Tough as a Cossack

Friday, September 18th, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Ardmore, Ireland

‘Honey watch out,’ a woman said to her husband over the phone.

She had called him after seeing on TV that a car was spotted driving the wrong way on a major highway.

‘Some dope is on the wrong side of the highway.’

‘Are you kidding,’ answers the elderly driver. ‘There are dozens of them.’

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The ferry back from Cherbourg to Dublin was pleasant...and restful. The gentle heaving of the boat put us into the deep sleep of a man who can’t remember what he did wrong.

But the next day, we picked up a package of snacks for the drive back to our home and strained our eyes to read the contents. Even with our glasses on, up to the light...our arm outstretched or held to the nose...the type might have been used to inscribe the Lord’s Prayer on a grain of rice; we couldn’t make it out.

Thus begins our bellyaching. Today, we take on the Problems of Our Time, our long litany of quibbles...gripes...and kvetches.

This is not a specific criticism of the snack company. It is practically universal. For some unknown reason, typefaces are getting smaller...harder to read.

That is not all. Stairs seem to be getting steeper. Buttonholes are smaller. Packaging and childproof caps must have been designed by sadists. How many people starve to death trying to open a vacuum packed, ready-to-eat meal?

People seem to be talking faster...and driving faster, too. Film producers seem to be speeding up the action. Sometimes the plots move so fast, we have a hard time keeping up with them. We get to the denouement and have to ask: did we miss the second act?

Even when they speak more slowly, people lower their voices...as if conspiring against us...as if they didn’t want to be heard. Even on TV, they mumble and muffle. We have to turn the volume up...or put on subtitles...to understand what they are saying.

Even with old friends and family, we now have to remind them. Where they once spoke clearly and loudly, now they mutter.

‘Speak up,’ we say.

On the other hand, in restaurants, where they have stripped away the drapes, upholstery, and rugs, the noise level is atrocious. In the cacophony, we can’t make out anything distinctly. And the background music! It is nothing but boom-boom noise, further obscuring any real communication or harmony.

‘May we have a menu,’ we ask.

‘It’s on the QR code,’ replies the young man with the nose ring.

‘Huh?’

When the waiter comes back with an ancient paper menu, greasy and thumbed from the Eisenhower era, it is so worn from wear, you’d think it was a directory to the town’s bawdy houses.

‘It’s out of date,’ we are told. ‘So, we might not have the same things. And the prices won’t be the same.’

‘Thanks.’

When we finally get something to eat, it often has no flavor or smell; the food industry has turned against us too.

But our complaints do not stop there. Where once they put the screw-on caps — on jars of jam or even water — so that you could take them off easily, now...they have tightened them up, as if to preserve the mustard formula for future archaeologists. We have to pull out a pair of pump pliers to get them off.

Fortunately, the wine corks still work the way they used to. And with a good corkscrew you could break into Fort Knox. But the winemakers, too, seem to be joining the conspiracy. Even good wines now might have a screw-off cap, rather than a cork.

“They should be called ‘screw-you’ caps,” says a cynical neighbor.

Same thing with simple packaging, such as a bag of chips. ‘Tear here,’ it might say, at a place where it has been reinforced with nylon to make it especially frustrating. Recently, given a bag of pretzels on a short airplane ride, we tried everything to get it open...from no angle would it yield. With no knife or screw-driver available, we gripped it with our teeth to rip it apart.

But no; it was as tough as a Cossack. Finally, with our testosterone count headed to zero, a stewardess came to our aid. Using some trick known only to people under 60, she politely opened the dreadful sack and returned it to us.

Another kvetch: friends are becoming less reliable.

“I wrote to John two weeks ago. No reply,” you complain to your wife.

“Don’t you remember?” says the keeper of all useful info. “He died last year.”

A related phenomenon is the way in which we are asked to interact with new technology. You go to the airport. You are expected to check in with a machine...deliver your bags to a machine...and get checked out by a machine before you are allowed on the plane.

Often, the directions barked at you by the machine, trained to be criminally unhelpful, are incomprehensible. ‘Turn your passport in the other direction,’ it might say. What other direction, you wonder. ‘Enter your six-digit code.’ What six-digit code?

The problem is even worse when dealing with ‘automated customer service.’

‘Press one if you are being attacked by a grizzly bear.’

‘Press two if you want to refinance your mortgage.’

‘Press three if you want to answer the question: 1 + 2 = ?’

‘Press four if you are about to leave town and can’t turn off the toaster.’

‘Press 124 if you have an uncle in the Himalayas who is currently experiencing homelessness.’

You realize that none of the options describe your real concern — you just want to unblock a credit card — so you press 55 to talk to a Human Being.

After a wait of 15 minutes, a voice, with an almost incomprehensible subcontinental accent, comes on...

“Hello, my name is Samira, how can I help you?”

Your heart leaps. Finally, a live person...someone who will cut through the millions of possible options and resolve your problem.

You explain.

“First, we have to confirm your identity. What color were your first- grade teacher’s eyes,” she asks.

“What...?”

“What is your favorite way to prepare tofu?”

You pass the phone to your wife.

And there...on the highway of life, is an old gentleman. Both hands on the wheel, he looks into the oncoming glare, and curses the damned fools headed the wrong way.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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