You!

Stop right where you are. Yes, you. Put that ass crack on the pavement or so help me.

Good.

All settled?

The voice of Bill Carrol came on. You know, the CFRB 1010 morning guy and his cadre of over-drole associates. “Did you see this on CNN?”, I paraphrase. “Now they’re using my idea to try and put a positive spin on the news. Using ‘Road to Rescue‘. I’ve been doing that for months! That was my idea!” … Continue Reading

To use a bovine analogy, there are few things that allow me to stomach the sheer, brutal cud of incompetence that seems so prevalent these days.

A few days ago, for example, I was calling the credit company to declare that I was making my last payment on the card (and the horse it rode in on), and to ask if I “should expect a final interest charge between the time the payment is made and the time it’s actually processed.”

Doesn’t that seem like a common question? Of all the possible, even improbable answers I was expecting,  “how should we know what activities take place on your account?”, was just about the only one that didn’t cross my mind.  It’s hard to know how to reply to such insult-bordering statements without resorting to violence, but I managed to take in a breath and yield to a cool, curt, “because it’s your card”, while silently mouthing the word “jackass”.

Such tension releasers, however, often don’t come in the moment and are usually insufficient to make you feel better. Abusing your pets/family just isn’t practical these days, and sweet sweet vengeance usually ends up being a George Costanza-type affair that leaves you even more bitter. That dead horse has been beaten enough. Instead, solace must be taken where and when it can.

I take mine in the form of anonymous social commentary, usually spray-painted on walls or sidewalks. No, these are not the usual tags; those are just evidence of perennial self-indulgence. No one cares that you were here, “SnuR<hb 2K9 dash-swirl”! — if that is your real name.

I like the stuff that shows some thought other than “oh shit I’m so wasted, dude!” Stencils are great for this sort of thing. They’re physical evidence that someone planned the affair — going to the trouble of finding the appropriate image(s), contrasting the living bejeezus out of them, cutting them out, etc.  Their Holstein pattern, for me, always alludes to greener pastures where bullshit is actually nourishing, and the knowledge that someone out there really just wants to give me a chuckle. Here’s a taste.

I ran into the coffee shop for my breakfast of last resort, the over-soda’d muffin.

The shop owner (Japanese, I think) registered my order, a “BAH-nana MUPPIN!”, with the cashier. She was young, maybe fourteen, and visibly burdened with an awkwardness that was probably compounded by her own mangled English.

There was something unsettling about her presence in the coffee shop during school hours. That was, until I realized that this is the first week of March break. Then came the super (and much worse), realization that this girl would probably be spending her March break working in her dad’s coffee shop.

To all of you flying south for alcohol-fueled hijinks, allow me to express my disdain. Mostly because I never got to go.

To all of you valiant teenage soldiers holding down the home front this year, and anyone else who doesn’t get a break when, let’s face it, we should all be relaxing, let me raise a muppin top in salute. You do me proud. And breakfast.