In every town lives a grumpy old man,
a geezer who grumbles and gripes.
And in every town lives the sorry lot
against whom he grouches and snipes.

So it's no surprise that in my hometown
a crusty curmudgeon resided.
And it's no surprise that I became one
of the victims he cussed out and chided.

Crotchety to the power of ten,
A choleric, contrary man,
He caviled and carped till the cows came home,
Then started all over again.

This was a man with TWO bones to pick -
in his eye no one ever did right.
A snippety, sharp-tongued misanthrope,
he spoiled each day for a fight.

Not one soul escaped his castigations,
not even his own church's choir.
The basses could never sing low enough,
and the tenors, he claimed, should sing higher.

He chewed out the chief of police for weeks
for refusing to fire the cop
who had charged him with driving past any safe speed
plus failure to come to a stop.

He chastised the judge, jeered at the jury,
asked them how they had the gall.
And then when they still found him guilty,
chastened them each, one and all.

He called into question each bill he received,
be it butcher shop or the grocer.
He'd quibble and quarrel till he turned blue,
and the storekeepers turned moroser.

His neighbors all suffered his constant complaints -
on each household he'd waged a war.
The row of for-sale signs that lined his street
signaled those who could take it no more.

The boy who delivered his paper?
He never performed up to snuff.
He'd bike to this house at the crack of dawn,
but it still wasn't early enough.

And the hapless child who once mowed his lawn?
That's a story too painful to mention.
Suffice it to say it got ugly enough
to call for police intervention.

Not ONE town meeting had ever been held
free from his snappish disruptions.
He'd accuse the mayor of chicanery,
incompetence and corruption.

So when I stood up for the mayor one night
and applauded his plan for the schools,
he upbraided me in the MOST peevish tone
as he called me a scoundrel and fool.

"You're in cahoots with the devil," he scowled -
by the devil he meant the mayor.
He blustered and beefed and besmirched my name
till his spite befouled the air.

Now, I am not one who usually likes
to sow the seeds of dissension.
But if he thought MY house would be up for sale next,
well, THAT was a big misconception.

"You cross, crabby man," I shot up and shouted,
"it's time you were put in your place!
You've put down and hounded and slandered us all,
but the egg ended up on YOUR face."

So, is this the part where my words changed his heart
and he realized that he'd been wrong?
Where he and the mayor and his neighbors all hugged
and forever all got along?

Get real, dear reader, if you replied yes -
did you not hear a word I said?
The man was cantankerous all his life
and stayed so till he dropped dead.