Grumpy Old Men

"What do you mean?" she said. "We're just like everybody else."

"No," I said. "You're not. Everybody else distrusts happiness. For everybody else, it's like, if you're happy then you've either overlooked something or something is about to go wrong. Being very happy isn't normal. Even the Constitution says so. The pursuit of happiness. Not happiness. Pursuit. Everybody knows you're never going to catch it. Sometimes, maybe. But it always gets away. So it seems completely rational to me that researchers would plumb the depths of the very happy person to see what the hell is going on."

"I've got to go," Jessica said. "I'm going to be late."

"Will it make you unhappy to be late?" I asked.

"Upset, maybe, but not unhappy. See ya."

She whisked out the door and was gone, taking her happiness with her.

I sat on the bed, contemplating happiness.

Who would have thought they even had such a thing as a "standard happiness test?" Not me. I wondered if they have a standard curmudgeonliness test. I'd pass that with flying colors.

It struck me that the relationship between curmudgeonliness and happiness is worth its own study because I am very happy being a curmudgeon. Some curmudgeons are dour. Not me. I'm one of your energetic curmudgeons. I enjoy registering a good complaint or, better yet, a rant. To me, the movie Grumpy Old Men wasn't so much a movie as it was an instructional video.

It occurred to me that they might also want to study how the very curmudgeonly person and the very happy person get along. Very happy people, I'm guessing, probably see the best in others. Curmudgeons don't see the worst, exactly. We like to think of it as seeing the reality. That can cause conflict. On occasion throughout our marriage, I've said words along these lines: "Jessica. I'm about to criticize someone. Please don't see the other person's side. I just want to call them a jerk and feel like I'm right for a little while.