Unfortunately, I’ve not seen any cougars to report, so if you came here expecting more cougar tidbits, please move along.

But to an extent, the downtown cougar sightings do play a little bit of a part in today’s rant.

I recently had a birthday and inched a little closer to the big 4-0, so I suspect a sports car, chest-revealing shirts and lots of gold bling are in my future.

I guess I’m getting too old, because I’ve started noticing a bunch of little things that just irritate the stew out of me.

Yes, I’m becoming the “old codger.”

First, let’s discuss the cougar connection. One thing that annoys me greatly is how many of us absolutely refuse to believe something unless we saw it with our own eyes. Now I can understand if it’s one of the supermarket-aisle tabloids featuring the boy with a two-foot tongue or the grandmother who bench-presses railroad train cars. Those are obviously suspicious tales at best.

But how many people immediately discounted the cougar sightings as fictitious just because they’d never personally seen one?

I’ve never seen a giant squid, but I know they exist. If someone said they saw one in the Mississippi River, I’d be surprised, but I wouldn’t instantly claim they were wrong.

Does anyone remember the story out of Memphis a year or so ago when someone spotted a Florida manatee in the Mississippi River?

That was a pretty outlandish-sounding story, at first, but danged if it wasn’t true. The crazy thing was the manatee would have cruised by Natchez and Vidalia on the way to Memphis.

Constant doubters annoy me. I’ve never physically seen God, but I know he exists.

More annoyances: TV commercials featuring people who seem to have cheated the system and are encouraging you to do the same.

“TaxBeaters.com turned my $50,000 tax debt into just $500!”

Well, isn’t that great. You didn’t pay your taxes and you figured out a way to “settle” with the government.

Those folks shouldn’t be able to advertise on TV. OK, maybe that’s harsh. This is America after all, but it sure does seem wrong to encourage others not to pay what they owe, but squirm out of the responsibility.

Cheaters annoy me, too.

Somehow, things and people that seem to violate basic rules of courteous conduct crawl under my skin, too.

Smokers who carelessly toss out their nasty, germ-ridden cigarette butts annoy me beyond belief. If there were a way to write them a citizens arrest warrant, I’d do this all the time.

It’s not like the cigarette butts magically melt away with the morning dew. They remain hanging around in the streets and against the curbs for weeks, slowly becoming frayed and even nastier looking. Thanks, smokers. If you want to kill yourself, that’s your right, but don’t toss the evidence in public spots. It’s just not right.

Finally, cell phones are the queen mothers of all annoyances. Almost all of us use them. They’re a great way to keep in touch with one another. Two things are annoying about cell phones.

The first annoyance is people who think it’s cute to set their ring tones to some kind of loud song. These folks often usually get an incredibly high volume of calls so everyone within a 25-foot radius hears the first few notes of “Freebird” over and over and over again.

The second annoyance is answering in places where cell phones don’t need to be use. I’ve seen people answer their phones in the middle of public meetings, stage performances, even a church service. A general rule, if everyone in the room is focused on some singular event, silence the phone, walk outside and call the person back.

Pass the Geritol. I’m going back to bed. Unless something annoying keeps me up.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539.

º or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.