pokes

Are any of you familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan? They're the two composers who wrote the Pirates of Penzance amongst many other musicals. Anywho, I was singing a song today when an evesdropper asked me, in a rather intrusive fashion, I might add, where it was from. I responded by reporting that, to the best of my knowledge, it was from the Pirates of Penzance only to have this unfamiliar woman disagree with me. She had no idea where she thought it came from just that it coudln't be from the Pirates of Penzance simply because she'd have remembered it. Now far be it from me to show disrespect to my elders, especially if i can avoid it, but something about the matter-of-factness with which she corrected me, when I knew myself to be in the right, really annoyed me. I went on to explain to her as politely as I could that I had memorized the song for an acting class, had performed it publicly and that, though it might be true, as she so needlessly stated, that I was wrong about the author, I wasn't wrong about the source. Apparently it'd been years since anyone dared contradict this wretched old hag (note I no longer feel the need to objectively portray her) because no sooner than I had asserted my opinion of the source, inadvertently contradicting her contradiction, did this indignant old bag fly into a quiet tantrum (excuse the oxymoron but she was actually quite monotonous in her rant) about the youth of today not showing enough respect for their elders. I'm no angel, far from it in fact, but I was treating this woman with the utmost respect and courtesy so hopefully it won't surprise anyone to learn that this is where I'd had enough. I don't quite remember how I phrazed what I said next but I do remember feeling guilty about it afterwards. I ended our brief tiff by remarking on how idiotic and incredulous it was of her to converse with me as she had and wished her a continued miserable existance much to the shock of the onlookers who'd assembled near us in the JCC.
I'd never met such a genuinely miserable old woman until today and I'm slightly disillusioned over it. I can only pray that this woman was an anomaly and not a specimen. May we all lose our minds before we lose our spirit.
Oh yes... the song. I'm not going to type it out as it's actually quite long but it's the modern major general song. Come on, you know it, right? And if you don't, I'm sure now you do. Anywho, stay cool kiddos. Mwa