My laptop ran away again. et al
The Thing I Hate This Week (Month?) #3: People who cannot do simple math.
I understand that the majority of Americans are stupid, I truly do. And I further understand that 102% of all Americans are hopelessly addicted to and supported through marriage by technology. This translates into a nation where even adults can do math only with calculators, and only perform the simplest of math, yet it's socially accepted to be that moronic.
This seed of failure is seen most readily in cashiers. It seems as though cashiers who have to return change, as opposed to swiping a card and handing it back, are in constant fear of incorrect math and rely solely on the computer screen to tell them what change to make. This is oddly complemented by the fact that cashiers are only capable of comprehending obvious numbers and go into a frightened tizzy when someone's total is $6.63 and they hand over $22.00 as opposed just the $20 bill. They don't understand that the change will be a $5 and a $10, instead of a $10 and three $1 bills.
I took a friend through a McDonald's drive thru this weekend and got her a hamburger that cost $1.07. She handed me a dollar and a quarter, but I decided to test the cashier and instead readied a $1 bill, a dime, and two pennies - as opposed to just the $1 and the dime.
The cashier took the handful of change and looked at me dumbstruck with wide eyes. She then turned to the computer, glanced at her meaty fistful of a mere three coins, and punched the sum into the computer with an alacrity amazing in such a lumbering beast. The change popped up on the screen: $0.05. Then she came to realize I wanted a nickel back and her world imploded causing the destruction of three neighboring counties, and my own precious little life.
Gawd, I hate that.
The Thing I Hate #2: Alarm systems.
I moved into a new home a mere six-odd weeks ago (more like four, maybe?). Said home was equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system (and still is, so robbers beware). The alarm doesn't merely sit in silence on a bedroom wall, but instead is prominently posted in the hallway and chimes every time a door is opened. It also features a STAY button, wherein we equip the alarm while in the home and every time an entrance is breached - even if it's just us going out - an alarm goes off that calls the security offices; this is in addition to the EXIT button, which equips the house to seize in alarm thirty seconds after a door is opened, unless the code is put in, and additionally arms the motion sensors within the house to alert police. It's pretty awesome, I have to admit. I'm giddy over it every time I put in a code.
Well the second day I was in the house the police showed up to the house, and within three days I'd set the alarm off twice. I got a bit more used to the alarm in the next weeks, though I inadvertently opened a door at 4:00am'ish to go to work and set off a wild alarm that woke both roommates and the security offices. That one was my fault, though the two times I entered the backdoor this week only to feel like a burglar and have to answer a phone call with the phone password (the password is "I RUN L.A.") were obviously NOT my fault.
Regardless, alarm systems are annoying, and quite frankly I estimated my renters' insurance payoff much higher than the actual value of my threadbare possessions so that if a robber were to steal every item from my room, the deductible and the cost of the insurance, plus replacing all stolen items, would be much less than the payoff. I'd be set FOREVER! Ugh, it was so exciting! But no, with this alarm system I'll never get to commit insurance fraud. =/
Thing I Hate #3: Desperate sports fans.
Okay, here's the deal. I once hated sports and now I don't, yay, such character development. But that means that I'll wear my Alabama hat out wherever and be fearless and careless in the face of possible Auburn idiots, but it'll be not so much because I love Alabama as it is that I just need a hat to wear and I only own an Alabama hat. I will support my team, and speak highly of them and accuse opponent players of not being legally born in the United States or wanting money or whatever, but I am not delusional and tied solely into my own team's existence.
I worked at my corporate coffee joint in Alabama today, and in "Tiger Country" to be a bit more specific. This means that as I rendered services to the customers in the most jovial ways as possible, I saw a deluge of Auburn fans who wore idiotic navy blue t-shirts with NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2011 and a combination of tigers killing elephants or Panama City art-style tigers looking buff on a football field; also, lists of past inflated school records; people who spent a notable amount every year on paying the fee for an Auburn tag AND sported two Auburn bumper stickers; many more things that made me lose my last feeble thread of hope in humanity. And I realized that people who live their lives and *ROTATE* fully around their sports teams aren't really people at all, but demon zombies who ought to be silenced.
And This One Thing That I Love: FOAM.
Just think about foam. It's this airy, light substance that is dense enough not to be trasparent, but still can float and be moved with the most minimal of efforts. It crests a glass of freshly shaken tea, it sits atop a steaming sink of water ripe for dirty dishes; it mounts effortlessly upon a Mexican beach in the back of a bar and hosts a bilingual and drunken foam party. It is all of that. It is Madonna. It is undeniable. It is FOAM.
I can think of no possible medium that foam is bad in. The Mexican beach story is true, and I participated in an eight-man interracial dog fight, wherein skinny me, Redneck (and, unbeknownst to us, Pregnant) Vicky, and Captain America AKA Joel took on five locals who didn't speak English and repeatedly rammed them into the sand before they gave up and went inside the bar and we all from Uninter immediately left the bar, went back to the hotel, and hid in our rooms for fear of a gunfight (for which we were ill-equipped, as was the nearby Burger King, which was home to a beachfront gunfight the night before we arrived in town). But despite the frightening end to the night, and the fact that the next morning Joel, Vicky, and I examined our limbs and chests to find a host of raw scrapes from the sand beneath the foam, we still loved the foam. It had been air to shield our fall, from the evil master of sand. Regardless, America had prevailed.
Foam is at the forefront of the baseless reality of childhood. The airy nature of foam, the odd mixture between defiance of weight and adherence to density visibility scales, its mysterious yet easily recreateable nature... all contribute to the positive existence of foam. I do dare you to find even one thing slightly wrong with the loveable and notable presence of foam. I LOVE IT
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