Today is Festivus,
a holiday for the rest of us. As a blog is a written communication medium, we
can’t share the feast, nor the feats of strength. We can air grievances. Yes, though it may surprise you, I can be one
grievance-airing motherfucker.
1. You’re in a long
supermarket line. The person in front of you has 127 items in the cart. The
cashier rings everything up, packs everything, sets it in the cart, and has to
tell this person how much the total is. Again. Now the person in front of you
starts digging in her purse looking for her wallet as though surprised this
stranger in a smock is asking for money. (Sorry ladies, but we all know the
odds are 95 – 5 this will be a
woman.) Bonus grievance points for those who pay in cash and spend five minutes
counting out the exact change, even if they have to root around in the
aforementioned purse for the last seven pennies. True, such people are always
old, but so am I. In the words of the Nighthawks, I’m not long for this old
world, so please get out of my way.
2. You’re driving
down the expressway at 65 mph and see a car merging onto the road like Meat
Loaf* to get in front of you. (* - Bat out of hell.) You ease off to let them
in and they immediately slow down to 55. I realize this is the DC area and traffic
is not only bad, it’s aggressive, but if you planned to be a religious fanatic
about observing the speed limit, would it have broken your balls to wait your
turn?
3. How college
football determines a national champion. ‘Nuff said.
4. You can’t turn
off Amazon 1-click for Kindle purchases. I like to use reward points for books,
especially books by authors I’m test driving, and I can’t do it.
5. Google Maps
makes me enter my home address every time I want directions. Google knows what
size penis warmer I wear, and it can’t assume that when I want directions I
want them from my house? Even worse, why do I have to get at least seven
characters in before it figures, “Oh, shit! He’s at home and wants to know how
to get somewhere, so suggesting 8248 Veterans Highway Millersville MD as a
starting point doesn’t help him much?”
6. Metal detectors
at Major League Baseball games. There has never been a terrorist act at a
baseball game. (What the Pirates’ front office does only manifests itself on
the field; it doesn’t take place there.) Every security expert I’ve read says a
gathering of people milling about—say standing in a line waiting to go through
a metal detector—is a far greater risk.
7. Gary Bettman. That
rat-faced fuck can’t be gone soon enough.
8. (For The Beloved
Spouse) Misleading headlines that pick up on one small element of the story
when something else is the true point. The headline is the abstract of the
article; it’s what helps you decide whether to read more. If the information
featured in the headline isn’t present in the first paragraph of the story,
either the writer buried the lede or the headline writer is a douche. (This
need not be an either/or proposition.)
9. People who bitch
all summer about Daylight Saving Time. If having hours of sunlight during
normal sleeping hours is that big a deal to you, I hear land is cheap in
Alaska.
10. I saw a poster
the other day advertising a July concert in Nats Park by “James Taylor and his
All-Star Band. Special Guest: Bonnie Raitt (and her band).” I’ve been around
long enough to know “special guest” in this context means “warm-up act.” Bonnie
Raitt warming up for James Taylor, the man who’s put more people to sleep than
heroin? This makes it appear the terrorists aren’t just winning, they’re so far
ahead they feel they can run out the clock.
11. People who
bitch about how cold winter is. It’s winter, people. Get over it or move to
Florida or Arizona or Texas. What’s that? You don’t want to move there because
the summers are too hot? See below.
12. People who
bitch all summer about how hot it is. It’s summer, folks. Get over it or move
to Minnesota or Vermont or Montana. What’s that? You don’t want to move there
because the winters are too cold? See above.
13. People who
bitch about 11 and 12 above. (And you’re often the same people.) This gets old
after a while. Summer is hot. Winter is cold. Deal with it. Try bitching about
how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west every fucking day and how
monotonous it is. Why can’t people on the East Coast have beautiful sunsets
over the ocean? Or the West Coast have similar sunrises? Waaaaa.
14. Tower of Power
is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What’s that? They’re not a rock band?
Tell that to James Brown, Tupac, and Joan Baez. Yet another Cleveland “Mistake
by the Lake.”
15. To get a jump
on next year’s grievances, here’s one for anyone who voted for Trump and doesn’t
like how the next twelvemonth goes: Fuck you. Suffer. And be advised, the
lubricant shipment isn’t expected any time soon, either.