As you know, a few days ago I called for banning carriage rides on the Plaza in the wake of an accident last week that left five people with, luckily, relatively minor injuries.
I said in a comment at the bottom of that post that if given a few minutes, I could come up with “a couple of dozen other things that should be banned, too.”
Well, I’ve been thinking about that self-imposed challenge, and while I haven’t been able to come up with “a couple of dozen,” I have assembled a list of eight things I’d like to see banned.
See how many of these you agree with…(And feel free to add your suggestions in the comments section…I’m sure you’ve got some good ones.)
:: 
Cellphones either in people’s hands or sitting next to them on the table at restaurants…This nasty habit has become commonplace, especially among young people. But I see it often enough among people my own age — and people I’ve been with — to recoil from it. While we’re at it, cellphone display should be banned at schools, where they now pose a significant impediment to learning, and in during church services. (A few months ago, I sat next to a guy who texted through a 20-minute sermon at Country Club Christian Church. I would have smacked him, but I thought it might detract from the pastor’s message. Immediately after the sermon, I moved up several pews so the guy was out of my field of vision.)
:: Wearing jeans to the opera, symphony or any other event at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Being in a spectacular setting like that dictates a certain level of sartorial propriety, and jeans — even designer ones — don’t measure up.
:: Rap music. WTF? I’m sorry, it’s shit, every single “song.”
:: All Kansas City radio stations except KCUR-FM, 89.3. What a wasteland the rest of local radio is…If you want to hear songs from rock ‘n roll’s greatest decade, the ’60s, you have to subscribe to Sirius.
:: Leaf blowers. A more irritating, droning sound is hard to find. In its own way, the leaf blower is as bad as the jackhammer…The penalty for using one should be four hours of raking. The best way to deal with leaves is mulch them with the mower and return them to the earth.
:: “Thunder sticks.” I’m sure you’ve seen them either at a live or televised sporting event. They are those long, plastic sticks that people bang together to produce a thunderous, whomping din. They reduce everyone in the stadium to a noise delivery agent, and they suck the life out of cheering, which is the lifeblood of sporting events.
:: Those extra-bright headlights that you occasionally see, usually on fancy cars. Back in 2001, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked for public comments on “high-intensity discharge lights” (HID), and it got more than 1,800 complaints. In 2003, federal regulators were supposed to propose rules regarding the lights, but as far as I can tell, nothing ever came of it. Of course not. It would require a lot more than paper shuffling.
:: Charades at parties. If the level of conversation is so poor you need games to pick up the pace, just go home and watch TV.
OK, I have a three items for which further production should be banned:
(1) Coffee cups/mugs. I estimate through casual observation that each household in the US has an AVERAGE of 77 cups/mugs. Usage is 2 per day and 4-6 on special occasions.
(2) Paper Clips. How many boxes per household do we need. Red ones…yellow ones…metal ones…Wow!
(3) Staples. Very similar to paper clips, but due to their neat way of lining up so neatly, we can store many more hundreds of them.
My projections predict these 3 items will not need to restart production until well into the 22nd Century…somewhere around 2135!!!
I just rooted through my desk drawers and found I have three staplers and a box of 5,000 staples. I’m going to start stapling more frequently, instead of paper clipping, so I can get my staple inventory down to about 4,000 by the time I leave this mortal coil.
But, guys, how else are you gonna hold papers together?? Mr. Blakeney, I bet you’d change your mind if you could see the green penguin paper clips my sister brought me from Antarctica!
wearing of caps in restaurants, etc
Damn! I shoulda thought of that…Good one, Bill.
…Several years ago, we are at the home of some friends in Downers Grove, outside Chicago, and one of the guests — a young man — had his cap pulled down over his scroungy, unwashed hair. I had the feeling that hat wasn’t coming off unless somebody said something, so I took him aside and said, “Would you mind taking off that cap before we sit down to the table?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, and pulled it off. He had bad hair, of course, but it was better than having that damn cap on at Thanksgiving dinner.
I don’t know … I think I’d rather look at a cap than look at (and smell) dirty hair at the dinner table.
Gayle, specialty and/or commemorative clips would be allowed if approved on a case-by-case basis.
:-)
The journalistic use of the phrases “walked back” for recanted, and “unpacked” for explained. Also, anybody using “So,” to start an answer, instead of the more traditional vocalized pauses of “Ahem,” “Er-uh,” “Well,” “Umm,” or its British cousin “Emm.”
Excellent, Jerry. Terrible affront to the King’s English, all three examples you cite.
+1
Hear hear on rap; have always asserted it is to music what comics are to literature.
Obviously, the ad department of jimmycsays now controls your editorial output. Readers, stand by for “sponsored content” from Aristocrat Motors, Halls, Mission Farms, and the Kauffman Foundation.
Short people. They’re so annoying the way they always are asking you to get something off the top shelf. Haven’t they ever heard of elevator shoes?
You’ll probably want to rethink that one, Mike. It sounds a bit Trump-ian:
“Round up the short people, put ’em in a camp enclosed with barbed wire and make ’em pay for the barbed wire.”
Oh jimmy, you ol’ buzzkill, you. Way to take the humor out of a hilarious comment.
Short people, got no reason…
Point taken.
Will — Great song. Haven’t heard it in 20 years, probably…The first comment on the site you linked says, “The concept of hidden meanings and context escapes some people.”
That’s me, at least today. I missed the joke completely. (And Gayle let me know it.)
Myself, there are whole weeks I’m denser than the fog off Germany’s North Sea…
Millennials in general
>>Rap music. WTF? I’m sorry, it’s shit, every single “song.”<< That’s OK. The rappers probably wouldn’t appreciate your Lawrence Welk albums, either.
Hey, hey, hey, put the needle away. Remember, I said, “If you want to hear songs from rock ‘n roll’s greatest decade…”
::Safety pins — give me a break.
::The phrase “give me a break.”
I’m not buzz-killing you, Gayle, but are you suggesting the banning of safety pins? I hope not. That’s what I used yesterday to hold up my long johns…
I think you know which safety pins I’m talking about.
(Maybe you should ask Santa for some new long johns with elastic in them.)
Ooops, once again. With all the talk about paper clips and staples, I was thinking too literally. Connection failure.