this weekend's essay: shit that bothers you (that prolly shouldn't.)
though i come off as an irascible asshole on this blog, in person, i'm a pretty laid back mofo with not too many pet peeves. i pretty much go with the flow. but i started wondering: what is it that really gets under my skin? then i thought, should these things really peeve me? what things bother me that prolly shouldn't, but bother me anyway? does that make sense? i've intentionally left off oprah, black publik intellexshuls, and dirty sneakers. you know, shit i regularly gripe about. anyway, here goes:
- black dudes who can't play basketball. forgive me for being an essentialist--yet again--but it is the oddest thing to see a black dude unable to play basketball with some relative ease. i mean, am i the only person who finds such a thing disconcerting? seriously, it is painful to witness a slap-dribbling, two-hand shooting, tripping over the half-court line traveling, black dude running up and down the court. i'm not saying you have to be a star, but damn, please have a decent 15-foot jumper.
- kids on answering machines. I HATE THIS!!!! some people don't particularly care for the robotic greeting, i hate the snot-nosed kid greeting. if i've ever left a message on your voicemail, you know how inarticulate i get. imagine me inarticulate and angry. if your kid just learned to talk and/or her numbers, that's great. it does not mean that you assign her the job of recording a greeting for your answering machine. to add insult to injury, i can't stand it when the following things are accompanied by infant greetings: 1) the fucking applause at the end. when i worked for a newspaper, i heard many, many parents applauding their kids after they "successfully" recorded the greeting. ugh!!! 2) the translator factor. you know this. the kid plays "translator" to the parent. parent, "you have reached..." kid, "do have weached..." I HATE THAT SHIT!!!!
- people who don't watch tv. it's not the not watching tv part that bothers me. it's those people who think they should get some sort of cookie for "claiming" they don't watch tv. look, i'm not saying watching tv is a good thing. in fact, i'm pretty sure my undiagnosed a.d.d. is the result of the all the tv i've watched. but all i'm saying is not watching tv is its own dysfunction, and folks need to recognize that. not watching tv doesn't make you noble, and it sure as hell doesn't make you smarter; in fact, it might just make you kinda weird. you're gonna raise your kids without television? fine. but you're just gonna get them beat up in skool. and they prolly deserve it. but, really, i wanna know: if you don't watch tv, what the fuck do you do?
- old people on their old people shit. i don't like it when old people think they can break the rules and be assholes just because they're old. in fact, several weeks ago, i pledged to stop respecting folks of age, and start calling old people on their shit when they deserve it. i'm done respecting my elders when they do all kinds of wrong. two things brought me to this conclusion.
case 1: several weeks ago, saf and i hit the queen for some blizzards. i was driving, and mistakingly parked in a handicapped spot. now in my defense, the painted stick figure in the wheelchair was totally faded, and there was no sign. anyway, saf and i walked in, ordered our stuff, and ate. when we came out, this older white couple was coming towards us. the husband looks at me and asks, 'are you handicapped?' and i'm like, 'no.' and then he bitches about me parking in the damn (faded) handicapped spot. in a split second, i decided not to rip this old man a new one. but later, i thought, he fucking would have deserved that shit. first, neither he nor his wife appeared to be struggling to walk the 10 feet to the door. second--and this is the killer--they parked right next to me! it wasn't as if i'd parked in the last spot in the front and they had to walk all across the parking lot and shit. but he still felt the need to disrespect me. why? because he's fucking old.
case 2: i've recently become a gym rat, and before i started going at the butt crack of dawn, i used to run into this older black woman in the cardio rotunda. now i'm a creature of habit, and i have a particular treadmill that i like to use--#8 because it's a bigger treadmill, the tv works, and it's right under an a/c vent. now i've always been cordial to this woman. i smile at her, say hi and shit. but she's always breaking the cardio rotunda rules. it'd be one thing if the rules were some secretive, word-of-mouth things that you just learned along the way. but the rules are plastered everywhere! now the rule she enjoys breaking is the time rule. you get 45 minutes per machine, and you're only supposed to sign-up for one machine at a time. i would sign up for my allotted 45 minutes, and wait for her to get off. now the first time she apologized for running over time, and got off. the second time, she claimed that she thought she'd signed up for longer than she did, and then had the nerve to request that i allow her to finish her workout. curious, after that particular workout, i checked out the sign-up sheet. i discovered that this woman generally signs up for at least an hour if not more--which is against the rules. and she had the nerve to ask for an additional 15 minutes? fuck her. but that's not all.
one time, she was on treadmill #9--right next to my fave #8 obviously. while i'm stretching and talking to nahmix, i notice her get off the machine. she walks over to the sign-up sheet, and then walks back towards the treadmills. she gets on #8. now this is odd to me, but i don't trip, because there are still about five minutes until my turn. but after those five minutes, i see she's still on. so i walk over to the sign-up sheet, and see that this bitch had the audacity to scratch my name out! i walk over to her, and ask her if she marked my name out because i'd signed up for this machine. this bitch had the nerve to tell me that she did that because no one was on the machine. now in a certain situation, that would be a legitmate excuse, for if the person who signed up for the machine doesn't get on the machine within five minutes of their sign-up time (meaning, if you've signed up for 730, you need to be on by 735), s/he relinquishes his/her right to use it. but since my time hadn't technically started, that was some bullshit. what's more, she said the reason why she switched machines was because she couldn't hear the tv on the other machine, and then had the nerve to ask me why i didn't stop her when she went to sign up for #8. do i look like the fucking cardio rotunda monitor? but instead of cussing her the fuck out like she obviously deserved, i simply told her that #12's tv picture and sound worked fine. for a brief moment, i thought she was going to ask me why i didn't simply go to that one, but i think she thought better of it. instead, she walked over to that machine--without signing up for it. of course, half way through my run she interrupts me and tells me she can't figure out how to turn on the damn treadmill. i, having home training, get off my treadmill mid-run, go over, and press the big-ass green "on" button for her old ass.
as always, have a great weekend.
posted by summer of sam @ 10:12
language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. language alone is meditation. ~toni morrison
16 Comments:
when i lived in chicago i always had an unspoken appreciation for the public transit system. it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good.
i now live in pittsburgh. the wack ass public trans pisses me off in general, but i hate that they don't believe in using the rear doors of the buses. what kind of craziness is this? also, depending on the time of day, what direction you're traveling ("going to town"), and whether you know hte secret handshake, sometimes you pay your fare when you get on the bus and sometimes you pay as you get off. whaaaa?
there's nothing worse than riding home during rush hour. the bus packed with people who, instead of paying when they get on and exiting from the back doors, have to claw their way to the front of the bus to pay their fare and get off the damn bus. just stupid. boggles my mind.
whew! thanks for letting me vent. check me out commenting again. i might just become a regular commentator on this here blog.
i hate hate hate people who say, "i don't watch tv." but i equally despise people who say, "i only watch cnn and (insert "educational" channel here"
i just want to say you fucking arrogant asshole get off of your high horse!
and yes, old people get on my damn nerves too.
but young people annoy me even more especially 18 year olds whose parents have coddled them and told them they are better than every one else. ugh! (you can tell i've just survived another dreadful orientation/registration)
yea the tv thing is annoying. its like i'm so much better than you because i dont watch tv, i'm so much smarter than the average person look at me all not watching tv. well f u and your wanta be elitist i'm better than you and dont watch tv attuitude. give me a break
@rock, stud, and jdid: gripe on, homies. i love it.
don't it just make you feeeeel good like billy bob thornton?
ya know I like this topic, I don't watch television because I don't like it. In fact I am so shallow the only damn thing on television I watch is law and order on tnt and damn it that's all the tv I need.
I ain't watchin the rest of the crap because I ain't interested. Reality shows are contrived, celebrities get on my nerves and I can't stand the political pundits so I don't watch news channels. I watch local news sometimes because the sistah anchor woman is lovely to look at when she ain't on I don't watch. (If that is sexist then I am guilty.)
Oh yeah kids on the answering machine get on my nerves a little bit but what really gets on my nerves is teens and the early 20's playing this stupid game with voice mail. Pretending to answer the phone when they aren't. This shit is not funny. This is a waste of my time and their creative intellect.
And time is valuable to me because I am old, damnit.I'm old with young adults who need my old ass money so they can go to school and write about how much they don't like old people. So let me say this y'all don't like old people and guess what we ain't crazy bout yall either so we put up with y'all cause we need somebody to get us our Kool-Aid and go to the store. And guess what, we old enuf to know that young don't last forever.
Finally I hate people who write long comments. But I feel better now. Thank you.
i can't stand wealthy tweens, preteens, and teens in public places! I understand that it is totally scandalous that tristen and matt got caught "practically having sex" at shannon's country club birthday party, especially since he was going out with blair at the time, but i don't need to hear about it while i'm trying to a) negotiate a crowded mall b) watch a movie c) eat at restaurant that is more than $20 a plate. Said kids have too much money and time on their hands and it is irritating.
When Matt, Todd, and Co decide to bump the wait song from the Range their parents bought for their 16 birthday
when people use any of the following words or phrases: mines, irreguardless, "on tomorrow", pet peeve, belly
People who are financially comfortable that would rather pick up dog excrement and buy/prepare food for animals than put that money towards any other person who might be in need.
I absolutely hate:
1. Parents who negotiate with their obnoxious children in public, instead of slapping the shit out of them
2. People who throw their lit cigarettes out of the window while driving on the freeway
3. Employees who don't understand or speak English well enough to provide service
I really can't stand people who don't know the difference between actual common sense and their own weird neuroses. You know, people who have some strange problem with something (like, I don't know, pens with green ink) and are absolutely unable to comprehend the fact that virtually no one, let alone everyone, shares their aversion.
btrfly_locs: Ayn Rand?!? That's hilarious. Since when did she become "literature"? If someone tried to pull that on me, I'd just point out that she basically wrote porn for Idaho militiamen.
agree about the old people.
1. People that say the poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Usually these people were born upper middle class or rich, and if you took mommy and daddy's money out the trust fund they'd be homeless.
2. People that think God revolves around them. I'm sorry but I doubt God is taking time out of his busy schadule, trying to stop wars and such, to hook you up with a new job.
3. People that use checks for items under ten dollars. How is it possible that these people don't have ten bucks in their pocket?
4. Women that can't live without a man.
Ooooh, I don't think you'd like this old brotha very much. I can't/won't/shouldn't/couldn't and would'nt be caught on a basketball court, unless I was sweepin' it, and I don't sweep nothin'.
A brotha also prides himself in not watching TV, at least not what they're servin' up these days.
halle berry.
extreme makeover and all of its various embodiments.
people who refuse to use turn signals when they drive.
people who villainize others because they drink (because, you know, it's bad for you), yet consume caffine/grease/cigarettes whenever they get the chance.
@morcy: thank you for saying that shit about unreliability. i'm sick of people looking at me funny because i show up on time.
@don: basketball camp starts today.
@roricka: word up to all of them. though i've been known not to use a turning signal e'ry now and then.
@mwilli: that golden girls shit better have been a joke, or we got beef--for real.
I feel everyody on the old people thing...
And I'm wit mwilli on the people who call you at no o'clock in the AM and have the wrong number-- but let's take it further-- how about people you know calling at no o'clock and they don't want anything? They come with the infamous "Whatcha doin?" Sleeping asshole!!
And AJ's hair is just wrong...
If you don't watch TV, you read books, DUH! (lol)
I'm not a big TV watcher but I pretty much have to...when I'm at work. Can't escape it.
I'd rather watch my TV on DVDs (does that make sense?) The L Word (need to get that), The Sopranos (need to get Season 5), The Jeffersons, and NOW, The Cosby Show.
I hate the kids on answering machine thing. HELL, I'm a Bernie Mac type... I just hate kids. Ok, dislike. Is that better?
Miss Jessi made me laugh out loud (for real)... when niggas call you at 2 in the morning and you're obviously sleeping... DANG!
Man, I could make a list of, like, 100 things, but my big five are:
1) People that bump into you and don't excuse themselves.
2) People that watch as their bad ass kids do shit like topple displays in stores and don't stop, discipline, or clean up after the little ingrate.
3) I have to go with Maegen on this one - service people that can not effectively speak the language of the people for which the provide said service.
4) Jesus ass mutha fuckas that are always making supposedly subtle hints about the eternal damnation of those of us who dare not to be Jesus ass mutha fuckas.
5) Passive-aggressive displays of anger. They're so fucking cowardly to me.
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