Misanthropster: An Army of One

People who drop furniture out their windows

2008-09-04T16:58:00.003-04:00

Ok, so people in my neighborhood are constantly throwing shit out of their windows into our "yard" area by our apartment, and it's fricken nasty. Chicken bones, used tampons, pizza crusts, limes, syringes, in one case, dog (I hope it was dog) shit, etc.

I'm still disgusted by it, but I'm not surprised by it any longer, and I have come to expect it to happen.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 6 a.m. to the sound of crashing outside my bedroom window. I got out of bed to see what was going on, and some dipshit upstairs was throwing dresser drawers out of their window.

Shortly followed by the dresser itself.

I went to the bathroom, and came back in time to see the headboard and the footboard to their bed come flying down.

What the FUCK?

I know how big the windows in their apartment are, and they had to have removed the window from its frame in order to do this. So they got up at 4 a.m. to remove the window, which probably took a while, because these things are fucking SOLID. Then they commenced throwing their furniture out.

But really, FURNITURE?

at 6 a.m.?

Anyway, the following conversation ensued between myself and my landlord:

Me: So my upstairs neighbors were throwing their entire bedroom suite out their window at 6 a.m. today.

Landlord: Why were they doing that?

Me: I don't know. Why are you asking me?

oy.

people who ARE me

2008-08-26T23:04:00.001-04:00

Jesus, lady. Get a fuckin grip already.

people who are not me

2008-08-26T23:02:00.002-04:00

I have discovered after years of careful scientific research that my main problem with other people is simply the fact that they are other people.

My other superpower (aside from outstanding misanthropism) is stating the obvious.

people who insist on shouting on the subway

2008-06-28T14:40:00.002-04:00

Thank you for including the rest of us in your conversation. I'm thrilled to know about your pursuit of pussy, your attainment of said pussy, your love of pussy, your total disrespect for pussy, your dreams about pussy, and your buddy's exploits regarding (you guessed it) pussy.

But mostly, I'm just glad you actually know a word that consists of more than two syllables.

people who bitch at me for bitching about NYC

2008-06-28T14:38:00.002-04:00

This is a pre-emptive rant. I'm sure somebody will start bitching at me for this soon.

Yes, thank you, I did choose to move to New York City.

I love it here. I have such a diverse collection of things to bitch about now. As opposed to Christiansburg, VA, where I was bitching about rednecks. And hillbillys. And, um... that's about it.

people who mistake leggings for actual pants

2008-06-27T22:12:00.003-04:00

They're not. Really.

And it doesn't matter how skinny you are. I can still see your ass through the back.

This goes for men, too.

Furthermore, if you insist on wearing leggings as actual pants, please do so to go out at night, not during the workday.

I really don't want to be looking at your "whoa there, cougar" camel toe, or your purple starfish during the day.

Nor do I want to see your stretchmarks THROUGH YOUR PANTS.

And don't give me that bullshit that "they're comfortable."

SACRIFICE SOMETHING FOR YOUR FELLOW HUMANS! Cover your ass!

people who don't wear bras (this one's for the ladies)

2008-06-27T22:06:00.002-04:00

I get that it's summer.

If you're a tourist, I get that you're on vacation.

If you're a native, I get that you think you can get away with it because you think your breasts are small.

I know that it gets rather warm in the city. I live here.

I don't even know where to begin.

1. If you're a tourist, your mind may be on vacation, but, honey, I hate to tell you this, but your boobs aren't.

2. If you're a native, really. There isn't a single female over the age of 15 who shouldn't be, AT THE VERY LEAST, wearing some sort of bra. And if you really can't stand wearing them, and you really really are flat chested, buy some GODDAMNED pasties (Ricky's has them, for $4.99/2) and cover up those headlights. I've been traumatized by so many nipples I shouldn't have seen...

people who claim New Yorkers are rude

2008-06-27T22:01:00.002-04:00

This just gets my goat.

We've got HORDES of tourists pouring into the city, forcing the continued existence of that wasteful wonderland Times Square, taking up all the space on the sidewalks, and managing to be directly in the path of where I (and every other resident of the city too) need to go, taking an inordinate amount of time to make a goddamned decision, and when I politely say "excuse me" so that I can get by, I hear "God. New Yorkers are like, so RUDE."

No, honey, really, it's not New Yorkers who are rude. It's the rest of the world.

people who are pushy

2008-06-27T21:53:00.002-04:00

(can you tell I'm harboring a bit of pent up rage today?)

I think I may have mentioned in an earlier (five minutes ago) post that I live in a city with more than eight million people.

You, sir, who shoved me out of the way to get to the subway turnstile first, and you, ma'am, who cut in line at the grocery store in front of my husband...

Do you think that MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYBE, you're not the only person in the whole entire city who has somewhere they need to be in a hurry?

Maybe? Just a little bit?

Nah, of course not.

You're MUCH more important than I am.

Please excuse my impertinence. I don't know what I was thinking.

people who have tunnel vision

2008-06-27T21:50:00.002-04:00

Ok. I see you standing at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway reading your map, blocking all the pedestrians who are desperately trying to get to the subway fast so that we can eke out an extra five minutes with our loved ones after an hour-long train ride.

It's allright. I've gotten used to the tourists who have no concept of how much fucking space they occupy.

Anyway, I see you at the corner of Wall and Broadway, with your face buried in your map. And I hear you say "Trinity Church HAS to be around here somewhere. This map says it's at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street."

Which, honestly, you MIGHT SEE IF YOU FUCKING TOOK YOUR NOSE OUT OF YOUR MAP THAT YOU'RE STANDING ON THE FUCKING FRONT STEPS OF THE CHURCH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

people who are really large who walk without looking where they are going

2008-06-27T21:49:00.001-04:00

Ouch. That fucking hurt.

An "oh, excuse me"

or an "I'm sorry"

WOULD BE FUCKING NICE ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.

people who walk without looking where they're going

2008-06-27T21:47:00.004-04:00

Christ Jesus, we live in a city with more than eight million inhabitants.

EIGHT MILLION

The sidewalks of Manhattan, in case you haven't noticed (because it's obvious you haven't), are not large enought to hold even a tenth of the number of people that live in the city.

YOU, WITH THE FUCKING BLACKBERRY! QUIT TEXTING AND START WALKING, DOUCHEBAG.

People who whine about how long it's been since I last posted.

2008-06-27T21:46:00.000-04:00

Nuff said, Fred. :)

people who love "March of the Penguins"

2007-01-03T22:44:00.002-05:00

Yeah, penguins are cute and cuddly and blah blah blah, they waddle, the males hatch the eggs, blah blah.

Look people, March of the Penguins was a fucking penguin snuff film.

I don't really give a shit about the beauty of the cinematography, or Morgan Freeman's narration (which, by the way, in the lovingly filmed and TORTUROUSLY screened penguin death scenes, made me want to kill myself), (as my husband says "Get busy waddlin' or get busy dyin'."), or the sweetness of the penguins themselves, or the gay penguin sex, or whatever... if you want to see some cold, hard, penguin deaths, then this is the flick for you.

COME ON! Why the hell was this film so popular?

And because my little daughter has a mild obsession with penguins, I decided to watch it with her.

thank GOD she isn't old enough to understand that the penguin that looked like it was asleep on screen was actually freezing to death before our very eyes.

Or that those gorgeous shots of the lone penguin waddling off into the sunset were of a bird separated from its flock and was in fact waddling off to a certain death.

At however many godforsaken degrees below zero that fucking continent is.

yes, I am glad that she wasn't old enough to understand any of this when we watched it.

That would have made for a merry fucking christmas indeed...

I'd ask what kind of sick fucks liked this film, but then again, I can't really account for the immense popularity of hot animal sex shows on The Animal Planet, so I'm not even going to think about it.

I'm just going to drink myself into oblivion.

Happy fucking new year.

people who are anti-semitic

2006-12-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

Seriously, isn't anti-Semitism, so, like, 1933?

At work today, I had a customer go off on an anti-semitic rant for about 15 minutes.

The lady in question must have at some point noticed the rather pissed expression on my face, as she ended her little diatribe with "But, for all that, Jews are very smart and very good at business."

WHAT? Seriously? Anti-Semitism from 60-year-old white women who aren't even Southern? Are you freakin kidding me?

I'm still in shock.

So, I'm married to a man that is half-Jewish. Ok, so according to the Jewish law of return, Heinrich Himmler, and my mother, he's fully Jewish as his mother was Jewish (converted to Catholicism, don'tchaknow), but whatever.

By my estimation, that would make my child a quarter Jewish. Or something.

Anyway, and I didn't realize this, apparently the Jews are at the root of all evil in this country, including causing the complete commercialization of Christmas, violence on television and in movies, the rise of black culture, blah blah blah blah.

Yeah, this came from a woman who was buying a couple hundred dollars worth of Christmas presents from me. And then wanted everything discounted or free, along with free gift-boxes and free gift-wrap.

Really though, what have the Jews done to people in this country? Anything? I can't talk about Israel and that government's particularly crappy policies in this post... I'm really just thinking about Jews in America...

and shit, aside from the occasional Christian infant that my husband snacks on, and his barely noticeable horns, he hasn't hurt anyone lately...

merry fucking christmas...

a christmas story to warm the cockles of your heart

2006-12-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

Years ago, when I lived in Olympia, WA with my ex-boyfriend and his son (we'll call them Justin and Jonah, respectively) we decided to forego all the insane holiday traveling in lieu of staying home and being sane. Consequently, Justin's sister, Dawn, decided to fly up from California to spend the holidays with us, which was just fine by me.

I'd never really met Dawn before, though I'd heard all about her. She was a born-again Christian, so that colored my expectations of her a little bit. Upon meeting her, I found that she had a pretty sassy personality, and seemed born-again only in name, not in deeds. However, she still didn't swear or drink, or do anything else that I found particularly fun, so there you go.

Well, now Olympia never really got very cold, so when an ice storm hit the area, we were all a bit shocked. Ice kinda sucked. Specially when you lived in a place where 99% of the people had never driven under even remotely adverse conditions. Unless you count an awful lot of rain.

My friend had loaned me her car, a 1966 Corvair station wagon, in perfect condition, with fins and everything, while she was at home in California for Christmas. So during the bad weather, Justin and I were tooling around in my friend's car, because hers actually had heat and windows that rolled all the way up. And down.

Justin, Jonah, Dawn and I decided that a quick trip to the grocery store to buy things for Christmas dinner would be a good idea, and headed out to Cub Foods, a store about five minutes away from our home. The parking lot of Cub foods was gently sloped, and we parked out towards the back of the lot with our car pointed downhill so that if we slid, we'd slide into an embankment.

We hopped out of the car and carefully made our way across the lot, as it was covered in a couple of inches of ice. All of us were in a pretty silly mood, and bounced around for a bit in the vestibule of the store before going in. While we were messing around by the doors, an older lady comes stomping in and glares at us, then grabs a cart and pushes it into the store. We followed a couple of minutes later, and started to load up.

In every single aisle, we ended up meeting the grouchy older lady going in the opposite direction. We tried to make a joke out of it, and pretended that she was reverse stalking us. Our attempts to get her involved in our good mood failed, and she continued to stomp around the store.

We checked out, and started the perilous journey back across the parking lot to our car. About halfway there we started to hear shouting, and by the time we got to where we had parked, we found the grouchy old lady yelling at a bag boy (who, by the way, was coatless) who had helped her get her groceries out to her car. Which was parked behind ours. Which had slid downhill into the bumper of our car.

The lady insisted that the bag boy call the cops, because we had obviously hit her car, and we were total degenerates who had been completely evil and awful and had caused all kinds of damage to her precious BMW.

Whatever. So while we were waiting for the cops, the lady stood there and refused to look at us. When a policeman did finally show up to the scene, he took one look at it and immediately told the woman her car had slid into ours and she needed to chill out.

Grouchy old lady started berating the cop, telling him that he was incompetent, that we were obvious criminals and should be arrested, blah blah blah... this went on for about five minutes before the cop told her to shut the hell up and get over it before he wrote her a ticket for hitting our car.

There was no damage done to either car.

At this point, Dawn had about enough of the lady being an ass, so Dawn just lays into her. Calling her every name in the book, telling the lady exactly what she thought of her, in NO uncertain terms, and generally just flaying this woman alive. Justin, Jonah and I were all standing there, open mouthed, watching Dawn take this woman down.

The woman finally gets in her car and drives off. The cop, my companions and myself were all standing there, discussing our mutual disbelief in the situation, when the lady drives back into the parking lot, drives past us flipping us the bird, and yells:

"YOU RUINED MY FUCKING CHRISTMAS"

at which point we all just lost it laughing and could barely breathe...

Anyway, on Christmas day, Jonah, then eight, got a toy which the dog ran off with, and he turns around and yells at the dog "YOU RUINED MY FUCKING CHRISTMAS" and since then it's become a refrain for whomever has been in my home around Christmastime.

Of course, I have to tell that story to everyone.

Merry fucking Christmas, y'all.

nobody in particular to loathe today...

2006-12-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

It's just that working retail sucks. Especially this time of the year.

I've definitely added retail to the list of jobs that I will never work again. It's a pretty short list. The other one is food service.

Ugh.

It's the same old same old.

People are stupid, and rude.

Oh, and greedy.

Did I mention stupid and rude?

Merry fucking Christmas.

people who feel the need to state how much they spend

2006-12-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

So these two kids, maybe 9-years-old, were running around the store this evening completely unaccompanied/unattended. It was after 9 pm.

I called the store manager, because the kids were starting to vandalize the men's fragrance section, and he corralled them and sat them down at a cosmetics counter with a very grandmotherly type looking after them.

Their mother showed up, and when the grandmotherly employee gently chastised her for leaving her kids unattended in the store, the woman replied "Well, I spend a lot of money in this store, and I can't understand why you all can't watch my kids."

Yeah.

And I heard that a bunch of times today.

Customers wanting free gift wrap. We tell them that it'll be $5.00 per item to wrap. They reply "Well, I spend a lot of money in this store, and I'll take my business elsewhere if I can't get free gift wrap."

You go right ahead and do that, ma'am. You try to find any store that has free gift wrap in this area.

Or my personal favorite:

"What samples you got?"

Well, none.

"Well, I spend a lot of money in this store, and I think I should get free samples."

1. I don't have any free samples. 2. Free samples are for paying customers. I don't see any purchases in your hands, nor are you planning to buy something from this counter.

Oy.

people who don't put on their big girl panties and deal

2006-11-18T23:43:00.000-05:00

How to stop annoying Misanthropster in two easy steps.

1. Make the best of the situation. If you can't, just revel in the fact that your fingernails are not being pulled out one by one in a torture chamber by Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. See, there's a plus right there. I gotta go back to the same thing I've quoted a few times since I started this blog. "You took the air, you took the time, you were fed, and you were free... you'd better put some beauty back, while you've got the energy..."

2. Quit whining.

people who... well... just people

2006-11-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of working as part of a "team" in the main focus of the individual members of the "team" is their own personal gain and they could give a shit about anything other than their own greed.

I'm tired of being the team leader.

I'm tired of fucking prima donnas who have absolutely no right to be prima donnas.

I'm tired of dealing with customers.

I'm tired of working in jobs that keep me entertained for about a year before I get really good at them and then they lose all interest or challenge for me.

I'm tired of dealing with people who feel like it's necessary to degrade others to make themselves feel better.

I'm tired of living in this area.

Blah.

people who hate John Mayer

2006-11-14T21:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, yes, I'll admit it. He is evil. And bland. But evil is bland.

Anyway, he's a bland evil genius. Or a evil bland genius.

And I'm so glad he's not dating Jessica Simpson.

HIs songs that have become famous are completely insidious. Sneak into your brain and you'll find yourself humming the chorus without knowing what's going on.

And he does have talent. He manages to make really interesting stuff bland and palatable to the masses.

That said, I have all of his albums.

Sigh.

people who hate Dr. Phil

2006-11-13T22:24:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this might be a highly unpopular post, but I have to say that people who hate Dr. Phil just need to check themselves...

He's brilliant. He comes up with the most creative ways of saying "Fuck you," "Put on your big girl panties and deal," and, "wow, you're a fucking moron" that I've ever heard/read.

Yeah, he sucks on TV and listening to his voice is incredibly annoying, but I never fail to get a deep guffaw and an "Oh, SNAP" going when I read his column in the O Magazine.

Yes, that's right, I read "O." Get over it. I have an addiction. Leave me alone. I also read about 20 other magazines a month. "O" happens to be the most intelligent women's mag out there. Well, mass market women's mag...

Anyway, if I didn't read "O," then how else would I get my monthly Dr. Phil fix?

In the December issue of "O" somebody wrote in complaining about her mother in law saying awful things to her like "I can't believe you wear striped tops so often, since they emphasize your middle." etc.

Dr. Phil's response:

Your mother in law is a mean old bitch and you need to stop being so whiny.

Well, I paraphrased. Just a little.

He's so great.

people who are cruel to animals

2006-11-11T12:32:00.000-05:00

It's taken me quite a while to be able to deal with this enough so that I could post about it.

But basically, some dude in Loudon County, VA threw his girlfriend's 14-year-old declawed cat in a trash can and then stomped it to death.

The guy claimed self-defense. Fortunately the judge convicted the asshole, and he went to jail. For the requisite two minutes that the state of Virginia requires.

In cases like this, I really wish we had eye-for-an-eye punishment laws in this state.

2006-11-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

thank you, CEO

people who make slutterwear for pre-schoolers

2006-11-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

I didn't think I'd have this problem until my daughter was in the first grade, at least.

But geeze, have you seen the clothes that some of these companies are putting out for little girls? Christ, we are turning into a nation of pedophiles?

I've had to somehow resist buying off the shoulder tops for my one year old. Like she needs to pull off the whole flashdance look.

And the midriff bearing spangly shit that's out there at the moment? For winter?

Oy. I'm sure that if I were my husband I'd illustrate this post with lots of pictures of particularly horrendous clothing for kids, but I'm lazy, so that's not going to happen.

I'll just leave you with the thought that Abercrombie & Fitch has been selling thongs for 9-12 year old girls.

Because god knows, when creepy old guys are staring at their asses, they don't want to see tacky panty lines.

no, I'm not leaving y'all yet. I still have ranting to do.

My friend Clover (see blog link at left) was writing about exceedingly scantily clad teenagers on Halloween night. Which, honestly, I never saw when I was in high school. I think all of our parents would have seriously strangled us if we walked out looking like hookers. And I'm SURE that somebody would have called our parents if we were trying to sneak that shit. And we would have been grounded. Or at worst, sent to the Catholic school that my husband went to. (That's another post. He's snobby about his school being better than the public school system that I went to. I'm snobby about his school because that's where all the kids who were expelled from my school got sent. Heh)

But now, apparently, we're encouraging girls to dress like this? At exceedingly young ages? And people still act shocked at the amount of makeup that Jon-Benet Ramsey was wearing. Come ON. Let's not sexualize our little girls. Or boys for that matter. Ugh.

people who promote intolerant bullshit in their front yards

2006-11-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

So a bunch of my neighbors have signs in their yards that read:

Vote Yes For Marriage
Marriage = One Man + One Woman

Thank you, Seth McFarlane, for pointing out this evening on American Dad that gays are the new blacks.

Why is it acceptable to be so friggen bigoted towards a huge portion of our population? Argh.

And as my dear husband said this evening, gays have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.

Thanks, honey.

Anyway, he and I are contemplating going out tonight with a sharpie and amending the signs to read "Vote yes for ^Gay Marriage"

heh.

people who obsess about q-tips

2006-11-04T00:35:00.000-05:00

My dear husband, who shall remain nameless has a slight problem.

Now, honestly, if this is the only thing he ever really gets in a froth over during the course of our marriage, I think we're doing pretty well.

Anyway, the problem is that he is completely and utter irrational when we start getting low on q-tips.

When our old roommate moved out, my husband said something to the effect of "Good, now we won't have to support his q-tip habit anymore."

Mind you, we have to buy q-tips about three times a year, no matter how many people live with us.

Then, the next time we ran out of q-tips my husband came at me. "HOW many q-tips do you use in a day? Because you only need one, two at the very most. I mean, are you using them to put on makeup? What's going on here?"

Yesterday, we had a few q-tips left. Less than 10, but more than one.

And I got this rant about my sister in law (who is currently living with us):

"We had a ton of q-tips when she moved in. She's eating us out of house and home and using up all of our q-tips."

I confronted my husband regarding his rage over q-tip usage this afternoon.

I don't think he believes me.

I shall chronicle the next rant as it happens.

people who use halloween as an excuse to act like idiots.

2006-10-31T22:24:00.000-05:00

Can you tell I live in a college town?

The number of drinking related deaths tonight will spike massively. As will date rapes, car accidents, vandalism (duh) and arrests in general.

There are more girls than usual walking around looking like hookers downtown.

Sexy nurse outfits are SO over. As are sexy witch outfits, sexy vampire outfits, etc etc. Imagination is a good thing.

Ditto for costumes which involve fake asses hanging out of your pants.

I'm becoming so suburban. My husband and I dressed our child up like a chicken and took her trick or treating in the mall.

She liked to shake her bag of candy because it made crinkly noises. She thought the costume was pretty bunk, but was willing to suffer through it for food.

people who take things way too seriously

2006-10-28T23:14:00.000-04:00

For instance, my employee.

I said "I need you to alphabetize your client files. I can't update their records if I can't find their files."

She replied "my job is to sell, not to do filing."

"Well, if you don't alphabetize your card files, there will be (and I sang a silly duh duh duh dum, bad things are about to happen song here) dire consequences."

I said that with much waggling of the eyebrows and silly noises.

Yeah. Not much there to make a person take me seriously.

The next day I come into work and I find my employee talking to my manager in very hushed tones. Then my employee wouldn't talk to me. Management called me into their offices and bitched me out for threatening an employee. I told them what had gone on. They confronted my employee about this. She said to management, and I quote: "It's really hard to tell when Misanthropster is joking."

Management came back to me and said: "No more joking around with your employees."

Then, we had a two hour meeting about alphabetizing the card file.

Followed by a two hour meeting about employee morale.

Followed by another two hour meeting about something else so stupid that apparently I've blocked it out of my memory.

Life is great. I love my job. And my employee.

people who think that just because they're old, they can be assholes

2006-10-26T23:15:00.000-04:00

1. Driving rules do actually apply to you. No, really, they do.

2. Age doesn't mean that you can cut in line. Or alternatively, use your shopping cart at the grocery store to shove somebody out of your way because you want to go first. Even if that person happens to be holding a very small child and ONE FUCKING ITEM and your cart is full to the point of over-flowing. Asshat. Bitch, you better believe that I can take your ass out. Somebody was CRUISING for a total hip replacement today...

3. Age doesn't mean that you're any smarter than the rest of the planet. Or wiser. I'm sure I've posted about this one already, but, honey, your third grade education acquired in Bumpass (a real town), VA in 1920 doesn't make you any better than the rest of us. Nor does your 200 years of life experience. It just means that you're old.

4. An equation: The value of a person as they age has a one-to-one correspondence with the amount of effort and energy they put into the world around them. That applies to people from about age 18 to death. (I'll give people younger than 18 a free pass to be total non-productive dipshits. I mean, we have to do it sometimes, right?)

5. Age does not mean that everybody around you will automatically be polite no matter what. If you're an asshole to me, then guess what? I sure as hell am not going to be pleasant to you.

Yeah, I've come to the conclusion, that despite my hopes for people actually getting over themselves by the time they reach a decent age (say, 70), I still despise elderly people with the same ratio that I hate everybody else.

One in a few are cool. The rest can lick my balls.

people who won't shut up part 2

2006-10-23T20:20:00.000-04:00

So I actually let out a huge scream at work today, while on the sales floor. It was after getting off the phone with a customer. I wish that I could call some of these people out by name and not get sued or fired or something.

Anyway, this customer calls. I'll call her DD...

Hold on a second. I think I need a beer before continuing on with this post so as I don't cause anybody any major physical damage...

ok, beer aquired, which I spilled all over the floor with the assistance of the baby.

DD calls. This is the ensuing conversation:

DD: I was in the store on Sunday, at which time I made two major purchases, and I was helped by Molly. I made two major purchases, and I was sitting in your chairs for quite a long time. Because you know, it takes some time to decide what to buy when you are making major purchases.

Me: Yes ma'am.

DD: And while I was sitting in your chairs, I was talking to Molly for a long time. And I know things got very busy and hectic for her yesterday, so she couldn't pay all that much attention to what happened after I left. By the way, is Molly working today?

Me: No, she's on vacation for the next week.

DD: Oh, well then maybe you can help me. So after making my two major purchases, I got up and I left my lists at the counter. They are on either green or pink index cards. Do you understand me?

Me: Green or pink index cards.

DD: Yes. So I had my lists on green or pink colored index cards and it is vitally imporant that I have those lists. I think I left them at your counter by the chairs where I was sitting.

Me: Ma'am, if you hold on a minute, I'll go look for them.

DD: LET ME FINISH. I said, the lists are on index cards of a green or a pink color and I left them at your counter where the chairs are.

Me: Well, I can go...

DD: I told you to let me finish. I left them at your counter where the chairs are. And I might have also left them where the other chairs are, or at the cash register near you, or at the other one on the other side of the store. Now, the index cards are of a green or a pink color, and I left them at your counter where the chairs are.

Me: Ma'am, I'll go look...

DD: No. I want you to repeat back to me the locations where I might have left my lists.

Me: At the...

DD: Do you remember what color they are?

Me: Green or pink.

DD: Very good. Now where did I leave them?

Me: At the counter where the chairs are, where the other chairs are, at the register near me, or at the register on the other side of the store.

DD: Yes. Now, do you remember what they look like?

Me: Green or pink.

DD: Now can you repeat to me where I might have left them?

Me: No, but I can go look for them right now if you want to hold.

DD: No, I want you to repeat to me where I might have left them. They are of a green or pink color, and they are very important to me. I left them at...

Me: Ma'am, I know what color they are, and where you might have left them. If you let me get off the phone I can actually go look for them.

DD: No, I want you to get a pen and a piece of paper and take down some very important information.

Me: (oh sweet jesus)

DD: The lists are very important to me and they are of a green or a pink color. I left them at your counter where the chairs are, or where the other chairs are, or at the register near you, or at the register across the store.

Me: I got it.

DD: You can't have, you can't write that fast.

Me: I wrote this down when you first told me about it.

DD: Oh. That's smart. That must be how you remember all of this.

Me: Yes, ma'am.

DD: Now I want you to write down my name and phone number. This is very important. And I want you to give me a call back.

Me: Ma'am, if you just hold on for one second, I can...

DD: I do not want to hold. I want you to write down my name and phone number and give me a call back when you find my lists.

Me: Yes, ma'am.

DD: My name is DD, and my phone number is 555-1212. Did you get that.

Me: Yes, DD and 555-1212.

DD: Very good. Now, can you go look at the chairs at your counter, at the other chairs, at the register near you, and at the one across the store for my lists? They are of a pink or green color, and they are very very important. It is important that you find these lists.

Me: I will call you back as soon as I look.

DD: I'll be expecting your call.

So I go and look for her goddamn lists all over the fucking store, and sure enough, I find no lists.

I call her back. She wants me to check the trash cans. Imagine the above conversation with trash cans inserted instead of place names. Yeah. I think the lists are pink or green or something?

I explained to her that we empty out our trash cans every night. She wants me to go look in the dumpster. I said no way, jose.

So I go to lunch. While I am on my lunch break, DD comes into the store. Since I wasn't at my counter, she walks behind it and starts going through the drawers. Totally randomly. Yeah, she's sane. Uh huh. Really sane. Management comes over and asks her to cease. Tells her to wait until I get back.

When I got back, she starts going all kinds of crazy about a product that I do not have in stock, and haven't had in stock for, oh, 10 years. That I've told her multiple times that it's been discontinued.

ARGH.

So she whips her pink and green index cards out of her pocketbook and I say "oh, you found your lists."

DD: Yes, I put them in the glove box of my car. I thought they'd be safe there.

Morbidly curious, I sneak a peek at the lists. Yup. Random scrawlings and chicken scratch about absolutely nothing.

Big surprise.

aargh.

people who won't shut up

2006-10-23T20:03:00.000-04:00

So a couple of weeks ago, I was at Wal-Mart right before we were supposed to have an enormous rain storm, and there were lines going to the back of the store. Everybody in the general area was buying milk, bread and toilet paper because this was supposed to be a really bad... RAIN storm.

C'mon peoples. Rain? And you're buying Wal-Mart out of toilet paper, bread and milk? Whatevah.

Anyway, as I was standing there with my child and my cart full of milk, bread and toilet paper (just kidding. I was buying the kid baby tylenol because she was sick) and this girl walks up in line behind me and starts yattering on about absolutely nothing. So I successfully tuned her out.

Then I hear, from Miss Yatter, "Oh my goooooooooooooooooooduh, hey's got a snahykuh."

Yeah, she had the local accent. In fact, she is the fucking archetype of the local accent. So I'm standing there in line trying to figure out exactly what kind of animal a snahykuh was. I was about to ask, when I notice that a guy a couple of people ahead of me in line has a small snake wrapped around his hand.

Ok, so for those of you who might not get it, snahykuh = snake.

Right.

For the next five minutes I hear "He's got a snake? Do you see that? He's got a snake wrapped around his hand. A snake! That's so gross." She then taps me on my shoulder. "Ma'am, he's got a snake. Do you see that? A SNAKE, wrapped around his hand."

Yup, I see it. Couldn't miss it.

Then the guy up ahead turns around and he's got a huge python/boa constrictor/I don't know what kind of snake it was but it was really fucking huge wrapped around his torso underneath his jacket.

"HE'S GOT TWO SNAKES! OH MY GOD, HE'S Got TWO SNAKES!!!!" Taps me on my shoulder again. "Ma'am, you'd better keep your baby away from him, he's got two snakes!"

Her friend walks up to her and points out that her cell phone is ringing. The snake girl says that she doesn't want to answer it because she's too distracted by the snakes.

I've gotta say, I wish there were some sort of award for the number of times a person can fit a single word into conversation in a 20 minute span. She'd be the clear front runner.

Honestly, at this point, I cannot think the word "Snake" without saying it in her accent.

And yes, I did listen to her go on and on about the goddamn snakes for 20 minutes.

people who think they have something important to say

2006-10-22T16:14:00.000-04:00

and don't, actually.

(Cara and Phil, please forgive me for this blasphemy regarding your nuptials.)

So I went to a wedding last night. The bride and groom... we'll call them "Cara" and "Phil" are both good friends of mine. In fact, I introduced them to each other. So yeah, I'm the responsible party.

Anyway, the pastor that was performing the bulk of the ceremony kept calling "Cara" Carrie. Her name is Cara for god's sake, get it right!

And he made some remarks, as I suppose pastors are supposed to do during weddings. His began with "Do y'all know what this is?" (he holds up a pen.) "It's a pen. I know y'all know what a pen is." (um, yeah, dumbshit, we do) "Now, when Carrie called me and told me that she and Phil were getting married I asked her 'Now, Carrie, should I write this on my calendar in pen or in pencil.' and she said pen. So this is the very pen that I wrote this date down on my calendar with." (he then spent 10 fucking minutes going on and on about how he writes his schedule. Thanks for the info, dude.) "Carrie and Phil, I hope that your love and marriage lasts as long as the ink I wrote this date down on my calendar with does."

Yeah. I really hope that was a waterproof archival pen.

Seriously though, he could find something a little bit... um... oh, I don't know, more intelligent to say about the couple? Anything? Was he just using that as filler? Did he become a pastor just to hear himself talk?

Although, honestly, that isn't the worst thing I've ever heard said by a pastor at a wedding. All in all it was a lovely wedding. I'm happy. And, after years of speculation by all that knew him, Phil is apparently not gay. This is a good thing for Cara.

:)

people who create signs with bad grammar

2006-10-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

There is this furniture store near our house that has perennially bad signs. Most of them having to do with recliners.

Their front billboard sign reads, at this very moment:

$199
Extremely Huge
Recliner
Sale

Which is causing an enormous desire to go in and ask to see their extremely huge recliners. I mean, $199 is a pretty damn good deal for an extremely huge recliner. I might want to get one.

But I'm sure they don't have any extremely huge recliners. I want to sue them for false advertising.

They also had a sign that said "Outrageous Recliner Sale." Which, frankly, that's the only kind of recliner I would really want. Aside from an extremely huge one, that is.

Alas, no outrageous recliners either...

people who don't listen

2006-09-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

Stupid problems at work because people won't listen to each other when they talk.

It's been driven home pretty damn clearly that people hear what they want to hear and alter their memories to suit.

I'm just so depressed right now. I can't even work up a good rant.

Things could be worse though, I suppose.

Or as somebody once said (I'm betting it was Oscar Wilde):

"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."

people who mess with my brain when I'm sleep deprived

2006-09-13T21:59:00.000-04:00

So I went to Wal-Mart at about 10 last night.

It was one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

There was a group of really hideous redneck kids hanging out in the chairs in front of the pharmacy.

Half of the store was roped off with Police Line tape.

There was a guy wandering around the store playing polka music on his accordion.

And, last, but not least, the store associates were playing Rocky Horror Picture Show on every single television in the store, and over the loudspeakers.

Totally fucked up, man...

people who fuck up my paycheck

2006-09-13T20:16:00.000-04:00

Argh. So the place that I work for, neatly halved my fucking paycheck today. Yeah. HALVED.

Of course, this happens when money is already really fuckin tight, and we were counting on getting, oh, my FULL paycheck to help pay bills and stuff. Sheeeeeeeeeeeit.

However, this is our once annual financial disaster time. Every single fucking year, right before my husband's birthday, we have some sort of monster fiscal fuckup that negatively affects us. Seriously. For the last four years something major has happened to us that makes us very very poor right on my husband's birthday.

This year, I suppose it's relatively minor. We're just $200 overdrawn on our checking account and my paycheck is only going to be half of what it should have been.

At least it's not like last year where we were like $800 in the hole, and I was 12 months pregnant (or at least felt that way).

So I call my mother (who deserves an entire blog in and of herself) and whine, because that's what daughters are supposed to do when things really really suck, and she's just absofuckinlutely wretched. You'd think that after 30 years of dealing with my mother, I'd figure out that she's the LAST person I should call when I'm having any problems, but no, hope STILL springs eternal and I think, "maybe this time..."

Not.

Yeah, she spent the entire time bitching to be about how it was my fault that I invited here to spend my daughter's first birthday here and why should she have to fly because they won't let her on the plane with her boobie prosthetic because the last time she flew she had to whip it out and let some random airport employee inspect it before they allowed her on the plane and that was totally traumatic (moreso for the poor airport employee, I imagine) and why should she want to fly when she knows its going to be awful...

her helpful advice was to berate me for not marrying rich.

thanks mom, and thanks stupid workplace... it's been a great day.

people who don't change

2006-09-08T22:29:00.000-04:00

I just, out of morbid curiosity, googled an ex-boyfriend of mine.

Well, morbid curiosity, and a healthy desire to keep tabs on the fuckin psychopath. Just want to make sure he's not getting ANYWHERE NEAR ME or my family.

Anyhoo, so I googled him, and found an interview with his most recent ex-girlfriend in a newspaper. In which she was spouting all of the same brainwashing that he attempted to pull on me. (Didn't work, by the way)

This is 10 years after I left his ass. He's still talking about, pulling and doing the same old shit. That's SO disappointing.

Admittedly, he is a psychopath, but still... I had at least held out hope that he had enough of a shred of intelligence to change at least somewhere along the lines.

But no, he's just your every day average ordinary dumbshit, with the same undeservedly huge ego, and the same utter lack of self-reflection. And did I mention that he's a pscyhopath?

Regardless, I hold out hope for all human beings that there will be growth, or at least some change in their patterns. Grow or die... and apparently most people hit "die" by default.

This is one of those things that consistently disappoints me about people. I'm not sure I can even find it in myself to hate this particular characteristic. It's just... absolutely worthless.

On the other hand, I'm pretty amused at myself in this post. My mother had told me, day after day, when I was in highschool that I would become more forgiving of people as I get older. Heh. Apparently not.

Nobody needs to be in the exact same mental geographical location they were in ten years ago. Or even two years ago. Or maybe even five minutes ago.

GROW OR DIE!

people who oversimplify

2006-09-03T21:55:00.000-04:00

So, looking at my baby daughter this morning, I was struck by the sheer volume of information about human interaction that she's learned in just a year... and how far she has to go.

Which led me to thinking about how books like "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" and "Four Simple Rules" etc, etc.

Ok. There is so much other stuff that we have to take into consideration if we are going to be fully functioning adults. And I am very very glad that there is quite a lot of richness and depth to adult human interaction... otherwise we'd still be punching each other to show affection or bashing each other over the heads with milk cartons (or whatever is handy) when upset.

What I'm getting at, is that if we simplify to the point of these books with their rules and their "harkening back to a simpler time," then we start to veer frighteningly into fundamentalist territory. You know, the place where you don't have any questions, because all the answers are right there.

Or as somebody else put it, when all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.

I'm not going to deny that as adults we have a tendency to make things more complicated. But, I think we also have a great desire to make things way too simple. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's a desire to have all the answers... I honestly don't know.

Regardless, this bugs the shit out of me.

people who don't listen

2006-09-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

This has to be the one thing about other people that drives me over the edge on an oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-find-a-way-to-strangle-you-and-dispose-of-your-body-so-that-it-will-never-be-found consistent basis.

ok. If you ask somebody a question, at least have the courtesy to listen to the answer.

If somebody is trying to explain something to you, LISTEN TO WHAT THEY'RE SAYING.

Take off the cute little ear muff filter thingys, step outside yourself for half a fucking second and PAY ATTENTION.

aargh.

Like today at the bank. I go up to the teller with $64 in cash and ask to have it changed into six rolls of quaters and two rolls of nickels. Doesn't sound that hard, right?

So, 15 minutes later, she shows back up with 3 rolls of quarters, six rolls of dimes, one roll of nickels... and then proceeds to painstakingly break open a roll of quarters to give me the rest of my cash back. At which point I said, "Wow, six rolls of quarters and two rolls of nickels, like I originally asked for, would have been much faster and easier."

and she looks up at me with blank bambi eyes.

Or when I was working at the college bookstore... constantly would have students walking up to me and saying "Oh my god, I need this book for class in like, five minutes. Do you have it?"

And I would reply, "Yes, it's right there on that shelf."

"BUT DO YOU HAVE IT?????"

ok... maybe we need to go back to basic listening skills... weren't people supposed to learn this in kindegarden?

And this post leads me to my next least favorite topic:

"People who don't read signs"

people who reach the age of 50 with not a shred of self-awareness

2006-08-31T23:13:00.000-04:00

I think I said it all in my title.

It depresses me that you can live for 50 whole years and still not be able to fucking look at one's own position in the world and go "Hmm... maybe there's all this drayma around me because it's ME!"

or

"Gee, I keep losing friends and having coworkers get pissed at me. Maybe I need to change something."

This seems to be at the root of my disappointment with humanity. That somehow I was holding out hope that there was this mystical tribe of really cool older people that had their shit together and could, you know, say wise stuff and help you through your problems and all.

Instead there seems to be this tribe of really self-involved older people with absolutely no self-awareness who are causing problems and going through shit that I left behind in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

It depresses me that people can die from old age and be stupid at the time of their death.

A table ad at Red Robin (yeah, I went there) summed it up for me. It said "Do lots of interesting things while you have the chance. It increases the likelihood of your becoming a pleasant old person."

Or something along those lines.

Ani DiFranco said something interesting in a song about aging and pleasantness.

"who are these old old old people
in these nursing homes
scowling away at nothing
like big rag dolls just cursing at the walls
and pulling out all of their stuffing
every day is a door leading back to the core
yes, old age will distill you
and if you're this this this full of bitterness now
some day it will just fill you

when you sit right down in the middle of yourself
you're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair
so renovate your soul before you get too old
cuz you're gonna be housebound there"

(from Back Back Back)

yeah... well, as she also said in that song, you'd better put some beauty back, while you've got the energy...

people who tell you to be at work at the wrong time

2006-08-04T08:13:00.000-04:00

So my manager, who is new, and not very bright, professional or anything else for that matter, told me to be at work at 7:45 this morning. Which is two hours before I'm usually supposed to be at work.

I drag my ass out of bed TWO HOURS early this morning. I go into work. Nobody is there. NOBODY. The only other person there is someone who was also told by this same manager to be there two hours early.

So I find the manager on duty. She said that they must have changed it while I was on vacation. WHATEVAH.

My manager wasn't on vacation.

She cost me TWO FRICKEN HOURS of sleep.

Not fun when you have a very small child.

I am not happy. At all.

people who create unnecessary drama at work

2006-07-14T00:02:00.000-04:00

1. Get a fucking hobby.

2. We're not in Jr. High any more. Put on your big girl panties and DEAL.

3. I take enough shit from the rest of the world that I don't need it from you.

4. You either.

5. Seriously. I hear TV is a good hobby. Or heroin. You know, something that will occupy a lot of time and give you something to talk about.

6. Really, just because you live an miserable fucking existence doesn't mean that I have to as well.

7. FUCK OFF.

people who run the salem fair

2006-07-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

Ok. Part-two of the salem fair post.

I have two subjects to address here.

The first is this:

There was a booth, tucked away into the "food court" area of the fair (basically the pre-puking your guts out staging area) which advertised "The World's Smallest Woman" and had a tiny little house sitting in it. It also said "$10,000 if you could find somebody smaller" "Just 22 inches tall" "Fits in her son's hand" etc.

Thinking that it was a hoax, or an optical illusion, my husband ponied up the fifty cents to walk through and see this woman. When he came around to the back, he found a black midget in her 60s, sitting in what appeared to be the perfect miniature living room, watching the news. She looked over at him and said "My name is Gloria, I'm 22 inches tall and 65 years old." There was a coffee can for tips and a sign saying that she will not dance for you, but she will take photos with you for a dollar.

While I was waiting outside, I noticed a smaller sign stating that this was the "West Indies Cultural Exhibition"

WHAT???????

Secondly, my husband got injured on a ride.

You know those haunted mine shaft or haunted house "rides" that are huge at various different amusment parks and carnivals? Well, he decided to ride theirs, which was the "Lost MIne."

Everything on the ride was broken, and just before the ride ended, he got whacked by a skull duct taped onto a stick poking out of the wall. And bruised VERY badly, I might add.

Were we the litigious types, we might be owning the Salem fair...

people who attend the salem fair

2006-07-11T20:06:00.000-04:00

Bring me your tired, your poor, your hungry...

your morbidly obese
your pregnant 13-year-olds
your toothless
your white kids trying to be black
your 60-year-olds dressing like they're 13
your crack whores
your slack jawed yokels
your honest-to-goodness hayseeds

Bring me your hillbillies
your bearded ladies
your chinless
your obnoxiously loud
your illiterate
your elderly smoking through tracheotomies

Yes folks, bring them to me, and I will take them to the Salem fair... where they'll truly belong.

Greatest freakshow on earth. And you don't even have to pay to see it...

people who live next door to me

2006-07-05T22:40:00.000-04:00

The things they do that irritate me on a daily basis:

1. Exist.

2. Let their 10-year-old kid ride a motorcross motorcycle at high speeds up and down our street WITHOUT A HELMET

3. Listening to the fucking motorcross motorcycle and its fucking mufflerless NOISES all day long.

4. Blow stuff up all through July and August late at night.

5. Burn all their trash in a barrel in their back yard. This includes plastic.

6. Decide that the right time to burn their trash is at 11pm and then leave their burn barrel unattended so that I wake up at 3am with a bedroom full of smoke and look out the window to see flames shooting about 15 feet out of the barrel.

7. Exist.

8. Leave two dogs tied up in their backyard all year round. One is male, one is female. Neither is fixed. SUCKS ASS when the female goes into heat because all we hear is both dogs yipping and moaning because they can't get at each other. Really sucks ass any time I look out the window and see those poor dogs pacing the same 20 foot area day in and day out...

9. Have a gigantic brighter-than-the-sun security light in their back yard. Which shines into our bedroom. On a street that is well lit with street lights.

10. Have about five cars sitting in their yard in various states of disrepair.

11. They moved from the house we live in now (a very nice brick three-bedroom with hardwood floors) into a DOUBLEWIDE nextdoor. It's great and all that we get to live in this very nice house for very little rent, but why in holy hell would you want to live in a goddamned doublewide when you were living in a perfectly lovely brick house?

12. Their boy (mentioned above) is constantly trooping through our yard with a BB gun shooting at whatever is moving nearby.

13. They're constantly screaming at each other. It is blissfully unintelligible, but it's still there and it still irritates...

I'm sure I'll add to this list as time goes on. And I'm sure I'm forgetting things...

people who blow stuff up until 12am around the 4th of July

2006-07-05T22:31:00.000-04:00

So, my next-door neighbors who provide me with a never ending font of shit to get irritated by (on a near hourly basis) have cause me to absolutely freakin REVILE the 4th of July.

Starting about three days before the 4th they start (I kid you not) shooting off their various guns at random moments and setting off firecrackers. On occasion, setting off firecrackers by firing their guns at them.

This usually goes on from 9pm to 12am until somebody calls the cops on them.

FOR TWO WEEKS.

So yeah. For two weeks in July I feel like I'm living in Sarajevo circa 1994. Not to mention the other random times that these dumbasses spend firing high powered rifles over the field across the street.

You know, dudes, we're in the city limits. We ain't THAT far out in the country. Do you honestly think nobody will notice? Especially when you're firing your weapons AT a heavily traveled highway? AAAAAARGGGGGGHHHH

Yeah. So this morning our back yard was full of the detritus of our neighbor's "patriotic" celebrations. I'm so glad that honoring our country's independence means drinking beer, acting like an asshole, blowing shit up, and, oh, I don't know, KEEPING YOUR NEXTDOOR NEIGHBOR'S INFANT UP UNTIL MIDNIGHT.

aargh.

people who make women's clothing

2006-07-01T23:21:00.000-04:00

I don't even know where to start with this one...

Ok. So the only time I could walk into a store and find something that looked cute the minute I tried it on was when I was a size two.

Needless to say, post-baby, I am NOT a size two.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying on clothing. My boobs are bigger than average right now (post-baby). Normally I'm a size 12. From the waist down right now, I am still a 12. So I try on size 12 shirts. Ha! No way. So I get 14s. Nope, no dice. Still won't fit over the boobages. So I get a 16. I look like I'm wearing a fuckin mumu. Or am still pregnant. Lovely. Not the look I'm going for. I noticed that the clothing manufacturers cut the size 14s and 16s in exactly the same way that they cut their size 2s. Now, call me crazy, but the last time I looked, somebody who is a size 14 is shaped a little bit differently from somebody who is a size 2.

After shopping trips to multiple different stores, I was about ready to kill somebody. I went to Lane Bryant thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd have something I could wear. Nope. Tried on just about every single damn shirt in the place. Most of them dwarfed me. Apparently size 14 in their world is totally different from size 14 in the rest of the world. One top actually made me look flat. ME! I have bodacious tatas. What the hell?????

On the plus side (no pun intended), Lane Bryant's clothing seemed to actually take into account the different curvature of women with a bit more meat on their bones. It just seems that I don't have enough meat on mine to justify buying their clothing. First time in my life that I was a little disappointed that I wasn't bigger, because they have some seriously cute stuff.

Thank god for Maurices. They're having a big clearance sale. Now I didn't want to go in there because it didn't look like they had very grown up clothing, but they do have some cute stuff. And, all their larger sizes fit my chest. Which is amazing. I could actually wear their stuff. And it was on clearance. And I look slightly more in style than I did yesterday because I'm not wearing clothing that's two years out of date. And I don't feel like a cow. This is a plus.

Yeah. So I kinda want to
1. Torch all the women's clothing manufacturers.
2. Start my own damn clothing line.

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

2006-06-29T14:19:00.000-04:00

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...

2006-06-29T14:13:00.000-04:00

,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

2006-06-25T09:34:00.000-04:00

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"

2006-06-23T22:49:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-21T22:19:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-21T18:44:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-20T20:15:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-20T20:07:00.001-04:00

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

2006-06-20T20:02:00.000-04:00

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.