Annual Defense Mechanism
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 02.13.06 in Valentine's Day, complaints
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
[ 4 Comments ] Posted on 09.03.05 in complaints, observations
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
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 07.28.05 in complaints, family
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.