Miss Manners on Crack

In today's installment of "The Stupid Things People Do That Bug the Crap Out of Me" we're going to discuss two egregious breaches of etiquette that have been committed against me in the past few days: the Pop-In, and People asking Questions about Your Reproductive Status that are None of Their God Damn Business.

First, the Pop-In. If you are not a fan of Seinfeld (and if not, what is wrong with you? That is one of the best shows ever!) you may not have heard of it, but a Pop-In is when someone shows up at your house unannounced and uninvited. Like what my mother-in-law did on Friday night. Now, the m-i-l and I aren't on the best of terms as it is, but I put up with her crap because it gets me a free babysitter sometimes. But she is definitely not my favorite person. And this incident does nothing to endear her to me.

So Friday night, me and my kid are sitting around in our pj's, relaxing. She was playing, I was watching tv. Not just any tv, either, but the second part of the 2 part season finale of Monk, one of my favorite shows. Monk had faked his own death to beat a murder charge, and everyone was going crazy trying to figure out what was happening, and I was really into it...and then my phone rang. Now, thanks to the wonderful invention of caller i.d., I saw it was the m-i-l, and decided not to answer, knowing I could call her back later. I hit "ignore" and went back to my show, thinking that was the end of it. Ha! How stupid of me! Two minutes later, there's a knock on my front door...right in the middle of my show! And what to my wondering eyes should appear but that stupid woman! I was not amused, to put it mildly.

But I let her in, against my will, to see what she wanted. Big mistake. All she wanted was to give my daughter a Valentine's Day present, which had been sitting at her house for 2 weeks, so there's no reason she couldn't have waited until I answered the damn phone to bring it over. But she doesn't have the sense to see that. The woman is a psychologist, for god's sake. You would think she would understand human nature, such as the desire not to be disturbed by people pounding on your door without warning. And yet she has absolutely no common sense. So anyways, she came in and started wanting to chat, but I flatly ignored her until the commercial, at which point I started edging her towards the door. Totally ruined my Monk-watching experience. No wonder I can't stand her. When she's old, I'm going to make my husband put her in a nursing home.

Now, for the second item. This is another one of my "I really hate sitting by the elevator" stories, but I can't help it. I really do hate sitting by the elevator, because it gives all sorts of stupid people an excuse to say really stupid things to me! Like today, when a woman with whom I am just barely acquainted (enough to say hi when we pass in the hallway, but definitely not enough to stop to talk) came up to the elevator, hit the button, said hi and then just blurted out "So when are you going to have a baby?" Like it's any of her business! I'm sorry, but my reproductive plans are not waiting-for-the-elevator talk! Especially not with people I barely know. If we know each other well enough to discuss the details of our sex lives, then you can ask me questions about when I want to have another child. Just a rule of thumb for those of you who were wondering what the proper etiquette in that situation is.

They're Real and They're Spectacular...but Please Don't Touch Them

Have I mentioned before how much I dislike the security guards at my work? They are so incredibly worthless. A bunch of old men and tiny women. Now, I am very proud of being a woman myself, and never think of myself as less than any male, but I understand that if some 250 pound man is rampaging, I am not going to be able to do a damn thing to stop it, especially without a weapon. But these tiny little women, 5 feet tall, are charged with protecting us. Ha! And a bunch of old, fat men, with beer bellies and bald spots. They make me feel oh so safe!

Except, of course, when they are being annoying. Like when they are demanding to see my cell phone, to make sure it doesn't have a camera on it. Oh my god, not a camera phone...eeek! Or, even though I have been working here for 7 freaking years, they still demand to see my badge, to verify that I am an employee and am allowed to walk through the employee entrance. Because I'm a shape-shifter and my face changes on a daily basis! Or when one very tall guard, instead of moving out of the way so that people could walk through, just held his arm up instead, and hadn't bathed for several weeks, or ever washed his uniform...that was disgusting. Literally made my eyes water from the stench.

Or this morning, when one of the guards touched my tit.

Of course, I suppose she probably didn't mean to. I had beeped, like I always do when I walk through the metal detector, and she was waving her little wand over me, trying to determine what sort of dangerous thing I had hidden in my bra (maybe it's the tiny, bra-mounted submachine gun that I carry for personal protection! Or my launchable steel-plated nipple knives, accurate up to 30 feet! Or maybe just an underwire) and her hand brushed my boob (on the inside slope, right above the nipple, in case you were wondering...pervert).

Man, I feel so violated.

I wonder if she wants my phone number.

Liars and Lunch

Man, weathermen (or would that be "weatherpeople"? Or I guess I could say "meteorologist," but that sounds like way too fancy a title for an idiot that stands in front of a green screen and waves his arms like a ninny.) are such liars. Even though it was 60 degrees yesterday afternoon, they promised us snow last night. But did they deliver? Of course not. There was not a drop of precipitation during the night. Bunch of damn lying bastards!

Not that it matters anyway, I guess. Even if it snowed, I would still have had to come to work. The Head Honcho of monkey-work central would demand it. Hell, we could have a raging blizzard, 2 feet of snow, and the HH would probably get a snow mobile and drive to every employee's house to pick them up, just to make sure they could get to work. And then we would be snowed in and end up having to eat our co-workers for sustenance. Thank goodness lots of them look like whales...they will provide a great deal of nutrition for the rest of us.

Speaking of the whales, there is a lunch sale going on in our breakroom right now, which is right next to where I sit. Aren't I lucky, getting to sit right next to the elevator and the breakroom, the most heavily trafficked walkway in the building, when I can't stand to talk to anybody? Ugh. Anyways. So there's a whole herd of people (lots of whom resemble whales, or at least hippos) walking around my desk, carrying their plates full of food back to their desks, gathering by the elevator and talking at the top of their voices. At least this food doesn't stink. Sometimes they have things like chopped onions in there, stuff that just makes my eyes water. Disgusting. Or it's also great when someone sets the toaster oven (which, of course, I also sit next to) on fire. Now that's a great smell!

Man, I'm glad it's finally Friday. I get to go home and hope that I will never have to leave my house again. That would be heavenly.

Shut Up

I really despise small talk. My feeling is, if you don't have something important and substantial to say, then why are you opening your mouth? There isn't enough clean oxygen left to support the planet...we don't need you using it up with your stupid ramblings. And yet there are many situations where people seem to be uncomfortable if they can't think of something to say. And then there are people who just love to talk but don't really have anything to say that anyone wants to listen to.

There are a great many people at my work who have that problem. They always want to talk when they are waiting for the elevator, but they very rarely have anything to say that I find the least bit interesting. A "Hi" or "How are you?" would be fine. But instead, I have to listen to comments like: "Cheer up! You look grumpy!" or (on a Friday) "So it's finally Friday!" Like I don't know what day of the week it is.

But the absolute worst of the bunch are the people who ask questions to which the answers are glaringly obvious. For instance, if I have just cut and/or dyed my hair, I am treated to "Oh, did you cut/dye your hair?" Or when they look at pictures of my daughter and say "Wow, she's growing!" Like that's a shocker! What else do children do, shrink? Or another favorite "Wow, it's raining/snowing!" Because I can't see through glass well enough to see the weather myself.

Man, people are stupid.

Another thing that bugs me (and this has absolutely nothing to do with small talk, but it's been bugging me lately, so I have to add it to my rant) is women wearing stupid boots, especially with dresses. Now, boots are great, worn properly. But properly does not include wearing cowboy boots with sundresses, or high-waters with zip up ankle boots, or big black platform stripper boots to work. Get a grip, people! Go buy some nice boots with a small heel, and wear them with pants or a skirt that is actually long enough. Otherwise, you just look like a freak.

Sorry, I don't really have a lot of coherent thoughts right now. It's almost time to go home from work, and I can't concentrate on my monkey work anymore, so I am just typing and frowning at the screen so that I look busy. Because if I look busy, people are less likely to talk to me. Like George Costanza said, if you frown a lot, people think you are very busy, and that keeps people from talking to me. And anything that keeps people from talking to me (and I am not ruling out global nuclear war in this sentence) can only be a plus.

Driver's Ed Apparently Didn't Work

Pop quiz! Imagine the following scenario: You are in your car, on a small side road that meets a large main street on the diagonal. Right next to you, on both sides of the road, is a big red and white sign that says "YIELD." On the large street, in the lane that you will drive into when you hit the gas pedal, there is a car going around 50 mph. What do you do next? A) Stay where you are until the car has passed, like the yield sign says, and take the opportunity to pull out your cell phone and start texting? B) Pull into the street, but go wide so that you are not in the same lane as the moving car? Or C) Pull out, into the lane in front of the moving car, and then immediately hit your brake so that you can make a right hand turn, almost causing the car behind you (the one going 50 mph) to ram into you?

If you picked A or B, congratulations, you may be a decent driver. If you picked C, I'm sorry, but you are going to die as soon as I get my hands on an automatic rifle. I absolutely hate people who cannot drive. Every day, when I am on the road, I see some great display of stupidity that makes me fantasize about having a rocket launcher mounted on top of my car, so that I can blow these people up and spare the world from having to deal with them. And at my job, I see people's traffic tickets all the time; tickets for having 6 kids in the back of a sedan, all with no seat belt; for driving the wrong way on the freeway; for being so drunk that they crash into a parked car...twice! I actually see this stuff. And these people are actually allowed to walk around free, to use our precious natural resources, to reproduce? I am so killing them all when I take over the world.

In the meantime, here are some more indications that you deserve to die. Do you:

• Change lanes without using your turn signal?
• Speed in a dangerous manner, tailgating the people you can't pass until they are just so desperate to get away from you that they change lanes or swerve onto the shoulder?
• Run red lights/stop signs/yield signs?
• Listen to really loud, bad music, the kind that makes other people's hearts feel like they are going to explode in their chests?
• Talk/text on your cell phone and not pay attention to driving?
• Drive reeeeeeeeeally slow in the fast lane, making the other drivers insane with frustration, especially if they are unable to pass you?
• Drive a semi truck?
• Have one of those bumper stickers that says something like "Jesus loves me" and then drive like a total dick? If Jesus had ever driven, I'm sure he would have been a perfect driver, so if you want to live as a christian, you really should do better.
• Weave your motorcycle between the cars on the road, as if you were invisibile, or invulnerable? That's one reason everybody hates motorcyclists, because they mostly drive like dicks. When I see one doing that, I am always tempted to open my car door, or just swerve a little and hit him.
• Pass people on the shoulder of the freeway if there is no other way to get around them and they are not driving fast enough for you?

I'm sure more examples of bad drivers that should die will occur to me later, when I am driving home, getting cut off by scooters going 80 mph and being tailgated by giant semis that could just roll right over me if I hit the brakes. I just love driving!

Why do people insist on talking to me?

There is entirely too much human interaction in the world. If we lived in some Utopian society, where everyone was smart and pleasant and clean, that would be fine, but since we live in the real world, it's a major problem, at least for me, since I can't stand at least 90% of the people on this planet (and the other 10% can be on shaky ground sometimes). I am reminded of this every time I venture out of my house, and sometimes even when I don't, like when the Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking. The last time they came by, I answered the door in my nightgown (since it was only like 11 a.m., those bastards) and when they started in on their pitch about "freedom from fear" or some other such crap, I told them I was not interested in religion and slammed the door in their faces. (I have also used the "Sorry, I'm a satanist/witch/pagan" excuse on people intent on saving my soul. For some reason, those seem to work great. Guess they aren't that concerned about saving me from everlasting damnation.) Ahh, good times.

So I am seriously opposed to unnecessary interaction with strangers. And I really can't stand when people force their cheerfulness and/or loneliness on me by talking to me in public. This is a list of places where I do not want to be talked to:

• At the store. The only acceptable stranger conversation at the store is a perfunctory "excuse me" as I try to move around some idiot who has the whole aisle blocked, or is letting their stupid kid roller skate in the store. I hate those damn kids with their damn roller shoes. I want to trip them. And I really hate people who try to talk to me in line. If I don't already know you, I don't want to talk to you.
• In a public bathroom. Even friends and acquaintances should shut up there. I hate listening to someone talk while I am trying to pee. Talking while washing hands is okay, though.
• On public transportation. I don't even take public transportation, but if I did, I would not want someone disturbing my ride with their inane natterings. Riding the bus would be miserable enough, without that.
• Panhandlers. I know this is not quite the same category, but I hate panhandlers, especially the ones that approach you in dark parking lots, asking for spare change. I always feel like throwing rotten eggs at them.

There are also a lot of specific people that I don't like to be around, because they will inevitably talk to me. These include the man who sells hot dogs outside my work (he always wants to say hi, but he's creepy and I don't want to talk to him) the security guards inside my work (they are just annoying, and some of the men try to stare at my tits, so I don't really feel like saying good morning to them) and the greeters at Walmart. Honestly, why do I need some old man saying hi to me when I walk into a store? And this, this takes the cake. I sit right next to the elevator at work. So, all day, people are standing by my desk, waiting for the elevator. And what do most of them do (aside from pushing the elevator button multiple times, as if that will make it come any faster)? That's right...they talk to me! As if I wanted to listen to their stupid stories and random cortical firings! One old man (this is totally true, I swear) spent at least 5 minutes telling me about how in Hawaii, people are so into recycling aluminum, that they will steal the lamp posts to recycle them for money. Do I really need that? Especially when I am trying to finish my monkey work! I really need to put a sign up that says "Do not talk to bitch." Wonder if that would help. Probably not. I wish I could build a wall over my cubicle, so that I could not see the elevator. My life would be a whole lot more peaceful then. I cannot wait until I can kill a large percentage of the world population.

Always low prices. Always robots!

so i ordered a tv off of walmart.com for my daughter for christmas. it's a 13 inch, disney princess tv, in a pink case with a little crown on top. disgusting, i know. but my kid is incredibly spoiled and incredibly girly, and she wanted santa to bring her a tv, so that's what santa is getting her. anyways, so i ordered it off of walmart.com the day after thanksgiving. it was supposed to arrive at my local walmart store within 10 business days, and i would get an email when it got there. 3 weeks went by before i got an email from them...and then, the email that i did get, didn't say that my tv had arrived. it said, basically, we've shipped your tv, but we don't know where it is, or when it will arrive, sorry for any inconvenience! like that's going to fly on christmas morning, when santa didn't bring anything and i have a disappointed 5 year old. so naturally, i called the 1-800 number listed in the email, to see if anyone could help me. and what did i get? machines. that's right, only machines. i went through every single menu option on that number, and all i got was a machine. and it wasn't one of those were you just hit buttons. no, this one wanted to talk to you, and wanted you to talk back! i hate those things! "i'm sorry, i didn't understand that." of course you didn't understand it...you're a fucking recording! argh! so then, i email walmart to complain about 1, not having my tv and 2, not being able to talk to a person at their so-called customer service line. and what happens next? i get a reply...also written by a machine! a stupid form letter, thanking me for my email and directing me to walmart.com if i have any questions!!! argh!!! i was set to tear my hair out when i got that email. but now, after reflecting a bit, i realize what's going on. walmart isn't in it for the stores. it's building a giant robot army, deep in whatever rural area its headquarters is, in a bid to take over the world. i can completely understand that, of course. but i at least will have the decency to use people as my slaves, not soulless machines! i can see it now...giant marauding robots, storming across the cities of america, looking like something out of the transformers movie, except they will have big yellow smiley faces on their heads. and they will smile and smile as they stomp your house to dust and then kidnap you and force you to spend all of your money at walmart before they feed you to their energy generator, to make power for the robots to live off of. it's progress! yay.

but on the plus side, the tv did finally arrive. so now we can go ahead and have christmas. i like christmas (when it's actually december and not october). spoiling my kid is fun. and so it having two days off work. it's great to be a state employee! i love getting presents, of course. since my husband is incapable of buying anything for me, i mostly buy my own presents and then he just wraps them. i bought myself a shirt that has a picture of captain kirk and says "i slept with kirk...but who hasn't?" it's great! can't wait to wear it!

man, i am getting sleepy. it's only 9 pm, but i think it is time for bed already. damn winter, makes me tired and lazy. so i am off for now. i will leave you with a quote that i was thinking about today, one which has made quite a difference in my life, by my favorite philosopher, dave barry. "the books all say that barracuda very rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read..."

thanksmooning

so i'm sitting at work right now, pondering how i really hate christmas carols. okay, not carols so much, as just carols when it's not even christmas, not even freaking december yet! and yet people are blasting them right and left. it's just like at the store. i went to walmart two days after halloween, and there was already a giant christmas tree at the entrance. it's like thansgiving is just a suburb of christmastown, and we breeze through it at 75 mph, not even pausing to look around for the turkeys before we run them over and eat them.
speaking of thanksgiving, i had just a great one. first, lunch with my husband, kid, and my aunts, who are quite frankly the only even remotely sane blood relatives that i have. then, after my husband went to work, i went to my parents' house. now there's a treat! take two psychotically republican catholics, mix in two teenage boys, and you get: snippy insults to both clinton and obama, and a mooning display! at least the mooning was amusing.
my family is insane. but at least they aren't as bad as my in-laws. now there's a real nuthouse. my family only argues with me about politics because they know i don't agree with them. my in-laws all vote the same way, and yet they still manage to find things to fight about! and they had hawaiian chicken for thanksgiving dinner. i would rather go visit the psycho-mooners than deal with that crap.
on black friday, i was supposed to go shopping at 4:30 a.m., but my shopping partner sent me a text message that she didn't feel good. frankly, i think she was lying. she probably just stayed up late the night before having sex. since it was thanksgiving sex, it probably included phrases like "let me stuff you!" and "how about some sweet potatoes?" and other such drivel. disgusting. so i went back to bed.
i did end up going shopping later that day. i even finished all of my christmas shopping, even for really annoying-to-shop-for people, like my great-uncle-in-law. honestly, what do you buy an 80+ year old man with no known interests? i got him a robe.
while i was out, i had a wonderful idea. see, it was snowing, and it almost never snows, so when it does, everybody drives more like an idiot than normal, which is really saying something. (i once spoke to a woman who insisted that stop signs are "suggestions." which should tell you something about the quality of drivers here.) so i was sitting at a stop light, watching all the idiots run the red light, and i had my great idea. instead of red light cameras, which they have now, i think we should have red light tire spikes. the light turns red and bam! up pop spikes, so any light runners get their tired punctured and everyone beats them to death for blocking the intersection. this plan is definitely getting implemented when i take over the world.

boredom and a new tattoo

so i really have nothing important to say tonight. i was watching tv, but hannah montana (which is a great tv show, by the way) is over now, and i am bored, so i thought i would check in with my little blog, see if it had anything interesting to say. it didn't, though. stupid blog, not being able to talk.
i had thought of a really clever post yesterday, but i didn't write it down; i got too caught up with beating the slaves that i keep in my backyard for not properly caring for my opium poppies. (this is a joke, of course. i don't grow poppies in my backyard. just marijuana. and crab grass.) and now, of course, i can't remember what it was. so i guess it's time for incoherent ramblings, instead.
i got a new tattoo over the weekend, behind my ear. the tattoo artist advised that, so as not to damage it with shampoo, i not wash my hair until the tattoo heals. that's just disgusting. i am obviously not following that advise, but it seems to be healing just fine anyway. this brings my total number of tattoos to six. and i love showing them off at work, because they shock the people that think i am a quiet, mousy person. i am quiet, but that's just because i hate everyone, so i have nothing to say to them. nothing that won't get me in trouble at work, anyway.
i couldn't sleep last night for the longest time. i made the double mistake of watching a show on discovery channel about ghosts (of which i am deathly afraid) and then reading an article about ted bundy on wikipedia before bedtime. so i was laying in bed, jumping at every little noise, convinced that a ghostly serial killer was going to appear before me at any moment, until after midnight. needless to say, i was not my best at work today. not that it mattered. i could go to work dead, and as long as i stayed in my chair all day (which would be really easy, if i were dead) no one would say anything. some of the people there are so stupid that i am amazed they can walk upright, yet they manage to keep their jobs. ahh, the beauty of being employed by the government!
i ordered some shirts off of www.tshirthell.com (great site, you should check it out. but not with your mom, or anyone else who might be offended, in the room.) last week, and they arrived in the mail today. i got a wonderful shirt that i can't wait to wear, it says "why kill them with kindness when you can use an axe?" that is the kind of philosophy that i can really get behind.
and on that note, i will leave you, my little flying monkeys. i just noticed that mega disasters is coming on the history channel in a few minutes! yay! i just love to watch disasters. (and yes, my life is that boring that i have nothing better to do that watch tv. but on the bright side, at least i am not watching a shot at love with tila tequila, which is also on in a few minutes. or the 700 club. if i were interested in watching either of those, i would definitely have to slit my wrists.)

world domination will be so much fun!

hello to all my non-existent fans! today i just wanted to introduce myself--i am panda loca, the future empress of the world (in case you don't speak spanish, "panda loca" means "panda crazy." i know this because, even thought i am a white girl, i live in new mexico, so i am very multi-cultural, i.e. i know my numbers and colors and a few other somewhat useful words in spanish. but not any curse words. cursing is more fun in english, anyway).
i wanted to share some of my world domination plan. yes, like many others before me--alexander the great, genghis khan, adolf hitler, dr. drakken--i have a dream of ruling the world, becoming lord (or would that be "lady?" language is so strange that way. i could be "master" of all i see, i guess, but if i said "mistress" that just sounds kinky) of all i see. except for the whole genocide thing, of course. i love everyone!
okay, that's a lie. i don't love everyone. i love everyone except stupid people. when i take over the world, stupidity will definitetly be punishable by death, the more painful the better. i am installing a shark tank in my capitol building, to throw the really really stupid people into. like this woman. the other day i was driving to lunch. now, like most people, i only have an hour for lunch, so i was in something of a hurry so i wouldn't be late. ahead of my car, maybe 50 feet away, a woman decided that, with a car barreling down at her at 40 mph, it would be a good time to stroll across the street. so what did i do? did i slow down and let her finish crossing in peace? of course not! i revved my engine, and even though my car is a grannymobile (huge, unparkable, leather everywhere; it even has the words "florida edition" on the side--how granny is that?) it has a nice loud v8 engine. when that woman heard the engine rev, she picked up her (ugly) skirt and bolted to the other side of the street. it was great!
so yes, this blog will mostlly be rants about stupid people doing stupid things that i wish were illegal so that they could be thrown in jail and i wouldn't have to watch/listen to them anymore. from time to time, i may also talk about things that i actually like, or that make me happy, but i wouldn't hold my breath, if i were you.