Festivus

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.