Friday, December 08, 2006

A particularly surly and cranky Friday Five, for which I apologize sincerely

I don't mean to keep harping on the evils of man and the prevalence of jackassery seemingly everywhere, but at the moment, I cannot help it. My mood this week can best be described as "surly, with a side of bitter." It's rare for me to relate very strongly to anything Rory Gilmore says anymore, but at least nine times in the past week I have heard her voice in my head scowling, "I really do hate everyone today!" I don't even fully know what's wrong with me; all I know is I am tired and I am cranky and I am wondering what it is about the supposedly warm and wonderful holiday season that turns presumably otherwise normal people into selfish and inconsiderate creeps.

I have been trying to will myself into a happier mindset; I have even tried "paying it forward" in the hopes that a bit of goodwill might be contagious and end the cycle. This has not worked. I held the door open for an elderly woman, and I was rewarded by someone cutting me off towards a parking spot. I smiled patiently and politely at the woman whose cart was blocking an entire grocery aisle, and when I got home, the bag tore as I lifted the handles, spilling my purchases onto my dirty garage floor. I know that the latter is not an example of any person doing anything to me directly and intentionally, but it does illustrate that my karmic payback is decidedly out of whack.

I very much hope that I can shake this funk and write something more positive soon, but right now seems like a good time to call up a topic I considered stealing from -R- weeks ago already...

Five ways to get on my "Bad" list*
(a.k.a. Five signs that you are not a very good person and I probably just wouldn't like you very much)

  1. Run red lights.**

  2. Don't recycle. (Particularly when the can-recycling bin is a mere half-inch away from the regular garbage bin and you still insist on tossing your empty Diet Coke into the trash. Are you illiterate and cannot read the sign that says "Cans here," or do you just not care at all about the planet? Neither seems a very good or reasonable excuse to me.)

  3. Publish something in a professional mailing or Web site without proofing it or figuring out the not-too-complicated difference between its and it's. "Its" is possessive. "It's" means "it is." Learn it; live it; get it right, OK?

  4. Have bad concert etiquette. (But I've already covered that, I suppose. I should really limit this list to things I haven't already complained about in two of my last four posts.)

  5. Charge me for all three of the items I ordered in the drive-thru, but give me only two. That's right, Taco Bell*** lady, I'm looking at you. Where's my caramel apple empanada? And fill my nachos bag all the way to the top next time, too. Sheesh.

    And finally, just because the headache I've had for damn near a month now is raging yet again, I have to add a sixth item to the list...

  6. Expect me to work at my desk for several weeks while the men you hired for an office remodeling project next door pound hammers and drill drills and run various other loud and persistent power tools mere inches from my head (separated only by a single layer of drywall and support beams). As if I don't already have enough reasons I'd rather stay in bed than come in here, you've given me yet one more. Joy.


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* In case you think I already did this topic, you are mistaken. The last time I wrote a list of things that annoy me, it was things that annoy me for admittedly no good reason. These items, on the other hand, annoy me for perfectly understandable reasons!

** The original version of this list included one or two other traffic offenses as well, but in a list of only five ways to piss me off, it seems wrong to allot more than one to the same topic. Besides that, I already explained
all the ways to piss me off in traffic once before. That list is all still valid.

*** No crap about this from
you two, OK? I'm in no mood, you hear? ;-)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Taco Bell is delicious. I stand defiantly with you on that one!

Anonymous said...

Okay, okay...since you're having a bad day, I'll let it slide. This time.

Feel better soon!

Anonymous said...

I used to say Taco Bell is delicious. And then I learned that most of the TBs in this area are being forced to close down because - get this - their scallions are giving people e.coli. Ummm....yeah. I think I'll stay away from there for a while until they get this all sorted.

Cheer up, chickadee.

Anonymous said...

GG, according to the news, ALL the Taco Bells stopped using their scallions until they figure it out.

Stefanie, nice vent. Somehow your "Things that annoy me" list seemed a little angrier than -R-'s...Way to put emotion in your writing. ;)

Hope your weekend is a good one. :)

lizgwiz said...

I think those are all perfectly valid annoyances. Especially red light runners and non-recyclers, two of my particular personal irritants, as well.

Anonymous said...

Taco Bell doesn't do too well here because we have Taco Time, which is so much better. I did have a thing for TB's Nachos Bel Grande for a while, though. Sometimes you just feel like having melted Velveeta.

The green onion thing is spreading. All restaurants and stores who were supplied by Ready Pak (Redi-Pak? It's something that's misspelled.) are supposed to pull their supplies. This is the same company that had the contaminated spinach recently.

Stefanie said...

Thank you to everyone for your Taco Bell support. :-) I would like to direct a few other Bell nay-sayers your way as well in my defense.

Thanks also for your kind words. I was really, really, really not in a happy mood on Friday, and it helps to hear things like "Feel better" and "Cheer up, chickadee" instead of "Oh, quit your whining already." You guys are great. :-)

Anonymous said...

Lifts hands up and walks away...