The Lowlight of my Day

I was never permitted to go to the big peoples’ doctor. I would always be sitting there, in a room full of little snot-nosed children whining to their mothers, waiting for my overly friendly pediatrician to call me in so that he could tell me how bad my acne was getting.

So today, I walked in because I had to get some paperwork filled out before I could go to college. I was the only person who could grow facial hair in the entire room. None of the secretaries could do it (I hope), none of the mothers who had to take the day off from work to bring their little bundles of joy in for medical care could do it (I hope), and none of the kids in the waiting room could do it, either.

So, while I was waiting for my appointment to get scheduled, I took a seat to check out the reading material. And you know what I hate?

Every doctor’s office in the known universe has a copy of Highlights Magazine. And every copy of Highlights Magazine has that sweet hidden picture puzzle where you have to find a baseball, canoe, and umbrella in a seemingly normal landscape. But the thing that gets me is that in every copy of this magazine in every doctor’s office across America, some stupid kid went and found them all for you. There you are, sitting there ready to play paper detective, and that fat kid with the mumps went and stole your glory.

Go spit, fat kid with the mumps. I’m sick of you.

Boxing Day is only 9 months away

If you don’t know Stefanie, she’s a family friend who stayed at my house two summers ago and sporadically since. Now, she’s living with us quasi permanently, because she has always wanted to live in Florida.

The other day, she got a couple of desktop calendars for my computer table. They’re the kind where you have to rip off a page for each day to present a new fact or trivia question. In this case, they’re Buccaneers and Major League Baseball themes.

But on to my gripe session. I never really understood these types of calendars: they sit there, reflecting 1/365 of the year while leaving you largely unenlightened about the days and weeks surrounding the single day that sits there and stares you in the face. What if it’s Boxing Day in Canada next Tuesday? How can I even begin to prepare my annual Boxing Day party if I don’t know about it until next Tuesday when I finally remember to rip off the sheets of paper that have been left untouched for a week because I forgot to bother with the whole progression of time? This, my friends, is a veritable mystery.

By the way, you’re all invited to my annual Boxing Day gala on December 26. Tell your friends and BYOB.

Annual Defense Mechanism

Every year at this time, I write a detailed manifesto about how Valentine’s Day is of the Devil (see 2004 and 2005). And in thinking this week about what new insights I could add to the already viscous soup of lament that I serve up annually, I could come up with nothing except for the thought that roses are stupid.

You buy them. They sit there. They die. They sit there. You throw them out. You have an empty vase and an empty wallet. Your lover will probably leave you at some point within the next year. You have an empty vase, an empty wallet, and an empty heart. You are back at square one.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

Straighten up and fly right

Yesterday at lunch, I had a revelation that I decided to share with all of my classmates as they entered and exited through the left side of the double doors leading into the cafeteria. I yelled at the top of my pathetic little lungs at them, but I don’t think they noticed. So, I’ll fume about it here, which is the only place many people pay attention to my unceasing quips and clever insight.

Okay, people. It’s not hard. You drive on the right side. At a four way stop, the car to the right goes first. 90 percent of you are right-handed (or so says “Wikipedia”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-handed). Your computer mouse is a right-handed device. The right side has become so well embedded into the framework of our society that it is the default direction for most common actions. Therefore, wouldn’t it make a boat load of sense to use the right side of double doors whenever you’re in a situation wherein you’ve got to make passage into a building?

Honestly, there is nothing that makes people look more stupid than a giant traffic jam around the entrance to a building that festers for a few minutes before someone realizes that the right door hasn’t been opened yet. It’s like a bunch of sheep being herded into the slaughterhouse with a mass of cattle making a break for it through the same door at the same time.

Here’s a novel thought. Why doesn’t everybody just follow primordial traffic laws when they’re walking? You know: walk on the right side, don’t speed, don’t go so slow that the people who have places to be pummel you, and, for the love of God, go through double doors on the right side.

Tick/Tock

Before I begin, I would like to make it clear that I love my mother very much. She reads my writing, so I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea about anything I post online.

That being said, the woman has the most skewed concept of time in the world. All of the clocks in our house (with the exception of the ones in my bedroom) are set to be approximately five minutes ahead of the actual time. Her reasoning is understandable: she never wants to be late.

Therefore, one would assume that it is easy to be able to know the correct time while looking at any clock in my house. All you would really have to do is subtract five minutes from the time which is upon the clock,. However, like many of life’s false promises, this protocol is full of flaws due to the fact that absolutely none of the clocks in the Peterson household are set to the same time.

Take, for example, a sample reading of a few of the house’s timepieces:
* The clock on the wall in the dining room (that is taped together with scotch tape because I accidentally made it fall one time) reads 10:48.
* There lies a small desktop clock atop the wine rack in the dining room that reads 10:31.
* In the living room, there’s a clock that chimes every 15 minutes. It reads 10:46.
* On the wall in the living room, there is a nifty cuckoo clock that reads 10:47.
* There also sits a cheap grandfather clock in the dining room that my brother got for my mother for her birthday or something a few years ago. It reads 3:50, but I’m pretty sure the reason for that inaccuracy can be attributed to a lack of consistent winding. Anyhow, it still contributes to the point at hand.
* The actual time, according to “The Man”:http://www.time.gov/, is 10:43.

The success of my mother’s goal of punctuality, therefore, is wholly dependent on which room you’re in before you leave. Me? I’ll just sit at my computer and be five minutes late to every place I go.

Cheesed off

When I was a little kid, I was always wary of eating salad. If it was green and was not covered with melted cheddar cheese, there was never usually a good chance that such an item would come within a foot of my mouth.

In my old age, though, I’ve matured a little bit. If I am eating at a restaurant and my dinner comes with a salad, I can manage to swallow it while washing it down with a nice vinaigrette.

However, I cannot bring myself to eat garden salads. My ideal salad is basically a bowl of lettuce with croûtons and a sufficiently fattening dressing. I have nothing against garden salads in regards to their content except for one item.

When the chef takes those little strips of carrots and showers my salad with them, my basic instinct (or wishful thinking, whichever you prefer) says, “Oooh! Cheese!”

Oh no, my friends. It’s just carrot. Yuck.

A Thousand Words

I just got back from getting my senior portrait taken at the local photography studio. It took about 50 minutes, 45 of which consisted of standing in the waiting room and reading car magazines.

During my wait, I got to listen to the conversations of multiple whining menopausal mothers who thought that the process was taking far too long. Granted, the sitting took a good while, but on the post card they received in the mail months ago that remained ignored until presently, it warns of a wait of about an hour.

Did they realize that Bryn-Alan Photography is in charge of each and every senior’s portrait every year? And did they realize that the photographers can only work in one studio because that is all they have? Probably not, as they are not necessarily in positions to be privy to that knowledge.

They failed to take into consideration the fact that these people were not sitting in the back and playing Yahtzee – they work their tails off to get children in and out in an attempt to make things go quasi smoothly.

I realize that I’m treading potentially hypocritical ground here, but I thought that such a social observation would be necessary before any of you jokers walk in to get your senior portrait and start complaining.

Tricky, tricky

Dear United Cab Company:

I realize that you’re a taxi service and therefore a common vehicular design is necessary for name recognition, but do you really have to paint all of your cars black and white and slap your logo on the side?

Every time I see one of your cabs, I panic and downshift because I think you’re The Fuzz. Then, after you pass, I curse your name and swear never to use your service.

Because really, who wants to get charged $.40 for every additional mile while carting around in the back of a pseudo patrol car?

Love,
Casey

Did I just hear a fat lady?

If you’re like me and you’ve grown up near Clearwater, since your early childhood, you have been privy to countless commercials for used cars from Dayton Andrews’ Chrysler/Jeep. Ever since I can remember, I’ve seen this old fellow by the name of Dayton Andrews peddling his automobiles from the angle of an honest, family-friendly car dealer. He attempts to appear as a good, old fashioned, nice old man as he ends every commercial with the same plea: “Come trade with me under my old oak tree.”

See, there’s this oak tree that’s been there (presumably) since the dealership opened 40 years ago. There’s just something about purchasing a car from an old Southern type under his famed branches that makes you feel like you’re getting a real deal, you know?

Well – and I absolutely hate to say this – Mr. Andrews, after your tree’s decade-long fight with old age, mother nature has emerged victorious. And it’s looked this way for more than a year. I beseech you: please take that tree out of its misery. It looks pathetic sitting there on the side of State Road 60, one of the busiest roads in the county.

The dream is dead.

!http://www.sociallyconsciousbird.com/storage/images/deadtree.jpg!

PDA

New on the list of things that upset me: public displays of affection. And no, I won’t cloak the fact that this entire tirade is a manifestation of my own jealousy.

Now, I don’t mean to say that running off into a corner and sucking someone’s face off until they look like Inside Out Boy from the days of Nickelodeon past is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, compared with the alternatives, this form of affection isn’t half bad.

What’s really annoying is when people try to act normal while they are talking to you. Here I am, trying to have a conversation with you sexually charged lovebirds and you’ve suddenly morphed into what the Power Rangers would look like if they banded together into a giant ball of flesh and limbs. You think I don’t notice? When people do that, it’s like trying to talk to the last desperate people on earth who must repopulate its lands before they themselves die. And I must admit, it irks me like no other; just be a normal person for once.

I get it: you have someone and I don’t. Now go find a corner, because you’re just reminding me of what I’m not and doing a pretty fine job of making me sick in the meantime.