop the acrimonious postures, the combative behavior, and govern to my advantage and yours.

I want people to turn off that irritating, boom-boom music coming out of their automobile that makes my ears pound, assails my senses, and makes my automobile vibrate.

I want mass shootings to stop. I want little children, and innocent movie goers, and shoppers to not die at the hands of someone mentally disturbed.

I want the mentally disturbed identified, and helped before bad things happen. I sure don’t want them to be able to buy guns.

I want the best brains in the country to solve poverty. Every person that wants to do better, be better, should have that chance.

I want somebody to figure out education. It’s been 385 years since our first school opened in Boston. 385 years and we still struggle with how to educate our kids, which by the way is the absolute most important task we face – yes THE most important task.

I want automatic weapons to go only to the military. I want background checks on all gun sales, and the purchaser to pay for the background checks.

I want the NRA to wise up, step up to reality, and stop hiding behind the 2nd Amendment, which they distort.

I want religion to get out of Government. There is supposed to be separation between church and state, and for very good reasons, but it has crept back in. And I want the Government to get out of the bedroom, and all the other places they don’t belong such as the bathroom and women’s bodies.

I want science to be better treated and recognized in Washington DC. How can a politician’s theory or opinion outweigh the majority of the scientific community?

I want wars to stop. I want the conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere to cease, as well as the genocide in African countries, and the gassing in Syria.

I want everyone, including the Government, to get away from my Social Security and Medicare. I earned them, I paid for them, stay clear.

I want the corporations, and special interests, to stop running the country. I want government of the people, and BY the people.

I want more manners, politeness, and respect in our everyday lives - rudeness, anger, and discourtesy to disappear.

I want capitalism to be fixed. I am a capitalist, I believe in capitalism, but it needs some tweaks and changes. A valid and functional capitalistic system needs a little Democratic Socialism. We already have Socialism in our society, but we need some different avenues. Greed has taken over. The bottom line success for Capitalism cannot solely be individual greed. Capitalism should create jobs, provide for work at decent wages, and help restore dignity to people.

I want whoever reads this to be safe, healthy, and happy. “May your smile be contagious and your happiness outrageous.”

Hells Bells, what I want really isn’t too much to ask, is it? How about you? What’s on your list?