Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

This is the year I start asking, “Why?”

When some tidbit of casually dispensed “wisdom” grates on my nerves, I’m going to channel a persistently inquisitive youngster and bombard my “benefactor” with “Why?” until he explodes with “Because I said so!” exasperation.

I’m starting with the rule “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

My knee-jerk reaction to this “rule” is to seek clarification. (“Okay, I won’t pick on those who have shuffled off this mortal coil. But is it okay to speak ill of living, breathing pedantic busybodies who enjoy scolding me into their rainbows-and-unicorns worldview??? Asking for a six-feet-under friend.”)

Many of society’s nauseatingly nicey-nice maxims are handed down from generation to generation. (“Don’t wear white after Labor Day. The salad fork goes on the outermost left side of the dinner plate. Find something complimentary to say when your husband crawls into bed reeking of another woman’s perfume…”)

I come by my skepticism honestly. My late mother wasn’t bashful about intermixing the good, the bad and the ugly when reminiscing about the grandfather I never knew. Or about various long-departed misers, blowhards and bullies who marred her happiness. Or about obvious cult leader Fred Rogers or…

Apparently, we’re supposed to feel guilty about the accused not living long enough to defend himself. But with rare exceptions, I’m not the person who advised him to clog his arteries, neglect servicing his brakes or carouse with the wife of a jealous hitman.

Okay, I do feel responsible for the failure of that one guy to have a chance to challenge me for making fun of his pronunciation of “hors d’oeuvres.” I wish I could tell him, “Yes, I invented a time machine just so I could go back to 1915 and convince your parents to conceive you at just the right moment for you to keel over from natural causes before you could counterattack my impertinence! Excuuuuuse me!”

Perhaps some deceased individuals would have been able to put their laziness, thievery or boorishness into perspective if given the chance. But would there really be any point in Hitler getting to lawyer up? (“My subordinates were only following orders, and I was only giving orders. Through a fast-food speaker. And my lunch order got misunderstood as ‘Fire up the gas chambers.’ Ja, zat iz ze ticket!”)

Maybe the squeamishness about speaking ill of the dead has a superstitious element in addition to the etiquette angle. Fine. I’ll use superstition to my advantage. (“Hey, dead guy who didn’t like me making fun of his mullet…you’ve got bigger things to worry about. I just stepped on a crack and broke your mother’s back! Yeah, it caused her almost much pain as when you started wearing that mullet.”)

Questions abound. Is there a statute of limitations on immunity from criticism? If you wear a black veil for a full year, is it then okay to badmouth the late neighbor who cranked up his lawnmower at 6:00 a.m. every Saturday?

Can you ridicule people who fall outside the paradigm of “really most sincerely dead,” like hikers missing less than 24 hours, comatose patients and zombies? (“Sorry about the eating brains thing. But it does distract from your reputation as a conniving backstabber.”)

Yikes. I can tell you’re dying for me to wrap this up. Eat your hors d’oeuvres and memorize my advice. Because I said so!

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Copyright 2026 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”