Baby, It’s Cold Outside—on the “Hit” List! WTF!

(What follows is mostly true.)

I’m sitting in the waiting room to get my blood drawn for my physical. My blood pressure was completely normal when I left the doctor’s exam room and she had commented on my fitness and weight gain and attitude. I’m thrilled—that is, until I overhear the two women next to me talking about the latest social no-no, faux pas, or where the line was crossed on the PC scale once again: the song (one of my favorites) “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I can feel pressure building in my jaw, neck, and gums. What in the hell is wrong with the words or intent of the man’s side of this song, and where exactly is the insensitivity? She can get up and fucking leave anytime; she even says, “Well, maybe one more …”  How do we know he didn’t save her from pneumonia?!

That song was written in 1944! The two women look at me; I’m flinching like I’m getting stung by a herd of wasps, and my squinting eyes challenge their raised eyebrows. I say, “No! You’re telling generations, literally generations, that they’ve been insensitive, overdosed on social novocain! What’s next? You keep telling people what they’ve done wrong over the decades or centuries and they just might rebel: the fucking cake is already baked—you can’t go back and tell them this was the way it was supposed to cook! You’re gonna get a lotta people mad and they might just elect a moron as the president of these un-United States!”

(Couple people nodding, and I’m feeling inspired, emboldened.) 

“And another thing!” (I’m getting into my own rant.) “You want to talk sensitivity? What about those homeless pigeons that can’t land on all these statues?” (I see eyebrows raise, but I plod on.) “Besides, nothing could be more ironic and telling than 100 years of pigeon shit! I mean you gotta know that these homeless birds are going to start looking for moving targets now! I want to start a movement called Pennies for Pigeons!”

We have a colorful past; it’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Nothing you intend to “heal” today is going to change yesterday’s fetid aromas. Tear down tenants and portals to the past and you miss a chance to shake your head and point a child towards an explanation and a lesson about what was.  

(Back to the two ladies.) “Look, I admit, the guy was probably trying to get lucky.”  

Two blushes on old faces, but a trim smile now on both. “AHA! I caught you! SHAME!”

“You like Dino?” 

“Raggio? Mr. Raggio?”  I raise my hand to the nurse and rise, singing a chorus of of Baby, It’s Cold Outside!