people who create blogs about hating people and then suddenly get in a much better mood

case in point.

Your regularly scheduled bile will be back after this short contented interlude.

I swear, it is not drug aided or induced.

babies who insist on typing at the exact same time that I'm typing...

,sddf
fjhlk;asd'lkjd N N m

ok. So I don't hate them. But I must say that it is awfully hard to, you know, hate people in the face of such unrelieved cuteness.

Though honestly, much easier to hate people in the face of unrelieved cuteness at 3am.

Just sayin.

cats who leave dead things on the living room floor

This means you, Jerome. Yeah, you. And, I'm blowing your anonymity on the web.

So during the summer, my lovely 24-pounder all muscle bruiser cat, Jerome, loooooooooooves to bring things that are alive into the house and kill them on the living room floor.

Right in the path of where I walk first thing in the morning. He's psychic, I swear. Doesn't matter where it is, I will step on it when I first get up.

Usually he just leaves some of the entrails for me to squish underfoot. Which, you know, is FUCKING NASTY.

But today, a special gift. He left me the whole thing.

So... walk walk walk, ouch! What the hell was that? Goddamn baby toys... I reach down, bleary eyed to grab it and realize that it is a mole, in full on rigor mortis, right underneath my goddamn foot.

Much screaming and hopping up and down commenced. Bleh.

Last night, this same damn cat brought in a live chipmunk and stashed it behind the garbage can. My husband moved the can during dinner and the chipmunk goes a little crazy and starts running in circles around the kitchen, eventually into the basement (chipmunks can jump like motherfuckers, in case you didn't know) where our stalwart dinner guest managed to herd the thing out of the back door.

Jerome sat there with a sour expression on his face like "Hey, I was saving that for later!"

My husband interpreted it as "Ethan! Wherever you may go... I will find you... don't give up!"

Because apparently, aside from killing the local fauna, Jerome has also been making friends with it. He found Jerome sunning himself on the back steps with a mole the other day. Mole was still alive. Ugh.

This isn't as bad as the most disgusting thing Jerome ever did... I won't go into detail, but suffice to say, he left me a half of a very large rabbit (of course, right where I walk in the morning) as a gift. I had to play the girl card and get my ex-roommate to take care of the problem.

I must say, we don't have much of a mouse, raccoon, possum, mole, chipmunk, squirrel or bird problem with this guy around. (yes, he has taken on raccoons and possums. Frighteningly enough, he has also won...) He also took on a human once that was threatening his cat friend... that was funny. Went right for that asshole's face...

Super cute snuggliness to those he loves... instant orange death to those he doesn't.

people who think they're in "Dazed and Confused"

I had a serious 70s flashback today, and I wasn't even fully conscious until, like, 1980 or so.

Anyway, my next door neighbors' (who deserve a full post in and of themselves) teenaged daughter has a boyfriend who drives a big-ass trans am, and was blasting some god-awful 70s soft rock while sitting in front of their house honking his horn and yelling at her to get her butt moving and get outside.

sexy.

So, being the nosy neighbor that I am, I stuck my head out the window to see what was going on, and the guy was sporting a full on blonde Farah Fawcett flip, with a very modern (so like, 2005) truckers cap stuck on top of it.

I kept expecting him to whip out his paddle and slap it against his thigh in search of new freshmen to whup.

Or at least have a can of Natty Light in his hand. Or say "You know the cool thing about high school girls is..."

I'm still scratching my head over that one.

My conclusions are that:

1. This backwoods area is finally moving into the 70s in fashion and music. Either that, or it just never left.

2. Dazed and Confused will never die.

3. High school stereotypes are around for as long as American high schools are...

I'm off to listen to "Low Rider" and stare at my lava lamp. (Thanks, Stace! By the way, did you know that lava lamps can freeze?)

People who are inconsistent

Then again...

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but it would have been nice if Alanis Morissette had bothered to include irony in the song "Ironic."

Seriously, would it have been that hard?

people who get freaked out that the song "Ironic" doesn't actually have any irony in it

Okay, I was listening to the song "Ironic" again today (shut up--it's not popular anymore, so it's now officially cool.). While listening, I remembered all the bitching about how the song didn't really contain any irony. Most of said complaining came from irritating-ass academics who felt that Alanis Morisette didn't really know what irony was. (For more on said irritating-ass academics, see earlier posts.)

Okay, first off, we need to talk about poetic license. Let me use another example to clarify this: Elvis wasn't really suggesting that his acquaintance was "nothing but a hound dog." In this case, Elvis was using two techniques. The first was hyperbole, in which the author exaggerates certain elements, and the second was metaphor, in which the author compares two unlike things for explanatory purposes. Similarly, Morissette was using "ironic" loosely, and investing in the same creative freedom that Elvis used.

Second, what kind of over-intellectualizing turd actually critiques a song in a pseudo-academic manner? Seriously, don't you deadweights have anything better to do? Couldn't you find a Joan Didion book to slobber over or a Hemingway short story to demonize? Margaret Atwood, where are you when we need you?!? I know that it's hard to be an English professor; hell, I've walked a mile in those shoes. However, if you really want to get your name in the papers, do it like everybody else--shoot up a day-care center, or blow up an abortionist.

Third, come on! It's a fucking song! Give Morisette a break!

people who state the obvious in a really patronizing way

If you see somebody in a grocery store with a squalling baby, don't walk by and say

"oooh... somebody's cranky."

Ya THINK?

Geez lady, I sure couldn't have figured that one out on my own. Nope, not at all. Thank you for pointing it out to me. I would have never noticed that my child is screaming at the very top of her lungs and beating her fists against the edge of the shopping cart.

Pointing this out doesn't help. In fact, it just pisses me off, which upsets the kid further.

Actually, the next person that says that to me, I may ask for their phone number. So that I can call them at 3am when the kid wakes up screaming and ask them if they think she's cranky.

Oh, and for the lady that bitchily told me that my kid who is nearly walking is too young to sit up on her own... there's a post coming your way soon... people who tell you how to raise your children.

people who are argumentative for no good reason

Buckle up folks, this may be a looooooong one.

Ok. So. People who are argumentative for no good reason. Like, for instance, this customer at work today. She walks up, announces that sunscreen causes cancer in a loud tone of voice in front of a ton of other customers. Then she proceeds to argue with me about everything. Had I said the sky was blue, she would have argued that it was green. Had I said my hair was brown, she would have argued it was blonde.

I had another one the other day that started spouting off such nonsense that I couldn't bite my tongue any longer, so I mentioned that part of what she was talking about hadn't been exactly approved by the FDA yet. She said back to me in a very snotty voice that "My plastic surgeon said in his newsletter that it WAS and that it is way better than anything you could sell to me."

My reply "Well, then I guess I can't help you. I think you need to go see your plastic surgeon."

Yes, folks, working in retail will either cause you to hate everybody, or to drink heavily. Or both. Maybe even at the same time.

Other people who argue for no good reason:

1. My mother. When she gets in one of her moods, there's no telling her anything. One time, just for the hell of it, she accused me of being a coke-addicted prostitute mobster's moll. Apparently, dating an Italian automatically makes me a drug whore. Oh, and makes my (thankfully now ex) boyfriend a mobster. Because you know all Italians are connected to the Mafia.
I couldn't say ANYTHING that would change her mind on that one.

2. Crotchety old people. I think they're bored. Or something. Because obviously you couldn't know as much as they do even though you might have a PhD in nuclear physics. They're 85 years old and by gummy, they know more about nuclear physics that you ever will, you young whippersnapper. Mind you, this is not all old people... My husband says that there is a myth that all old people are nice, but that realistically speaking, the nice ones probably died younger. Only the good die young and all that.

3. My ex-roommate. Boy, if you started a discussion with him, he would start pulling statistics out of his ass left and right. Although I think his type of arguing deserves a whole post of its own. "People who pull statistics out of their asses"

4. Academics. Specifically liberal arts academics. My husband being one of them, he is the person that raised this group of assholes to my attention. Not because he is one, mind you, but because I get to listen to his stories of namby pamby PhDs who love to engage in "victimization trumping." Which is "Yeah, well I was more discriminated against because I'm a gay black Jewish quadruple amputee with halitosis and a deep appreciation of Bronte." "Oh yeah? I'm more discriminated against because I'm a heterosexual Hispanic Muslim with asthma, and that's not as visible as the amputations." "Oh yeah? Well, I'm a heterosexual, white, middle-class male who is not allowed to discuss a wide variety of topics because other heterosexual, white, middle-class males acted in a barbaric way a long time ago." Wait, that last one doesn't work, I guess.

ok. I'm done now...

people who start blogs

This one's for you Janey.

What kind of self-indulgent, self-important, self-centered creep starts a goddamn blog?

Who the hell wants to read the random innermost thoughts of 99% of the people on the planet?

Not everyone can be an astronaut, dudes.

Put the blog down, and back away slowly.

People who drive 10 miles an hour below the speed limit

Ok, so I have a little bit of rage today.

People who drive 10 miles an hour below the speed limit suck. Hard. Especially when they do it on my street, every day, in front of me. I think the only time I've gone the full 45 mile-per-hour speed limit on my road has been at 4 a.m.

Oh, they've got all the time in the world to look at the trailer parks (another post) and the storage sheds that line Rt. 114. Yup. "Lookee there, bub, BillyBob has a new pickup on blocks in his front yard."

"Hoo-boy, looks like them cops is makin them another crystal meth bust."

"Why, slow down there DelzaRay, I think that's gotta be the sixth road kill we've seen in the last quarter mile."

oy.

And then there's the farm equipment. Which is inevitably in front of me when I'm trying to get to work on time and I'm running a minute or two late. Yeah. The farm equipment which is going five miles an hour. Of course they need to be on the road at 7:45 a.m. Nobody else needs to use the road then...

Help. Me.

People who write checks in the express lane at the grocery store

Yes, this means you. If you're in the goddamn 10 items or less lane at Wal-Mart and there are 30 people in line behind you, break out the goddamn check card for god's sake and don't waste my, and 30 OTHER people's time writing a check.

Especially those who write checks very slowly. And take ten years to sign the check because their signature is a work of art that they've been perfecting since the fourth grade and someday they might be famous and somebody will sell one of their beautifully signed checks for $10,000,000 at Sotheby's.

For fuck's sake.