The Inflated Sense of Self-Importance that We Assign Ourselves in Life

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, TX -- I had a conversation this past week with my adopted-mom Robin about the importance of home safety for people who reside by themselves, senior citizens or not; after a mutual friend of ours passed away at their residence recently, a person who also resided alone and had fallen. We got to talking about the aged population and the best options for notifying loved ones or other outlets, should we fall in our homes and not be able to get back up. Several ideas were bandied about, such as Life Alert, the wireless button that is worn at all times. The Amazon Wi-Fi communication device Alexa, also came to mind, and we began naming pros and cons for both.

We both agreed that Life Alert was a bit too bulky to constantly keep around your neck, and I’m not a necklace wearer, plus I got tinnitus, so I don’t wanna make things worse. I then suggested an Amazon Alexa device, being an investor in the company; just kidding. Well, I am an investor, but I’m not gonna force you to buy one; I’ll leave that to socialists/democrats to command you. Buy, buy. lol.

So what were the concerns about Alexa? Mom argued about privacy concerns, while I pressed home safety needs as the first priority. In the end I had to get back tapping the keys to finish an Arts & Entertainment column, and you know me, when I get to thinking about something, I’m relentless. So afterwards I grabbed a ballpoint pen and a long sheet of natural paper hand towel roll that I use instead of paper towels, a habit I started during Covid; and I went to town brainstorming.

The first question I asked: ‘For an average person or otherwise, do they really think that there is someone at Amazon HQ who actually wants to hear your thoughts in your own house?’ Or worse yet, hear our farts, toots, burps; or more personally for me, my emesis (vomiting) episodes as I leave my house for the emergency room. So believe me when I say … ‘You’re not that important.’ Heck, ‘I’M NOT IMPORTANT!!!’ If I were important, I would have hot chicks bathing me (not that it would do anything for me), my own private nurse, a valet/driver, full time gardner, a personal travel agent, a personal chef, and a private plane with a private pilot.

I say that all in jest, because I’ve actually been in situations where I knew I was being recorded, being listened too, by American enemies in Communist East Berlin.

Incredibly, the East Germans thought I was ‘Important.’ Can you believe that? Me, Important!! Yes, I might have projected an air of importance as I escorted American civilian contractors to East Berlin’s international restaurants, Moscow and Sofia, tailored to the American palate. While the only interest that I had at the time was supplementing my meager soldier’s pay with anything I could get my hands on, including reuniting East and West German couples in one of the only capitalist schemes in East Berlin. I was mad when I lost the memoirs I intended to publish, so do not keep important papers with your Playboy collection when moving from overseas. The power of the American uniform is all I can say, and it goes a long way to providing early retirement funds to retire decades early, provided you have the discipline to look away from a nice chunk of change, and not be tempted to take a world tour. Besides, I’ve traveled enough.

I’m of the mind that fears of Alexa listening to you are silly, because your health overrides any electronic devices that are capable of recording your unimportant voice. All you have to do is say if you fall, ‘Alexa, call 9-1-1,’ or call Billy, or Susan. Not to mention, if you mistrust Alexa thinking she might record you. I’ve news for you, your smart phone has more of a capability of listening to you if someone wishes it. Are you gonna get rid of that? No. Because it will lessen the amount of importance that you already have.

Look, if you read me, and live by yourself, no one in power wants to listen to your thoughts, or you talking to someone about recipes, chatting with friends, or playing games with the grandkids. No one at Amazon, the FBI, CIA, or any other spy agency around the world, has enough manpower to monitor everyone’s Alexa device, nor cell phone. It’s simply not possible, even with computers or AI. I once wrote down every terrorist keyword I could think of and spoke it to Alexa, stuff that would easily trigger an FBI visit should Amazon share the info. I even did something illegal in front of Alexa, in threatening the life of a chief executive. In jest of course, and in the meanest ‘evil’ voice I could muster. Nothing happened. No FBI, no Texas Rangers. No one came. Alexa is not listening to your unimportant conversations, nor mine. Overcome that fear, and don’t let a fear of something take away from your safety.

Now, in Montgomery County, our home, with a population nearing 800,000 it appears that nearly 550,000-600,000 of us think we are very important. And looking at social media, I see a constant amount of the over-assumption of many people’s inflated sense of their own self-importance. I laugh. Everyone is changing their profile pictures to show their last Botox adjustments, or their newest version of their mustaches, or haircuts, eyebrows, breast enhancements or whatever. At times, it’s unbearable, because there is so much T&A I can take, and women have no qualms in letting it all hang out, trying to attract that rich man that will buy them everything.

Well, I am that rich man, and quite frankly, I’m not impressed. I’d rather know a lady’s mind rather than her shapely facade. Where are all the reserved ladies out there? Ladies that want the respect men want to give them. Proper praise. The ones who make it fun by us guys guessing what’s under the hood? Of course, that’s not me, that ship sailed a long time ago. I have a nephew in his mid-20s, who makes great money, and finds women his own age so boring and brain-dead that he happily dates older, more mature women. It runs in the family, and he’s right, I was a second father to him, and we spoke on serious topics in his formative years, I mean really deep stuff, and the girls his age never caught up.

He doesn’t want a girl who talks about reality television, or what the Kardashian’s latest gimmicks are? He wants a woman who is serious about life, with career, goals, and retirement aims. My nephew is looking for a common sense woman, age appropriate, one who is serious about growing together, possibly even starting a family. He doesn’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, in fact, he once went 21 weeks without depositing any funds, simply because his new company ‘didn’t have direct-deposit.’ Thankfully, he may have found an age appropriate girl, but it’s in early stages, and she works in Minnesota still on contract for six more months.

Girls need to start growing up and getting rid of their self-important shields, boys too need to get off the tech, read more, and all kids need to learn how to write in cursive, or they are gonna be left behind.

Many adults overrate their self-importance in Montgomery County. I especially laugh at those who post their ‘his and her’ supercars on social media in a desperate attempt to inflate their self-importance. I mean really? I’m not impressed. And I doubt they have a garage for the dang things. Buying supercars, which is totally fine by the way, is not my forte, because I want to see where I’m going in traffic. Yes I can afford one by getting a simple cashiers check. But getting in and out of these snake skin low vehicles is a chore. Besides, the vast majority of supercar owners drive the dang speed limit, because they can’t handle the true capabilities of the power of the vehicle. Where is the fun in that? I can count on two or three fingers the amount of times a supercar has left me in the dust. And for the vast majority of supercar owners, I’m leaving them in the dust. Sayonara. So to recap, if you have to project your self-importance with an expensive car, or overseas trips; you are in fact, by definition ‘not important’ by any means. I mean it’s OK to post a photo of a car, or a trip, but to be excessive about it, then it’s a bit much.

And just to show how unimportant I am in The Woodlands. Last Tuesday weeks passed, before meeting my publisher Eric at Good Charlie’s for lunch. I had the filet lunch, and I was impressed. Go try it on FM 1488. I was at my bank to get $500 bucks to pay a personal assistant I finally snagged to help with my paperwork hoarding situation. I had just posted myself in front of the branch manager Ria, when area Socialite Ms. Pam P*l*nd walked in. The next thing I heard was, “Step aside Ruben, I need to get a 1099 from Ria.” I immediately recognized Ms. Pam’s level of importance, which is at jet cruising altitude, and at once I stepped back and properly genuflected to her showing my cessna level altitude of importance. I would have gone to my knees in proper messianic respect for Ms. Pam’s importance, but my muscles were still recovering from my latest hospital stay. I had seen John Wayne’s movie ‘Donovan’s Reef’ a day earlier on YouTube, and thought of the encounter between Wayne’s character, Guns Donovan, and Elizabeth Allen’s, rich heiress’ Amelia Dedham; and I thought of Wayne’s yield saying to Allen’s important Dedham, “Yes Ma’am, Thank You Ma’am, Yes Ma’am,” in his importance dive, when Dedham was asking the expertise of the ship's captain of the boat that Donovan owned. The funny thing is, that Ms. Pam could have her personal assistant download the 1099 from the bank's portal, and not have made the trip at all, but it was perfect karma for this column. The number on the document for the accountant was much less than what we tip to great servers at fine dining facilities, since both Ms. Pam and I are both big tippers. Heck at North Italia last Thursday, I spent $25 on the valet, finishing with a tip of a Grant, making sure no one touched my austere RX 350. Then I gave out another Grant when I heard a NI server just had a baby last week. And before that, the week before I gave a $50 tip to Ms. Mary Bowers’ granddaughter Addy, daughter of Buster, for the great service she provided at Vernon’s Kuntry Katfish. +Buster adored my mother who’s since passed on. Anyway, I’ve seen Ms. Pam at various events. She is a hoot, and deserves her importance level. Thank you Ms. Pam for putting me in my place, in my own bank of all places. I felt like Rodney Dangerfield, “I can’t get no respect!”

A lot of elected officials and public servants are not that important, but there are exceptions. The Sheriff, Police Chiefs, Fire Chiefs and first responders are important. The District Attorney’s office is very important. Jason Millsaps, the County Chief of Staff and Executive Director for the Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management is important. Some commissioners, county road crews, are all important. Basically if you are an essential worker when Montgomery County is facing its toughest times, you are important. That also goes for medical personnel in and out of hospitals, jail personnel. I’m sure I’m leaving out many who think they are important, and some may be, but if you need clarification as to determine your importance level? Email me.

The people in the more affluent areas are full of self-important people, who quite frankly, are really not that important. Because they have the means, they think they have a raised awareness of self-importance. Sorry, I have means, and I don’t apply any of those self-important areas to me.

Then there are those of self-importance who totally misread the unimportance of their self-importance, and totally misunderstand the point. I’m talking about people high up in the pecking order of self-importance (the upper crust) in Montgomery County, who claim they can command women by the flick of their wrist to do this or that. One person is so self-important that they claim they can command 10, 15, 20 women at a time, to stop what they are doing, drop their delicates, and bend over. Now that self-importance boggles the mind. It’s sky high, head in the clouds, self-importance. The power of that self-importance is important; to them.

The only question is, are these ladies that are dropping everything for one powerful man's self-importance. What are their hotness levels? Are they Epstein girls? Mature ladies? 1-3s, or 8-10s? I doubt the latter for the more quality facades, because the presentation of the self-important person would remind you of Harvey Weinstein. I don’t have enough stamina to satisfy one, much less 10-20 ladies. Frankly, I’m not that important and don’t wanna be. I have a genuine respect for ladies, who want to be treated like the ladies they are, and not be regarded as a play thing, by a man with an ego the size of Alaska. I loathe that.

I admit I might have been a little too self-important when I was younger, and now as a mature gentleman of as much leisure as I can stand. I profess my sin, and encourage all Montgomery County adults to reevaluate their given level of self-importance. I loathe my look, even though I know that some may like it a lot, I’d rather post pictures on Facebook of IV’s in my arms that show my just desserts, and not how cute or un-cute my face is. My face is what got me in trouble as a kid in Europe in the first place. My employer assigned me as highly-important, and I bought it, like a gullible idiot, and now I’m a lowly professional patient. And in retrospect, I might have been happier as a tall-ugly kid.

Now there is a segment of inflated self-important people in Montgomery County that I DO NOT recommend an Alexa device for: Drug dealers need privacy and don’t need to risk being listened to by Alexa. lol. People cheating on their spouses need to be secretive and need to stay away from Alexa. Spies, of course, need to lead an Alexa free life. Local politicians who serve in Austin and in the county need to conduct their private smoke-filled back room deals and personal enrichment/private satisfaction schemes. They for sure don’t need the ear of Alexa hounding them. Of course I jest, but am I really? It really does make you go …. hmm!

I don’t know how I got off on that tangent. But I want readers to know that if I‘m not important, then you're not important. Please don’t take any offense at this piece.

You can be as important or unimportant as you want, and there are others in your life that see you as very important to them. I just wanted to put a smile on someone’s face today. For those who need it, please get them some device to help them call for help if they fall at home. I’ve got five iPads (Siri), 4 Alexa devices, so I’m covered, but I do worry about you. It’s serious out there, and I can’t take another friend, or reader, that dies alone in their house without dignity, without being able to fight for their life, in some form of fashion. God Bless!!

Ruben can be reached at: ruben@montgomerycountynews.net