People Kill Me
Over the past few weeks, I've gotten increasingly annoyed at stupid people. Actually, change that. Stupid, annoying people. Apparently, it's not enough to be stupid. People have now have to be annoying as well. Maybe it's me, maybe I just have this highly sensitive "people are stupid and annoying" nerve, but whatever it is, it's been driving me absolutely nuts recently.
Take this chick in my class. She is the epitome of what a chick is. She's got this long, blonde hair that looks like she slept through the 90s and didn't realize the hairstyle changed. Ditto for the jeans and flowy, flowery shirts. She looks like she's at least a few cards short of a deck. (And yet, she is going to be a counselor. This should suprise me, but in truth, it doesn't. Most counselors - with the exception of the girl I work with - are like the blinder leading the blind.) Anyway, on the first day, she gave a totally off-the-mark response to a question by talking about how much she loves her boyfriend, even though it kills her to go home and "kiss that face" that is socially beneath her. For the record, we were talking about how children growing up in poverty have fewer opportunities that children who grow up in wealth.
This should be enough to annoy me about this girl, but there's more. Every week, she brings a cup of soup to class and a piece of bread, and if you ever saw her eat it, oh my god, it kills me just to think about it. I wince. It's like she's making a masterpiece, every time she dips her bread into her soup. She eats it like she's eating a gourmet meal. She holds the bread like she might break it in half, it's so delicate, and if that happens, she looks like she would just cry. Her face looks like a bashed-in scared chipmunk's, as she eats this stupid soup and bread combo, and every time she speaks, it's like it takes extreme effort for her voice not to break. She clearly enjoys being one of those thoughtful, non-offensive, PC-spewing, "I cry at Bambi and have bad 90s hair" chicks. She says things like "My heart breaks for children." Oh yeah, lady? My heart breaks every time I have to listen or look at you. Barf.
Then there's The Grinch. There's this girl in the same class who wears pearl earrings every week and a Polo button down shirt and cable knit sweater, and she's always frowning and making awful faces at anyone who says anything she might not totally agree with. I call her the Grinch because she's so negative that she would not only steal Christmas, but she'd climb down the chimney and take it right out of a kid's hands and burn it up right in front of him. I'm not even kidding. She also has the most giant chip on her shoulder that I've ever witnessed. One day, I want to walk up to her with a giant shovel and just knock her right on the shoulder, just to be like, "Phew, that should take care of that," but I'm afraid she'd kill me. She probably would. The thing is, she clearly has issues of her own because she takes offense to anything anyone says. When we were asked to define a family, she got offended that people's definitions might rule out an adopted family. When we talked about incest, she got offended that nobody took into consideration that step-family relationships might not be incest. She's just like a walking rule-follower/hall monitor in Burberry scarves and Ralph Lauren sweaters, and I don't like her at all, but she talks once every thirty seconds or wags her finger in someone's face when she's too busy sucking down Diet Coke to open her trap.
I spend three hours with these people. Oh, and there's this random dude who's a social worker who looks so whipped by his wife that her belt marks are practically there on his face. There's also this touchy-feely woman who makes sure to say hello and goodbye to everyone in class. I feel like we're at a twisted alcohol anonymous meeting when she does this, but we have to go through her ritual because it makes her feel like we're valuing each other. The best part of this came when this one cool guy, a guy about 45, said that she should shut up and quit "bitching" about the fact that teachers don't get paid that much, since they only work 180 days a year fro 7-2, and society will never pay more for this, and we all know this getting into it, so she needs to stop whining about it. This was my favorite moment in the class, ever, because it's right and she looked like she was going to cry. It's not that I enjoy people crying or anything, but if you can get one person to cry, one person to look like she's going to come steal and burn your Christmas tree while your 5-year-old puts up his favorite ornament, AND make Chipmunk Chickie stop mid-bread-scoop, you've accomplished something. Even Belt Marks had a look of pain across his face, perhaps not entirely unfamiliar to him.
In other annoying people news, my sister asked me to write my ideas about people's AIM profiles. Everyone knows my thoughts on expressing love in profiles (lame, don't do it). Everyone knows my thoughts about reading into what people write in their proflies (lamer, don't do it.) But here's a new one. What's up with the trend of putting messages to the dead in your profile? I don't mean to be (too) crass, but really. It's like this new thing, that it's hip to write messages to people who have died. Do these people think that there's some ESP link between instant messages and the dead? Can you talk to the dead or reach them through instant message? Maybe Montel should check it out instead of that whackjob Sylvia Browne. (I, for one, think this lady CAN talk to the dead. Where else would she be getting those magnificent make-up tips?) But here's the real thing: who in their right mind thinks that this is a good way to HONOR the people who died? Do you think someone's grandmother is like, "Oh, I want to be memorialized through an instant message profile"? Of course not. It's a stupid practice.
I do have to note, though, that the person who asked me to write about the stupidity of AIM profiles - my sister, that is - believed for YEARS that sleeping with a huge stuffed bear would save her in case robbers came into the house. Apparently, she believed that if robbers saw the bear, either they would be scared away by him (and if they knew he came from some dingy T.J. Maxx shelf, this tactic might have worked), or they wouldn't see her sleeping right next to him. The second one is fair enough, because my sister is quite small, but at the same time, this theory also requires robbers to think that people give stuffed bears entire beds to themselves. Oh, my god. I was just going to write, "And nobody does that," but you know what? My aunt does that. In fact, my aunt gaves an entire room - two twin beds - to several stuffed animals. Oh my god. Oh my god!
This reminds me that I was telling my friend at lunch yesterday a story about an aunt of mine. She brought her bird to the beach and was traumatized when the bird flew away. My friend of course laughed and then said, "Is this the aunt with all the stuffed animals?"
"No," I sighed.
And, to finish up, a bunch of random complaints about the people I have to deal with (i.e. the world at large):
1. There's this big virus going around campus that involves insane amounts of time devoted to being in the bathroom. This grosses me out, obviously, but what's kind of ridiculous is the flyer that was sent out warning people about the virus. It basically says that if you are cleaning up someone's puke or shit, that you should not put your face near it. Thanks for the advice! Not only did I plan on cleaning up other people's puke or shit, but I also planned on putting my face right next to it as I wiped it all up with my bare hands!
2. Lindsey Jacobellis realllly annoyed me on Friday. Okay, so I"m not totally into the Olympics. I'm not into watching pre-recorded footage when I could just find out what happened by checking online. Also, I have an idea for NBC. Everyone was talking about Johnny Weir. So I wanted to see what this guy was like, so I tried to watch some of the coverage one night. It was a monumental waste, because they showed a thirty-second clip at like 11:45, two hours after I had turned the TV on. Why not post on NBC.com the schedule of events according to what people really want to see? Like on Friday, tell people, "At 8 and 11 PM, you can see Lindsey Jacobellis's run and her interview afterwards." Then, I know when to check in. Instead, they just do general "Women's Snowboarding." You could wrap up the entire Olympic coverage in about 10 minutes if you just showed the winners and the real losers in each event. Bob Costas wouldn't have much to do, but then again, he doesn't have much to do now except sit in front of that cheapo fireplace.
Anyway, back to Lindsey Jacobellis. In case anyone lives under a rock, she's the snowboarder who was so far ahead of everyone in her race that the NBC people pretty much had to choose whether they were going to show the competition or Lindsey, since both wouldn't fit in the same TV screen. Then, she goes and pulls a tough stunt as a little show-off bit, falls, and gets the silver medal. She brushes it off, like, "Well, I messed up the trick, I was having fun, I got caught up in the moment, I just got a silver medal." And as a result, there are two camps: camp one, who says that she's 20 years old, she's the second-best snowboarder in the world, and we are a horrible society for not applauding that achievement and instead nitpicking at the fact that she didn't get the gold; and the second camp, who says that she is an American brat who doesn't value the Olympics.
See, I'm in the third camp. She's a moron! Who in their right mind is like, "Okay, I am going to win a gold medal if I just don't fuck up... what the hell, I think I'll do a really tough trick to try to impress a bunch of people?" Umm, isn't winning the GOLD MEDAL impressive? "Well, doing this little flip turn thing will REALLY get them!" Helllo, moron! Do you think a figure skater, who knows her performance is going to probably win her the gold, decides at the last minute to do a triple (whatever one of the tough jumps is)? Holy Michelle Kwan No! Absolutely not. The only good thing about this is that there's now the phrase "Pulling a Jacobellis," apparently. Well, doesn't that just roll of the tongue. I want to know the first person who uses that seriously in conversation. I'm gonna give that person her gold medal.
How do you think that fool from Switzerland feels? Or wherever the girl was from, who got the gold medal? I mean, didn't she win solely because somebody else totally messed up? I love how people are making all these lessons from it - "This just goes to show you, if you just go at your own pace, you might just win!" "This just goes to show you, showing off gets you nowhere." "This just goes to show you, slow and steady wins the race." "This just goes to show you, don't ever count yourself out!" Riiight. But the truth is, slow and steady doesn't win the race. The turtle didn't win because he kept going at his slow-as-molasses crawl. He won because the hare got pompous and took a nap. The hare was a moron, so the turtle passed him. Lidnsey Jacobellis was a moron, so the next snowboarder caught up. Listen, people, this lady from Switzerland benefitted because Lindsey Jacobellis is a moron. The true lessons they should be teaching the kiddies on Monday are simple. It's pretty much, "Hope you get to compete against a moron." Leave it at that.
3. Johnny Weir-do, who claimed that missing his bus cost him preparation time and comfort and that his aura was all wrong. Just when you thought it was impossible for him to make himself any odder or easier to make fun of, he outdoes himself. If you were Johnny Weir (well, first of all, god help you), would you really make any references to auras? I wouldn't.
4. Yesterday I went to ask if someone had received an application I sent in, and the girl working the desk looked at me like I was a martian. "Uhhh..." she kept saying over and over again. Look, I work in a setting where people call and ask about applications. You can get up and check. You can.
5. Along the same lines, under no circumstances am I ever going to call the Educational Testing Service and request a test score to be re-sent to our office. First, that's not our policy, to shell out extra money for the morons who can't figure out how to send their scores to the right location, and second, I don't care that much about you. You can take "that much" out of the sentence, too, and the meaning will remain.
6. If you are a cab driver, and you are an hour away, say it. Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes whether you are in Boston, Mexico, Latvia, Lebanon, Jamaica, you name it. I'm not falling for this shit anymore.
7. If you live in East Bumfuck, it's your ethical responsibility to give better directions that the street name and shouting randomly over 10,000 party guests. Also, make sure your directions are correct.
8. Singers on American Idol, who think they can sing, but can't, are obnoxious. Is it just me, or is the gimmick of "Let me dress up insane and hope my freak-ness creeps them out enough to let me on the show just for kicks" getting really old? I hope it's getting to everyone, but I suspect otherwise, because the highlights are always of these freaks who are dressed in robot costumes. I think it's waaaay funnier to watch someone who thinks she can sing genuinely try to sing and then be told no thanks. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I don't care.
9. I played Bingo on Wednesday night and I was all excited to play, because the people hired real bingo callers. I was thinking these people were going to be total crackpots, but instead, they were just these plain, boring, monotonous callers. It was like they were reading their tax returns to us. Horrible job. (By the way, I just got queasy thinking about taxes.) The only good thing was that I won. I shouted Bingo pretty loudly too, and I've told everyone I know that I won Bingo. People look at me kind of funny, like, "Why did you play Bingo this week?" but you know what, I don't care. Some people got engaged this week. I played Bingo. So be it.
Take this chick in my class. She is the epitome of what a chick is. She's got this long, blonde hair that looks like she slept through the 90s and didn't realize the hairstyle changed. Ditto for the jeans and flowy, flowery shirts. She looks like she's at least a few cards short of a deck. (And yet, she is going to be a counselor. This should suprise me, but in truth, it doesn't. Most counselors - with the exception of the girl I work with - are like the blinder leading the blind.) Anyway, on the first day, she gave a totally off-the-mark response to a question by talking about how much she loves her boyfriend, even though it kills her to go home and "kiss that face" that is socially beneath her. For the record, we were talking about how children growing up in poverty have fewer opportunities that children who grow up in wealth.
This should be enough to annoy me about this girl, but there's more. Every week, she brings a cup of soup to class and a piece of bread, and if you ever saw her eat it, oh my god, it kills me just to think about it. I wince. It's like she's making a masterpiece, every time she dips her bread into her soup. She eats it like she's eating a gourmet meal. She holds the bread like she might break it in half, it's so delicate, and if that happens, she looks like she would just cry. Her face looks like a bashed-in scared chipmunk's, as she eats this stupid soup and bread combo, and every time she speaks, it's like it takes extreme effort for her voice not to break. She clearly enjoys being one of those thoughtful, non-offensive, PC-spewing, "I cry at Bambi and have bad 90s hair" chicks. She says things like "My heart breaks for children." Oh yeah, lady? My heart breaks every time I have to listen or look at you. Barf.
Then there's The Grinch. There's this girl in the same class who wears pearl earrings every week and a Polo button down shirt and cable knit sweater, and she's always frowning and making awful faces at anyone who says anything she might not totally agree with. I call her the Grinch because she's so negative that she would not only steal Christmas, but she'd climb down the chimney and take it right out of a kid's hands and burn it up right in front of him. I'm not even kidding. She also has the most giant chip on her shoulder that I've ever witnessed. One day, I want to walk up to her with a giant shovel and just knock her right on the shoulder, just to be like, "Phew, that should take care of that," but I'm afraid she'd kill me. She probably would. The thing is, she clearly has issues of her own because she takes offense to anything anyone says. When we were asked to define a family, she got offended that people's definitions might rule out an adopted family. When we talked about incest, she got offended that nobody took into consideration that step-family relationships might not be incest. She's just like a walking rule-follower/hall monitor in Burberry scarves and Ralph Lauren sweaters, and I don't like her at all, but she talks once every thirty seconds or wags her finger in someone's face when she's too busy sucking down Diet Coke to open her trap.
I spend three hours with these people. Oh, and there's this random dude who's a social worker who looks so whipped by his wife that her belt marks are practically there on his face. There's also this touchy-feely woman who makes sure to say hello and goodbye to everyone in class. I feel like we're at a twisted alcohol anonymous meeting when she does this, but we have to go through her ritual because it makes her feel like we're valuing each other. The best part of this came when this one cool guy, a guy about 45, said that she should shut up and quit "bitching" about the fact that teachers don't get paid that much, since they only work 180 days a year fro 7-2, and society will never pay more for this, and we all know this getting into it, so she needs to stop whining about it. This was my favorite moment in the class, ever, because it's right and she looked like she was going to cry. It's not that I enjoy people crying or anything, but if you can get one person to cry, one person to look like she's going to come steal and burn your Christmas tree while your 5-year-old puts up his favorite ornament, AND make Chipmunk Chickie stop mid-bread-scoop, you've accomplished something. Even Belt Marks had a look of pain across his face, perhaps not entirely unfamiliar to him.
In other annoying people news, my sister asked me to write my ideas about people's AIM profiles. Everyone knows my thoughts on expressing love in profiles (lame, don't do it). Everyone knows my thoughts about reading into what people write in their proflies (lamer, don't do it.) But here's a new one. What's up with the trend of putting messages to the dead in your profile? I don't mean to be (too) crass, but really. It's like this new thing, that it's hip to write messages to people who have died. Do these people think that there's some ESP link between instant messages and the dead? Can you talk to the dead or reach them through instant message? Maybe Montel should check it out instead of that whackjob Sylvia Browne. (I, for one, think this lady CAN talk to the dead. Where else would she be getting those magnificent make-up tips?) But here's the real thing: who in their right mind thinks that this is a good way to HONOR the people who died? Do you think someone's grandmother is like, "Oh, I want to be memorialized through an instant message profile"? Of course not. It's a stupid practice.
I do have to note, though, that the person who asked me to write about the stupidity of AIM profiles - my sister, that is - believed for YEARS that sleeping with a huge stuffed bear would save her in case robbers came into the house. Apparently, she believed that if robbers saw the bear, either they would be scared away by him (and if they knew he came from some dingy T.J. Maxx shelf, this tactic might have worked), or they wouldn't see her sleeping right next to him. The second one is fair enough, because my sister is quite small, but at the same time, this theory also requires robbers to think that people give stuffed bears entire beds to themselves. Oh, my god. I was just going to write, "And nobody does that," but you know what? My aunt does that. In fact, my aunt gaves an entire room - two twin beds - to several stuffed animals. Oh my god. Oh my god!
This reminds me that I was telling my friend at lunch yesterday a story about an aunt of mine. She brought her bird to the beach and was traumatized when the bird flew away. My friend of course laughed and then said, "Is this the aunt with all the stuffed animals?"
"No," I sighed.
And, to finish up, a bunch of random complaints about the people I have to deal with (i.e. the world at large):
1. There's this big virus going around campus that involves insane amounts of time devoted to being in the bathroom. This grosses me out, obviously, but what's kind of ridiculous is the flyer that was sent out warning people about the virus. It basically says that if you are cleaning up someone's puke or shit, that you should not put your face near it. Thanks for the advice! Not only did I plan on cleaning up other people's puke or shit, but I also planned on putting my face right next to it as I wiped it all up with my bare hands!
2. Lindsey Jacobellis realllly annoyed me on Friday. Okay, so I"m not totally into the Olympics. I'm not into watching pre-recorded footage when I could just find out what happened by checking online. Also, I have an idea for NBC. Everyone was talking about Johnny Weir. So I wanted to see what this guy was like, so I tried to watch some of the coverage one night. It was a monumental waste, because they showed a thirty-second clip at like 11:45, two hours after I had turned the TV on. Why not post on NBC.com the schedule of events according to what people really want to see? Like on Friday, tell people, "At 8 and 11 PM, you can see Lindsey Jacobellis's run and her interview afterwards." Then, I know when to check in. Instead, they just do general "Women's Snowboarding." You could wrap up the entire Olympic coverage in about 10 minutes if you just showed the winners and the real losers in each event. Bob Costas wouldn't have much to do, but then again, he doesn't have much to do now except sit in front of that cheapo fireplace.
Anyway, back to Lindsey Jacobellis. In case anyone lives under a rock, she's the snowboarder who was so far ahead of everyone in her race that the NBC people pretty much had to choose whether they were going to show the competition or Lindsey, since both wouldn't fit in the same TV screen. Then, she goes and pulls a tough stunt as a little show-off bit, falls, and gets the silver medal. She brushes it off, like, "Well, I messed up the trick, I was having fun, I got caught up in the moment, I just got a silver medal." And as a result, there are two camps: camp one, who says that she's 20 years old, she's the second-best snowboarder in the world, and we are a horrible society for not applauding that achievement and instead nitpicking at the fact that she didn't get the gold; and the second camp, who says that she is an American brat who doesn't value the Olympics.
See, I'm in the third camp. She's a moron! Who in their right mind is like, "Okay, I am going to win a gold medal if I just don't fuck up... what the hell, I think I'll do a really tough trick to try to impress a bunch of people?" Umm, isn't winning the GOLD MEDAL impressive? "Well, doing this little flip turn thing will REALLY get them!" Helllo, moron! Do you think a figure skater, who knows her performance is going to probably win her the gold, decides at the last minute to do a triple (whatever one of the tough jumps is)? Holy Michelle Kwan No! Absolutely not. The only good thing about this is that there's now the phrase "Pulling a Jacobellis," apparently. Well, doesn't that just roll of the tongue. I want to know the first person who uses that seriously in conversation. I'm gonna give that person her gold medal.
How do you think that fool from Switzerland feels? Or wherever the girl was from, who got the gold medal? I mean, didn't she win solely because somebody else totally messed up? I love how people are making all these lessons from it - "This just goes to show you, if you just go at your own pace, you might just win!" "This just goes to show you, showing off gets you nowhere." "This just goes to show you, slow and steady wins the race." "This just goes to show you, don't ever count yourself out!" Riiight. But the truth is, slow and steady doesn't win the race. The turtle didn't win because he kept going at his slow-as-molasses crawl. He won because the hare got pompous and took a nap. The hare was a moron, so the turtle passed him. Lidnsey Jacobellis was a moron, so the next snowboarder caught up. Listen, people, this lady from Switzerland benefitted because Lindsey Jacobellis is a moron. The true lessons they should be teaching the kiddies on Monday are simple. It's pretty much, "Hope you get to compete against a moron." Leave it at that.
3. Johnny Weir-do, who claimed that missing his bus cost him preparation time and comfort and that his aura was all wrong. Just when you thought it was impossible for him to make himself any odder or easier to make fun of, he outdoes himself. If you were Johnny Weir (well, first of all, god help you), would you really make any references to auras? I wouldn't.
4. Yesterday I went to ask if someone had received an application I sent in, and the girl working the desk looked at me like I was a martian. "Uhhh..." she kept saying over and over again. Look, I work in a setting where people call and ask about applications. You can get up and check. You can.
5. Along the same lines, under no circumstances am I ever going to call the Educational Testing Service and request a test score to be re-sent to our office. First, that's not our policy, to shell out extra money for the morons who can't figure out how to send their scores to the right location, and second, I don't care that much about you. You can take "that much" out of the sentence, too, and the meaning will remain.
6. If you are a cab driver, and you are an hour away, say it. Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes whether you are in Boston, Mexico, Latvia, Lebanon, Jamaica, you name it. I'm not falling for this shit anymore.
7. If you live in East Bumfuck, it's your ethical responsibility to give better directions that the street name and shouting randomly over 10,000 party guests. Also, make sure your directions are correct.
8. Singers on American Idol, who think they can sing, but can't, are obnoxious. Is it just me, or is the gimmick of "Let me dress up insane and hope my freak-ness creeps them out enough to let me on the show just for kicks" getting really old? I hope it's getting to everyone, but I suspect otherwise, because the highlights are always of these freaks who are dressed in robot costumes. I think it's waaaay funnier to watch someone who thinks she can sing genuinely try to sing and then be told no thanks. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I don't care.
9. I played Bingo on Wednesday night and I was all excited to play, because the people hired real bingo callers. I was thinking these people were going to be total crackpots, but instead, they were just these plain, boring, monotonous callers. It was like they were reading their tax returns to us. Horrible job. (By the way, I just got queasy thinking about taxes.) The only good thing was that I won. I shouted Bingo pretty loudly too, and I've told everyone I know that I won Bingo. People look at me kind of funny, like, "Why did you play Bingo this week?" but you know what, I don't care. Some people got engaged this week. I played Bingo. So be it.
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