There are a big shit-basket of reasons to which I attribute the gloomy gut, but it can pretty much be summed up as this: I am slowly coming to the realization that I am stuck in a generation gap. I am awkwardly straddling the cusp between Generation X and Generation Y: Generation "More Money" vs. Generation "I Don't Care". One part of my brain wants to be super-entrepreneurial and make all kinds of money jammin' out to Stevie Ray Vaughn, yet the other part of me wants to serve prudish assholes coffee while wearing a demeaning little apron, thinks Death Cab For Cutie is actually goodand hangs out at Whole Foods all day. They've apparently given us the name, "MtV Generation" (yes I realize this is not new). For Christ's sake, I looked it up on Wikipedia and one of the Global Factors influencing this distinguished group of people is Teddy Ruxpin. Hey, I may know a shit ton of people on medication for ADHD but it wasn't because of trauma caused by a goddamned talking bear. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be baby-booming, baby-busting, baby-sitting, or just telling dead baby jokes. Fuck you, 1980! Seriously though, how long does it take to microwave a dead baby?
Wait, what were we talking about?
Anyway, shit has been a strugglin' lately, INCLUDING MY BLOG YES I KNOW, so instead of keeping quiet per usual I am going to unload (upload?) on you people in a rare bitch-a-blog session. Feel free to comment, feel free to add, feel free to go GFY, I dont care. Apathy: Teddy Ruxpin-style.
And then Goldilocks and the Three Bear... Hey you do realize your parents are subsituting me for a babysitter, right...
I am going to do this as cheaply and plainly as possible. Here is what's been stirring and stewing in the brain pot lately (MTVers, I've added visual stimulation for you as not to lose your interest, Generation Xers I've split it up into two parts to keep your attention Jack Bauer-style):
Who needs content when you have PICTURES!
As I've mentioned before, I go to the same coffee shop every morning for 'the usual', a skim latte. Make whatever scoffs you want, I like milk and I like coffee and I just happen to like them together and admittance of so does not make me any less of a person, despite the ridiculous snobbery that goes on within coffee shop confines. Black coffee drinkers get all pissed off waiting behind someone ordering a frothy drink, die-hard coffee drinkers think the chai people are hippies, everyone thinks you're sick or ailing if you order hot tea...it's all retarded. I mean, we're mostly all there crusty-faced at 7:30 in the morning for the same reason: to get a jolt of caffeine before starting the 'routine' that we've actually already started but just didn't realize because we were too damn tired. We're tired, we're crabby, that's why we're there. The people that work at coffee shops are super troopers and surely understand the "you're allowed to be an asshole in the morning" rule and just take retribution in guilt-tripping us to paying an extra dollar for our coffee via tip jar.
The other morning, however, I groggily stumbled into the shop and waited at the counter for a brief moment for someone to attend to me. While I was standing there I felt a gust of cold behind me, signifying someone else had come in. By the time I felt the cold, the door-rushing woman was so close behind me, she almost scared me. Honestly, one more step closer and she could've put her fist up my ass. Every tiny detail in the experience involving her that morning pointed to the fact that she was rushing. I hate being rushed. I hate it. I ordered my latte and she sighed audibly. Heavily, even. I turned around and gave her the "Are you being fucking serious?" look but she was so airy that she pretended to look through me. I turned back around and added a sandwich onto my order to retaliate. More heavy sighs, and maybe even a desperate 'come on' muttered underneath her breath. Eventually, I moved aside to the end of the counter to wait on my coffee, when I heard the woman order. DECAF!!! A decaf coffee?!! I mean, honestly, why don't you just piss on a hill of navy beans and light a fire underneath the runoff? What a waste to get all pissed off that I was standing in the way of you getting your .01% caffeine fix. And of $1.40.
This sort of goes hand in hand with the general lack of patience movement I've been noticing lately. I find it so funny that we get so worked up to the point of actually physiologically elevating our own blood pressure over the most trivial things. When something is supposed to take 10 seconds but instead takes 30, people flip the fuck out. One of these kinds of people is the Delayed Angry Honker. I used to live in New York, where the horn is just a way of life. Columbus really isn't so bad. The only times I have felt it necessary to honk my horn in the last two years have been out of courtesy. A polite double-honk to let the person text-messaging in front of you that the light has changed, an "OMG! YOU ARE GOING TO GET HIT!" courtesy honk, a honk of recognition to a car or a person - these are all pretty acceptable. Normally, if someone is pulling into a parking space and has to Tommy Boy it, or otherwise is just old and takes forever I don't honk. That person probably has enough problems as it is to have to be going that slow in the first place without me adding any further confusion. Lately around here, our wind chills have been ridiculous, so I can understand and accept the fact that things are going to take a little (if not a lot) longer than usual. Am I going to wait for a parking space if someone is pulling out of one if it's 2 degrees out? Hell yes I am. Anyway, someone was doing this yesterday; waiting for a parking spot at a rather busy lunch spot. Admittedly, her waiting for the spot held up about 3 cars for about 40 seconds. I could see the person in front of me go through the entire stages from 'calm' to 'freak out' in a matter of those 40 seconds. Finally as the car pulled into the great parking spot, traffic was freed up and Freakout laid on the horn and screamed, hands waving madly. She was only going one row over from the lady that had just parked. I know, because I watched her. I watched her get out of her car, still muttering and waving, and she went into a National City Bank. 40 seconds late.
I'm dragging Part 2 out until tomorrow so I can have an excuse to go to happy hour tonight.
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