Perhaps, it’s my age, but this week has really tested my patience. Once I went to graduate school I began to question why our public schools were not creative places filled with excitement and creative ideas. The answer was always the same: we’ve always done it that way. I challenged that notion at every turn but made only subtle changes. However, part of my persona, though, doesn’t like change. I’ve had the same hairdresser for thirty years, used the same dog groomer for over twenty years, and prefer to only eat at a handful of restaurants. So you can imagine my angst this week when I encountered two abrupt changes.

Each week I frequent two or three stores. My large grocery store is remodeling once again and moving products from their “normal” places across the entire store to a new location. Of course, this is further complicated by leaving the old aisle signage in place. There are four aisles where the cereal, baking products, potato chips, and snacks used to be that are empty. It took me twenty minutes to find a cake mix! I was so frustrated I decided to go Walmart for dog food and dog treats. But…Walmart was remodeling too! Ye gods! It has taken me a while to memorize each store’s layout, and now I can’t find a damn thing!

Yet if that wasn’t enough to frustrate me, along comes the King of Florida, his Highness DeSantis, who really chapped my heinie. Published in 1597, Romeo and Juliet has been banished from Florida classrooms due to its sexual connotations and gender issues. Advanced Placement Psychology classes have been banned for the same reason, thus denying 33,000 Florida students who had elected to enroll in it this fall. Not only is this disconcerting, but appalling and absurd on so many levels. First, Shakespeare’s English is not easy to understand. Many teachers have used annotated versions that “translate” his word usage. I read Romeo and Juliet in the 9th grade, Macbeth and Hamlet in the 12th grade. My late mother’s English text, printed in 1937, included Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth in its entirety. We survived.

My shrink friends tell me the issues of gender and sexuality are central to one’s understanding of the human psyche. But we can’t talk about sex in a class a student chooses to take and that usually requires a parent’s signature. (Nor can the kid earn a college credit.) Did we forget the Internet? Are we so ignorant or stupid to know that any kid with a cell phone, I Pad, or home computer can access a gazillion of sexual stuff. Do we truly think our children don’t have access to adult knowledge? Talk about a naive populace!

There are things no one can change. In spite of all your vivid word choices, like throat slitting and slavery was in many ways a good thing. Ronny, you CAN’T CHANGE IT!