Festivus for the Rest-of-Us

I was talking to a friend this afternoon about the blog we are all a part of (ps, just noticed that Word doesn’t even recognize the word “blog” it just put a red line under it and suggested that I might mean bog, blob, or blow. While blow may be what my entries have done the past few weeks, I actually mean blog. I’m sure a Mac would have recognized the word). Anyway, I digress……

I was explaining to my 55 year-old friend that this was an opportunity to talk about what I was thinking, feeling, etc. Anything I wanted to get off of my chest, all the while pretending that others care. Immediately she said, “you know what you can blog about? What I don’t like – the pharmacy techs at work who wear their thongs sticking out of the top of their pants. It’s nasty and unprofessional.” Obviously, the woman’s on to something. Don’t we all feel that way? Especially if your size XXL thong is topping out of your size 6 pants. Ack.

So that gave me the idea to have a week of helping others. Why not give back to the community in this time of crisis by letting them have an all-out bitch fest? So welcome to the Airing of Grievances. I gave some friends and co-workers the opportunity to go to town on what really gets under their skin. And boy did they.

I hope it made them feel better, and I hope some of it resonates with you all.

• People who drive for miles with their blinker on. Are you seriously going to turn right from the right lane on the interstate. I doubt it. Oh, and if you do, good luck.
• Co-workers, or even bosses (ahem.) who think they know it all. They have a better story for every one story you tell. Your cat’s sick? Well their cat once had polio. AND SURVIVED. Don’t tell me you really know it all. 47,983 divided by 56. The square root of 3,983. Diagram one of Palin’s sentence then, Bitch.

"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-where do they go?"

• Ex-girlfriends (or more like someone you’ve only been out with three times, *snap*) who don’t understand what it means when we don’t call you back. For days at a time. Get a copy of He’s Just Not that into You. And a clue.
• People who clip their nails in public. What else is there to say? Don’t do it at your desk, three doors down so I can hear the little metal thingies go clink clink clink, don’t do it on the Metro (right GT?!), and, God forbid, don’t do it on an airplane and put the clippings into the seat back. Yuck. This goes for toes and fingers Airplane Man.
• People who waste everyone’s time with a question or a choice they don’t have ready. Don’t call my office and go, “uhh, so I uhhh, do you uhhh?” Get your shit together before you call. And to the people in front of me at the counter who get up there and look like they’ve never seen the menu before, ever. Even after standing in line for ten minutes, I’m guessing you’re not a McDonald’s virgin, so get off your phone and order already.
• Men with man boobs. (Okay so this would go more into the physical attributes that people can’t necessarily control category, but I hate them. So, whatever).
• Sickies who don’t cover their sneezes. That’s what your sleeve, shirt, kleenex combination of the above, is for. Use it. These are the same people who also don’t wash their hands after they pee (or worse, poop). One of everyone’s favorite GM stories is the time I chased a woman out of a pottie because she’d gone out without washing her hands. Mind you I was sick for the fourth time that year and obviously cranky, but I said to her “it’s people like you who make people like me sick.” Yikes. Not my finest moment, but message conveyed – check.
• Rolling suitcases and the people who don’t know how to use them. If you wouldn’t run over my feet with your car, don’t do it with your rolling suitcase. And if you can’t lift it over your head and into the bin, you can’t have it. Check it under the damn plane. I’ll pay the $25 just so I don’t have to watch you struggle.
• Public displays of phlegm. The substance and the noises. Enough said.
• Smokers who think they have the right to smoke anywhere, even in non-smoking places. Even when there’s a sign. Especially when there’s a sign. They seem pretty sure, like the rest of us, that as long as it’s not the airplane lavatory no one’s going to haul them off to jail for it. But the shared bathroom at work? Really? You can’t walk another 50 feet outside? My favorite line is when asked about it the smoker said that the sign was “for crack and stuff. Not for cigarettes.” Heh. Well, now I know.
• And last but not least, people who say irregardless. Dude, totally not a word. Oh, and DC-people, you have not been “tasked” with anything. Because task is not a verb.
I was almost done with the list when I got a message from my friend Jeremy, the last one to respond, who answered with “People who complain too much.”
So ignore everything I just said.