PERRY: Seriously suffering from demented squirrels, drivers and chicken dinners

Hate is such a strong word. I like that.

I’ve really been hating hard on 2025, and, clearly, I’m nowhere done yet.

Yeah, I join the other 74,999,165 voters who knew this was exactly what the nation would be suffering if they voted for Donald Trump.

But my free-flowing and general malaise is much more than just the constant headache I have from clenching my jaw so tightly as I roll through the national wire news as editor of this newspaper. I understand that, somehow, I have fallen into a parallel universe where reality, Saturday Night Live and discarded doggy doodie bags meld and ripple across the 2025 continuum. 

As the squirrels, staring at me, munched on the last of my prized tomatoes and the cool and gray crept in this week, I realized how many things are driving me crazy. Whether it’s my advancing old age and the chronic pain, blindness and deafness that seems to inflict, or the nation’s erupting political calamity, and the chronic pain that seems to inflict, I just hate so much. I’m hoping that an airing of these growing grievances will alleviate them. Join me in my catharsis:

I really hate how there are now several instances every single time I drive on metro highways where some asshat nearly takes out themselves and dozens of others nearby. In nearly every episode of this dirt-bag derby, the jerk is at the wheel of a silver pick-up truck, or a black pick-up truck, or a black Jeep, or a blue pick-up truck, or an Audi or some kind of a car. These freaks just don’t do 15 miles or so above the speed limit, like I do. They’re pushing 100 mph or better as they wild-weave among traffic, into the shoulders and medians, up the butt of your car or that of the horrified guy in front of you. Until a few years ago, I saw this behavior maybe once in my life. Then, it seemed like I’d be retelling an episode as much as once a month. Now, it’s a couple of times each way into and back from work. Every day. I’m not exaggerating. Since nobody teaches anybody to drive like this, these jerks are watching this and thinking it looks like a good idea to them. So they imitate it. So, what kind of stupid gack sees something totally wrong and senseless on almost every level and thinks, “Oh, hell, yeah”? And if it’s this bad here, can you just imagine what it must be like in states where Donald Trump won?

As much as I hate Colorado’s highway hellions, I loathe how the metro restaurant scene has become so obscene. The number of restaurants that believe in their heart of hearts and monthly margins that they have a God-given right to charge upward of $45 for a roasted chicken dinner is alarming — à la carte. These are the same restaurants boasting wines that their reps gave them deals on because they aren’t moving with the public, and they then “step on” them five or even six times. It means they pay about $1.50 for a glass of wine, and charge you $15.50 or more. I love restaurants. I worked in restaurants for much of my life. I don’t begrudge hard-working restaurant owners, managers and employees a good living. But I’m not paying well over a hundred bucks for tacos and beer, or for an OK chicken dinner for two, because at least it’s not a two-hundred-dollar baked pork dinner with three carrots glazed in locally sourced water. The reason why an increasing number of restaurants are doing this is because an increasing number of patrons are willing to pay it. Then they gush on YELP about having peeled off a good chunk of their paycheck for the best roasted chicken dinner ever. I can only assume that their previous roasted chickens were waiting at the checkout at Walmart, and that these people drive like idiots on metro highways to get to their self-absorbed dinners.

But even loathing doesn’t describe the burn I have for health care, or the lack of it, in this country now. My employer and I pay a princely sum for crappy health insurance each month for everyone who works here. For the most part, I’ve been lucky my entire life to have never been seriously ill. So I’m the guy that pays into the insurance pool and never draws. You’re welcome. But I also make a huge effort to push away from the trough, even when I don’t want to. And I hate having to stop eating cheap, stale candy from the grocery store remand bin, but, hey, I’m an adult. I regularly bike, hike and ski. I avoid foods that researchers have consistently said for decades are anathema to good health, other than cheap, stale candy in the remand bin. And I look for answers other than drugs when I get sick. As a reward, I now pay more for health care for my family than I do for my mortgage and a long list of other bills. It’s all for nothing. If I were to break my leg, it would cost me another $6,000 or more in “out-of-pocket” and co-pays and other insurance scam rip-offs. Don’t blame Obamacare. We were 90 percent here even before Obama took office. It’s just that the Affordable Care Act never did squat for prices or making people take better care of themselves. Why? It’s because nearly every member of Congress and the president takes oodles of campaign cash from the insurance and medical industries, which they make very clear will go to a political competitor if votes go the wrong way. And I abhor the fact that the people who are the most unhealthy and driving up insurance rates the fastest live in states that have worked hardest to undermine the ACA.

And, you saw this coming. I’m sure they live in the states that supported Trump and have sent us their demented drivers. I hate that.

 Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com