The title of this piece of puffery sounds like that old Sesame Street song One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others. Except for the fact that none of them seem to have an obvious relationship with the others. The thing that ties them all together is this past weekend...actually just the 24 hour period from Friday night through Saturday night.

Friday Night: My wonderful wife and I went to a big concert. It was there that I learned I am too old to go to a big concert. I can understand enthusiasm and having a good time, I think, and most of the folks in our particular section were well-behaved in their revelry. But, a few just took the party attitude to a new party altitude. I've never quite understood why you'd pay good money to hear someone sing and, then, sing along to every song...off key. Or, pay the money and then talk and talk and talk and talk. You can do both of those things for free in your car. Then, there was the screaming. After about six songs by the headliner, we just had to leave. I was just recovering my hearing from an Aaron Carter concert I had taken our daughter to about five years ago when the high-pitched hooting set in. We, and others around us, tried the half-turn but got nowhere. A few even did a full-turn with serious glare, attempting to moderate the overly-boisterous behavior. Nothing. No response except louder screaming and singing. As for actually saying something directly, I admit I am a little gun-shy on that point. Years ago, at a movie, I turned around to ask a couple if they could please quit talking and, before I could open my mouth, one of them said "Oh, you're our favorite weatherman. We watch you all the time." Well, I need all the viewers I can fool, so I just smiled. Anyway, I think my concert going days may be behind me. The traffic. The full-body frisk at the door...necessary, I guess, but a sad commentary on the times. The lack of self-control on the part of a very few others in the crowd. I think, from now on, I'll just hunker down with a glass of milk and a pile of Oreos and put an old Sinatra concert on the VCR. I should've listened to my mom who called Friday afternoon and told me I needed to go to bed early because I don't get enough sleep. She is 500 miles away and still knows best.

Saturday Morning: A couple years ago, our optometrist told me that it wouldn't be long before I'd probably need bifocals. Within hours of the visit, his prediction seemed to come true. But, being stubborn, I put off a return visit until now. I told him I was pretty sure he'd done something nefarious to my peepers in order to make his prognosis accurate. Well, I now need to get something for my eyes that will allow me to see far away and read, too. Lately, for public appearances, I've had to ask the folks doing the preparations to please make sure the printing on whatever I'm supposed to read is nice and big. By now, it requires printing on the side of cardboard taken from refrigerator boxes. Also, the contact lenses I have feel like they're made of Velcro. I've had them since well before the turn of the century. Of course, the good doctor used those drops to dilate my pupils. When I walked outside the sunshine knocked me on my fanny. The rest of the day I looked like a frightened meerkat.

Saturday Afternoon: As I mentioned a few days back, we had a new-old bed delivered. It has required a bit of a make-over for the bedroom. With a real bedroom set for the first time in nearly 20 years, it became necessary to straighten things up including getting all the books that had stacked up off the floor...all the potential E-Bay treasures either sold or just donated...all the gifts and goodies put in better places. To accomplish this, my wife brought home three cheap little bookshelves that I was instructed to assemble. It had one of those diagrams indicating that the only tools needed were a hammer and a screwdriver. Well, I put the first two together in fairly short order when it hit me that I had made a major blunder. The extra piece of pseudo-wood left over from each shelf should have tipped me off. I had put the bottom shelf in upside-down. So, the "hidden" connectors weren't hidden at all and the extra piece meant to act as a "skirt" wouldn't fit. I took both completed shelves apart, flipped the bottom, then did the third shelf. One of the shelves already had books on it and, in my hurried frustration, I just tilted the thing to dump the books out....without thinking that the two interior shelves were just sitting on pegs so they fell out as well, directly on my big toe. After a rather spirited litany of displeasure directed at the inanimate object, I finished my task. The instructions said the assembly of the shelf would be about a 15 minute job. I could have read most the books on the floor in the time it took me to get these things together. Well, the room looks better. The books are off the floor. My wife is happy and my big toe has almost stopped throbbing.

Saturday Night: It was my great honor to serve as co-host of the Miss Wooded Hills and Miss Leavenworth County competition in Basehor, Kansas. It is part of the Miss America system. The real host of the event was former Miss Kansas Teen USA, Sarah Jump. She did a great job keeping everything on track. The ten contestants were terrific, as were the hard-working judges. The two winners, who will compete for Miss Kansas this summer, are Lindsay Hoover named Miss Wooded Hills and Paula Prosser crowned Miss Leavenworth County. If you go to the Miss Wooded Hills website you can see their smiling faces. They have one photo there with me standing between the two winners. The caption could easily read "Local Girls Help Grandpa To His Seat." Congratulations to all who competed as well as those volunteers who made it such a fun night.

So, now I will listen to a CD of the performer we couldn't really hear on Friday night while getting used to my new bifocal lenses from Saturday morning as I page through a book from the shelves I assembled on Saturday afternoon before putting on the extra crown I sneaked home after the pageant Saturday night.