32 posts tagged “misanthropy”
One of my co-workers got a dog recently. His - the dog's - name is Zeus. Zeus comes into the office occasionally, which really pisses me off. He stinks like you wouldn't believe. He has fleas. He pees everywhere. I have a welcome mat at the entrance to my work area which was hand woven and a Christmas gift from my very first gift exchange at this job and is treasured greatly by me. The filthy fucker peed on it. He bites and is generally disruptive to a productive work environment. I give Zeus a good healthy kick every time I see him. I don't even try to hide it. I just haul off and give him a boot to the midsection. I can't decide which is the more pleasing sound - the crunch of his shattering rib cage or his pathetic whimper. Check it out. How could anyone not hate this mutt?
Dear Hotrod,
My closest friend at work is getting married in September. She had her invitations in the office today, and when I made a joking comment about who might be my date, she informed me that I would not be able to bring a guest. Now it's likely that I wouldn't be bringing a guest anyway, but being told flat out not to bother irks me a little bit on principle. For starters, I'm reasonably certain that other of our unmarried co-workers will be bringing their boyfriends and that a former co-worker will be there with his girlfriend in tow. And what's more, I've already heard more about the planning of this wedding than I really cared to. Every minor crisis that has arisen - from the save-the-date notifications to the selection of the band to the proper invitations - has prompted an instant message. I understand that weddings are expensive and that tough decisions have to be made, but I believe I am being treated unfairly just because I am not currently in a relationship. Am I wrong to feel this way?
Sincerely,
Singled Out
Dear Singled,
Your co-worker sounds like a real bitch. You should skip the wedding entirely.
Hotrod
It would figure that the city in which I've lived for almost fourteen years would be determined by HGTV to be one of the top ten "Christmas Towns" in America.
I just heard my first Christmas music of 2008. It was one of the least unctuous songs I can think of - Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" - but my cringing recoil was still almost Pavlovian. God, I hate this time of year.
You fail if I have to ask what the fuck you're supposed to be. Also if you dress as a pirate.
FACT: Tonight begins Rolling Thunder weekend.
FACT: The weather is supposed to be fair over the next few days, and I have been looking forward to opening my windows to air out my dingy hovel.
FACT: Those windows and my hovel are situated approximately one hundred and fifty feet from US Route 1 (Northbound) - the erstwhile number one (natch) north-south thoroughfare in the nation.
FACT: My unscientific research shows that roughly eighty-five percent of all Harley Davidson owners reside in the southern United States.
FACT: Harleys are loud.
FACT: Many of those loud-ass Harleys coming from the south for Rolling Thunder weekend will make use of US Route 1 (Northbound), which passes one hundred and fifty feet from the open windows of my dingy hovel.
FACT: After another long week, I have made exactly zero plans for tomorrow in the hopes of a full day of peaceful relaxation at home.
FACT: Those loud-ass Harleys traveling north approximately one hundred fifty feet from my open windows will disrupt my peaceful relaxation.
FACT: I hate Rolling Thunder weekend.
I got rid of my vehicle nearly five and a half years ago. The day before Thanksgiving 2002, the man from the second charity I called showed up in a flatbed to haul her away. (The first charity wouldn't take her off my hands because she was a piece of junk.) It was a bittersweet day. I was skeptical of moving beyond the highly suburban notion of auto ownership as a necessity of life. But then, only a few months prior I had gone to court to contest a parking ticket and subsequent tow that occurred because it'd been months since I'd had an occasion to move her.
Since that time, I have come to relish the freedom that not owning an automobile affords, and it's increasingly unlikely that I will be re-joining the ranks of vehicle ownership. Yes, my commute sucks ass and yes, sometimes public transit really pisses me off, but it still would take longer if I drove. And what's more, I'd be even less my normal cheerful self once I arrived. Needless to say, very few things frustrate me more than driving.
I have to drive several times a week now, and thanks to Zipcar I am able to be where I need to be. But I don't like it. It has come to my attention that I am an aggressive driver, which I guess I should have known already from my disdain for all those other assholes on the road who don't know how to drive. A recent study confirms my hypothesis that DC drivers are among the worst in the nation. They're in the bottom five, actually. This is most certainly not news.
Also not news is that Minneapolis drivers are among our nation's best. Of course they are. We all know damn well that nothing of any importance happens in Minnesota, so why should anybody be in a hurry to get where they are going? I'd approach my day at a more leisurely pace, too, if the most pressing item on my agenda was the tractor pull or making snow angels.
You know what else I hate? Parades. Parades suck ass.
Last month, we attended a solo acoustic concert of Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller. It was a loose show; he was performing just because. And so late in the set he debuted a song he claimed never before to have performed live. It was a political song - a protest song, addressed to a "Rumsfeldian" character - written at the behest of a friend who had just completed a book based on his experience in Iraq. It kinda sucked.
To be fair, Rhett said at the outset that when approached by his friend he was skeptical. As he put it, he - Rhett - writes "songs about girls." And how. For a while there, he wrote some of the best - and by "the best" we mean great songs about how girls can fuck you up and guys will take it and come back for more. Because, well... they're girls. [See: "If My Heart Was A Car," "Big Brown Eyes," "Wish The Worst," "Come Around," "Doreen." -Ed.] But lately, since he got married to a model, he's been writing saccharine crap about marriage proposals that inspires arguments.
The 97's have a new record coming out this spring, and we're hoping for the sake of the songs that Rhett and Erica have been arguing lately. Anyway, here's a timely older Murray number. Sorry about the shaky-cam. Just pretend you're watching "Cloverfield."
I take back everything I have ever said about most people from the fly-over states being better off on one of the coasts. I was wrong. I nearly committed a murder this morning. A young couple from Michigan or Illinois or Wisconsin who were obviously in town for a seminar or something insisted on disrupting the blissful tomb-like atmosphere on the Metro with their vapid conversation. They were projecting as if they were in a goddamn Broadway play. The worst wasn't their volume, though, but their sheer inanity. My favorite - if that's the right word, which it isn't exactly - was this particular bon mot:
HER -- So I was at my computer. Knee-deep in, like, my fiftieth spreadsheet of the day. How did people work before computers?
Ugh. Kill me. Or better yet, kill her. The coasts are generally a better place to live, but not for fucking retards who don't know how to behave in a civilized society. They can stay in the fly-overs. We don't want them.
