Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

Introduction

I thought I had all of my pet peeves on paper with my first rant. Nope, the things that piss me off keep mounting up. Here is some more stuff I want to bitch about:

Chomping and Spitting

I’ve learned that scratching and adjusting are as integral to major league baseball as mitts and bats. It’s a summer sport played in jockstraps under baggy, wool suits. I have to adjust just thinking about the effects of the summer heat on their anatomies, sweating in their protective metal cups.

What I can’t take however, is all of the chomping and spitting required to play this game. What’s up with these guys? I know it’s a high pressure job where you’re expected to spend nearly half of every game sitting on a bench, not looking bored, and trying your damn-est not to fall asleep. That’s pressure. Is it more tedious than drinking Gatorade on a side-lines bench in a football game or playing with your towel on a courtside folding chair? I think not. My guess is that baseballers developed these unsightly habits back when they all chewed tobacco in their “dugouts” long before TV.

Terry Francona, the manager of the world champion Red Sox is so into chomping and spitting that he can’t even see the game because his wad-swollen jaw is hanging in a swill bucket. Try doing that for nine innings. Maybe this is why the Sox have been so successful; Terry has never seen a game. Randy Johnson can’t pitch without chomping a wad of bubblegum slightly smaller than a breadbox. Is it a coincidence that his wad is always on the side of his pitching arm?

We need to get off of this steroids and growth hormone witch-hunt and really get after the most disgusting aspects to major league baseball, masticating¹ large wads of things and constantly expectorating² during games.

¹ look it up
² look it up

Crappy Things

Things piss me off … not people, things. The pickle jar I can’t open, the cable that won’t attach to the TV, the price tag that won’t come off of my new purchase, the packaged goods that are open-proof and hundreds of other things that don’t work, break, won’t fit together, or are just poorly designed.

Why do we put up with these poor designs and shabby workmanship? Boycott every manufacturer that produces this junk. I’ve sworn off: Tupperware, things that hang on pegs incased in indestructible plastic at the hardware store, new DVDs and CDs, and everything from Wal-Mart.

Plastic Bags

I can remember when our weekly grocery purchases were stacked neatly in paper bags with the cans and heavy stuff on the bottom. The dairy and meat were usually packaged separately. It took a half of dozen bags a week to feed a family of four. Now our purchases are stuffed randomly into these wimpy plastic bags. Never mind, the impossible-to-open transparent plastic bags we’ve been fighting with for years in the produce section; I’m talking white bags with cute little cut-your-circulation-off handles. These damn things do nothing for protecting your new purchases. And, who can forget that the paper bags of old were packed by specialists, fourteen year old bagboys with zits, bad haircuts, and clip on bow ties and not by the cashier.

The only real value of these damn plastic bags is that they add handles to otherwise handle-less things. If you’ve ever wanted to buy a head of lettuce with its own handle, these bags are for you. A loaf of bread packed in its own plastic bag and shoved into a second take-home bag is less protected from your can of tomatoes than if you carried them home under your arms bag free.

The after life of these worthless plastic bags is eternity. They all seem blow in from somewhere else and hang up on everything over two inches tall. Our roadsides are covered with these indestructible bags flapping in the wind. America looks like it is downwind from a gigantic land fill.

Why do we put up with this?

Roadside Garbage Dumps

Who, in today’s world, throws their trash out of their car windows? Not you. Someone, and I’d guess a lot of someones, is. I know you’re out there because the county roads running by my house are littered with fast-food containers, beer bottles, and the ubiquitous Wal-Mart plastic shopping bags.

A new home was just built across the street and down wind from ours. I expected to find building material scraps in my yard after each wind storm. We got a bit of that, but what overwhelmed us were the food wrappers of the building crews. These guys eat their lunches and snacks within twenty feet or so of a dumpster and a construction waste pile. I know construction work is hard but do you think these guys could walk an extra six steps to properly stash the trash from their McDonald’s lunch.

And, where was I when we decided not to use the ash-trays in our cars anymore. It’s really great that we’ve designated our roadways as one big national ash-tray.

There seems to be an economic factor to littering; the poorer the neighborhood the deeper the trash. There could also be an ethnic or nationality element to this littering problem. I’m told it’s a south-of-the-border thing.

I purpose that we tack on a class in proper trash disposal to our ESL classes and add something about this to our naturalization exam.

Parking

How can something as simple as parking a car piss me off? My parking doesn’t upset me, yours does. First, the handicap slots should be labeled ‘fat and lazy’ parking. Sure, some legitimately handicapped people use these spaces, but I’ll bet if you did an analysis you’d find less than one in ten of the people parking here are really handicapped. The rest are just fat and lazy.

The second class of parker that pisses me off is the yoyo that can’t seem to get his, or more often than not her, car between the painted lines. They just angle in somehow and think nothing of taking two spaces. We ought to tow these cars away and let these inconsiderate bastards walk home.

How about the dead-beat who spends forty five minutes circling the lot to find the absolutely closest space so that they won’t have to walk an extra a block or so? Have you noticed that these folks are the ones that could use this little bit of exercise the most.

Men, (women don’t seem to do this much), who have to back into parking spaces for no other reason than to tell everyone that their dicks are too small really bug me. These “must-back-in” assholes are perverts of the worst kind.

Little things that piss me off

Talking to a Technical Support person in India

Ball point pens that skip and splotch

Telemarketers of all kinds

Endlessly looking for something at Home Depot

Public rest rooms

Know-nothing, air-head sales clerks

Taco Bell tacos that drip grease into your lap

Alarm clocks

Fat people in electric shopping carts

Warm beer

TV evangelists, preachers and anyone calling themselves a Charismatic

All other bible thumpers, just because

Pretentious college-kid waiters

Shopping at chick stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Hallmark

Junk mail, especially the supermarket ads

Chilled red wine

People too lazy to return their shopping carts

Stopped up toilets

Hollywood assholes with political opinions

Shredded lettuce on hamburgers

Want-a-be snobs and other pretentious pricks

Shopping for greeting cards with my wife

Empty barbecue propane tanks

Braggers, boasters and other exaggerators

Paying $6 for a mini bottle of booze on an airplane

Ketchup in pour proof bottles

Etc

©2007 by Bob Rockwell