There may be benefits to gradual hearing loss

I think Constitutional Carry is, by and large, a bad idea.

It shares the underlying problem of so many ideas: It would work a lot better if people weren’t involved.

At least in the automotive safety field, engineers have advanced to the point of controlling the functions that once were the exclusive purview of the nut behind the wheel.

Still, as of late, I’ve found myself feeling a closer kinship with advocates of Constitutional Carry, for a reason the framers could not have foreseen.

Because one of these days, in the not-too-distant future, I’m pretty sure I’m going to exercise my Constitutional right to shoot my phone.

The scene unfolds in my mind like the one in Home Alone 2, in which our beloved Kevin turns on the old gangster movie to fend off the cadre of toadies trying to oust him from the hotel.

In the ganster’s voice I say: “Ya think ya so smart, dontcha? And those bimbos Siri and Alexa, too. Here’s a blast for each of your

5Gs. And then I’m gonna unfriend the buncha ya.”

Part of the reason my passions have been rising is that, a couple weeks back, I adjusted my phone’s ring tone to reflect the character of its relationship with me. It now sounds like a yippy dog plucked from the arm of the toupeed driver of a Cadillac and programmed to nip at my ankles like a Roomba set on psychotic.

Granted, the yip doesn’t live up to my late friend Jim Hays’ fictional rendering of the mutt he dispatched with by means of a shotgun he pulled out of the golf bag in his trunk in a tall tale that remains unforgettable 30 something years after its telling.

Still, the sound is grating enough to persuade me that, in this time of inflation, phoneicide may be a wise budget move. I’m pretty sure I’ll spend less money on the purchase of gun, ammunition and safety training than at the pharmacy on sedatives I’ll soon

need to carry on some semblance of a normal life – even with the help of Very Good RX.

All this nonsense aside, I can’t help but think that I’m not the only one being driven crazy from a constant connectedness – and an expectation that I be constantly available to everyone, including the idiot scammer who calls about my college loans.

Although my children may still have college loans at 68, I don’t.

I’m not sure it’s so much privacy I’m longing for as peace and quiet.

So much so that I’m thinking of founding a 501 c3 that puts out pamphlets explaining to seniors like myself the benefits of gradual hearing loss.

I’ve got more, but going to have call this to a halt.

My phone just beeped with a text from my editor asking if I am going to have a column into him today, which, as you know, I am. And I bear him no ill will.

Before I go, though,

I’m adjusting my sounds and hepatics so that the sound I hear from now on when a text arrives is the meep-meep of the Roadrunner.

The bad news is the kinship I feel with Wile E. Coyote the moment he sees the anvil plummeting toward him through the puff of dust his body just sent up as it slammed into the floor of an arroyo.

But there’s good news, too.

The name of my 501c3 just hit me on the head: Acme.