Our local newspaper, the St. Joseph News-Press, has a section titled It’s Your Call. People can phone in and state their opinions without identifying themselves. In other words, it’s a way to voice your opinion irresponsibly. Apparently we enjoy reading it, because it’s there every morning. Here’s a sampling:

Aug 20:

Do St. Joseph drivers know how to use turn signals? It is very frustrating and dangerous. I have never driven in a city that uses less turn signals than St. Joseph.

I agree with the sentiment here, but I doubt it’s limited to our hometown. Probably younger generations aren’t aware of the proper use of turn signals. It is dangerous. It’s very frustrating to people my age, who use proper signaling automatically. But just for the record, they’re using fewer turn signals, not less.

Aug 18:

I have an idea on how the St. Joseph Police Department could make some money. Just go to any store in St. Joseph, especially the Wal-Marts, and hand out tickets to the three to four people who are parked in the fire lane at any given time.

The current population of our city is 76,780 people. Apparently three—or four—of us are responsible for this violation. Does this caller think it’s the same people? He claims it’s occurring “at any given time.” So maybe it’s like a little club or something and they rotate their illegal parking in shifts. I’m betting that two—or three—of them are older or physically limited, and probably would not park in the fire lane if there was an actual fire going on. That narrows it down to one—or two—people committing this heinous crime. So I’m trying to calculate how much money can be made. I calculate not much. I’m retired and I think I would like to join this club.

Aug 14:

I don’t know whether we can change this or not. Today when making a purchase I was told to sign using a black stick on a small glass screen. I stated, “I really don’t like doing this as this is how people get the flu” as I reluctantly signed for the purchase. The cashier then put both hands together, coughed in them then handed me my receipt. We really need to do something about this.

We really do.  We need to eliminate It’s Your Call. Wouldn’t using a real pen and a real piece of paper present the same germs? And seriously, what good was telling the cashier?  The result was a germ-laden receipt.  People like that just aren’t fixable.   I’ll let you decide which one I’m talking about. Buy some disposable latex gloves and stop wasting my oxygen.

Aug 13:

Stop laying on your horns when I am stopped at a yellow flashing light. Listen fools, there are cars coming from the opposite direction and I can’t make a safe left turn in front of them, so lay off your horns. You can’t see all that because you are behind me. I am old and I look easy to bully, but I carry a concealed gun.

If we could learn to identify road rage in its incubation stage, I think we could reduce gunshot wounds at the hospital.  Apparently if you want to honk your horn, be prepared to duck.  By the way, I was the third car back. I was the one honking and shouting “Pull!” Ten of us could have turned left in the time you had available.

Prison education funds cut by Greitens pushed for funding the day before. He isn’t any different than Trump. They are both two-faced.

With a nod to Abraham Lincoln: If Trump is two-faced, do you think he’d be showing you that one?

Aug 22:

I saw a bunch of people on TV pulling a statue down and kicking it and stomping on it. Don’t they know they weren’t hurting that statue one bit? They were only making fools of themselves. Don’t they know that the statue has no feeling and they weren’t hurting anybody but themselves?

I think they’re crazy too, but I’m pretty sure they knew it was a statue.

And this, from today’s newspaper:

I frequently see in the newspaper and on television where Sen. Claire McCaskill is involved in different things, committees and programs. She seems to take an interest in our state’s well-being. I never hear anything from or about Roy Blunt. He is always the guy standing in the background with nothing to say.

 
There’s more than a little irony in using an anonymous platform like It’s Your Call to complain about somebody else “standing in the background with nothing to say.”  It made me shoot my morning coffee out my nose.