Wednesday, February 27, 2013

23 Things I Won’t Miss After the Apocalypse



1. Driving in Manhattan.

2. Aggressive avoidance of eye contact by millions of neighbors in any given metropolis.

3. Tailgaters (traffic violation, not sports party).

4. Ties. I can't wait for the world to end so I won't have to wear a noose to job interviews anymore.

5. The overwhelming American film bias among Oscar nominations.

6. When you and two parties, or three parties, or four or maybe five parties, are involved in a vital deal, and every last one of them is benefitting while apologizing to you that there’s nothing they can do, and you wind up losing your shirt over it, and yet the only time you’ll ever see any of those parties again is if you’re on the sidewalk as they step out of a town car.

7. Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their internet cousins, New Atheists.

8. “Gave Up Anything for Lent” jokes.

9. The birthplaces of martyrs as destinations of tourists.

10. Any sense of need for martyrs.

11. An information economy that has led me to physiological stress any time I only have two bars .

12. Applause at the State of the Union.

13. When someone is headed to the same grocery aisle as I am, and they speed up so they enter first, and as soon as they do, they slow down to a damned crawl. I don’t care that they’re looking for something, because every time it happens, I know I’d find what I want in an instant and be out, but the old lady just had to go first. And so I’m stuck crawling along behind her, looking for the model of cereal I let myself eat, and glaring at her even though she’s not paying attention to me, and unable to get around her, and always she parks her stupid cart exactly in front of where I want to go, so I have to wait an eternity as she figures out which brand of wheat grass she wants. When she finally moves on, I pick up my cereal and find I don’t even want it, and the wait wasn’t really that long, and I’m in an impatient and horrible mood for no good reason. My inability to not suck as a person in a grocery store is something I will not miss.

14. Anonymous attacks on people’s character.

15. Soccer/football arguments.

16. Bombing foreign countries for ethical reasons.

17. Bombing foreign countries for unethical reasons.

18. Creationist dog breeders.

19. The DOW Industrial Average being even close to record highs in an economy with this level of unemployment and wealth disparity.

20. Gritty reboots.

21. Funsize candy (never fun).

22. The 18-month baseball season.

23. Inspirational movies. Actually, hipster commentary on them, like Freedom Writers, or Rudy, blow-by-blow dismissals, as though noticing the tropes of a kind of story that touches people somehow invalidates it.

6 comments:

  1. 24. My mortgage.

    Although #13 is one I have a similar distaste (in myself) for. In my case, it's the old bat who whips out in front of me on a two-lane road then goes 15mph under the speed limit. By the time we reach the passing lane and I go around her (always on the right, because she won't move over), I'm frustrated, angry, and delayed by only a minute or two.

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    1. I wonder if everyone with self-awareness has some version of #13...

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  2. Awesome list. My version of #13 is people who don't stay in their lane whilst driving on elevated highways.

    For the grocery store version -- learn how to knit socks! I keep a half-finished sock on the baby seat and pick it up when people are being aisle hogs. They'll notice that, and it seems to have the desired effect. I expect keeping a book of sudoku puzzles handy would have the same effect. And if a third party asks why you're doing that in the middle of the pickle aisle, you can pleasantly reply that you're waiting for the person in the [insert description of outfit here] to finish so you can pick up your box of Fibre-Os.

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    Replies
    1. That is a powerful amount of passive aggressive war gaming, Lady. I almost admire it!

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  3. Doctors who consider themselves the pope-in-waiting (infallible).

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  4. Ties. Personally, I think they should be banned. Why would anyone want to cut off half the blood flow to their brain?
    ~jon

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