Things That Chap My Ass, Part II

Note: The list of things that annoy me is distressingly long – and it gets longer every day. You can find Part 1 of Things That Chap My Ass here, and it is likely that TTCMA will become a regular feature here at Stonekettle Station.

Continuing on in no particular order:

- The Sarah Palin “Look.” I don’t suppose this is any kind of national fad, at least I hope not, but here in the MatSu Valley I spot the “Palin Doo and Glasses” combo at least ten times a day. Like the murderous, malfunctioning Fembots from The Six Million Dollar Man, I see women with piled up hair and those little rectangular librarian glasses, wandering up and down the isles at Wal-Mart all mechanically perky and with unnervingly bright artificial smiles. That bizarre MinniSotan’ accent parroting forth from bleached and perfect teeth, “You Betcha! You Betcha! You Betcha!” in endless loop. I keep expecting their faceplates to fall off exposing a bank of gears, cogs, and Hollywood transistors. I’ll tell you how bad this has gotten, yesterday in Wasilla near Knik Goose Bay Road I saw a guy walking alongside the railroad tracks. This guy was big, about 6’2” maybe, an unshaven hairy behemoth, stumbling drunkenly along in the snow wearing a pair of Bunny Boots … and an extra large dirty pink off-shoulder sun dress, sporting the Sarah Bun and those little glasses. Seriously folks, when the wild Alaskan transvestites start looking like the local politicians, it’s gone way, way too far. I’m fairly sure the little dog he had clutched under one arm was sporting a Blagojevich toupee.

- TV Pop-up Banner Ads: First it was a little translucent watermark in the corner of the TV screen, then it was a little logo, then it was a bigger logo, then the ads arrived, then the animated ads – now I’ve got the entire first act of Monk prancing around on my screen, waving at me and making the “who farted” face. Jesus H. Christ In a Flight Suit the Flight Deck of USS Abraham Lincoln, who thought this was a good idea? I cannot tell you how much this irritates me. I swear to God, do these retards actually think that annoying the piss out of me is going to make me watch their show? Seriously, it’s like Marketing is manned solely by 12-year boys who think the way get a girl’s attention is to pull her ponytail and eat a bug. Marketing needs a good ass beating – or a visit from the murderous Sarah Palin fembots.

- The timing of Left Turn Signals: Remember the old days? Back before efficiency experts, flow-dynamics computer simulations, and asshole traffic “engineers” who just have to implement every damned stupid new traffic idea that the retards in the California Department of Transportation come up with? Why is it that every state in the Union copies CDOT? Have you seen the traffic in California? Have you? It’s like using FEMA’s handling of the New Orleans disaster as a template for urban renewal. Why is it that whenever I’m waiting for a left turn signal, it’s always the other side that turns green first? And stays green for ten minutes even if there is nobody waiting to turn? Why in the hell are those people more important than me? Isn’t this America? Aren’t we all equal? Isn’t equality the cornerstone of democracy? These damned turn-signals are destroying the very fabric of our great society. They’re divvying us up into the Turns and the It’s-Not-Your-Turn-Nyahs! It’s downright un-American is what it is. This is not how the Founding Fathers intended it to be. Both left turn signals should turn green at the same time, for the same amount of time. Period. Equal. Just like it says in the Constitution. Life, Liberty, and equal turning time.

- and as long as we’re talking about stupid traffic ideas from California, how about that Killer Drag Strip lane idea? You know, two lanes before the light merging into one lane about fifty feet after the light. There’s always some road-raging soccer mom at the red light in the right lane clutching the wheel of her BelchFire Behemoth SUV, squared off against Dale Wannabe Jr. in the left lane in his BMW ViagraMobile. They rev the engines and pretend not to notice each other, and when the light turns green it’s like the quarter mile at Daytona, smoke and flame and middle fingers. Fuck you, bitch! Outta the way, I’m taking the checkered flag! Bawahahahahahaha!

- Music-overs on TV shows: We’re down to the final minutes in our weekly crime drama and suddenly instead of gun fights, or witty dialog, or “Ah Ha! The butler did do it with the president’s intern in the drawing room with a candle stick” moments, we get ten minutes of music from some long lost 70’s rock band with the main characters giving each other significant looks. These’s a reason why they’re called crime dramas instead of America Bandstand. Bones has gotten into the habit of doing this, and it just irritates the hell out of me.

- People who go into the liquor store to pay for groceries: My grocery store has a little section off to one side where they keep the liquor and cigarettes. Strangely enough people go in there to buy … liquor and cigarettes. But every damned time I go in to pick up beer there’s always some ignorant mouth breathing clueless dumbass holding up the line with a shopping cart full of groceries. Goddamn! Look, people who wait in line for booze and smokes aren’t the most patient people in the world; they’re suffering withdrawal of one kind or another, they’re mean and irritable and not sociable by any stretch of the imagination – and I’m their leader. But it just keeps getting worse, it is inevitable that this pudding-for-brains moron will have a whole damned cart full of fresh vegetables, vegetables that have to be weighed, on a scale, a scale that the liquor counter doesn’t have, so the cashier has to go out into the main store and weigh the goddamned things. When the cashier comes back this chowderbrained dolt will suddenly decide to strike up a friendly conversation with the cashier and ignore the rest of us standing behind her with pitchforks and torches, “I don’t know why they can’t get a scale in here. This happens to me all the time, you’d think you guys would get a scale in here. I like fresh vegetables. Not that canned stuff. I don’t eat prepared food, you never know what chemicals they put in there. I only eat fresh, organic food… Oh, and I need a pack of Marlboro Red 100’s.”

- Coffee People: You know, that goddamned prissy bitch at the Starbucks counter who thinks coffee ordering is some kind of Olympic sport, “I’d like a skinny Behemoth half-caf mocha citrus fuckthepeoplebehindmechino half-blended double-spun in a clear bubble cup with a bendy straw and a twist of lime and just a sprinkle of cinnamon harvested from the Jungles of Vietnam outside of Saigon by organic Nutmeg farmers. With non fat whip cream.” Taa Da! Ten minutes of blending and steaming and ice crushing and mixing and squeezing. For fuck’s sake, just order a goddamned coffee before I kill somebody. Or God’s Gift to Woman. You know, the pierced stud with the Spongebob Squarepants tie who instead of ordering starts making time with the barista, “So, working hard or hardly working? Heh, heh. You know, I normally hit the drive through, but my Porsche is in the shop and my Hummer H1 won’t fit under the overhang. You might say I’m a little too well hung. Heh, heh. Soooooooo, what’s good?” Coffee, it’s a fucking coffee shop! Order coffee, you polyester suit wearing throwback to 70’s skin flicks. She’s not going to sleep with you, she’s only being polite because they pay her to be polite to dicks like you. In the entire history of the human race has any cute young girl behind the counter of a Starbucks ever been attracted to your fat balding far-side-of-middle-age Kevin Costner imitation? Ever? Just order your goddamned coffee and get the hell out of the way. And then there’s the woman who wants something they don’t have, “What? That was a Christmas special only? But I love the Rudolf Roast! Those were sooooo good!” For crying out loud lady, it was just a plain old latte in a red cup with a squirt of peppermint. “Well, then I guess I’ll have a Columbus Day Capachino….”

- Gang Posers: People who just have to make that idiotic two-finger horn or the crossed-arms gang sign in every damned picture. Thirty year old whiter-than-Laura Bush’s-ass Joe the Accountant, who pisses himself blind in fear every time he ends up alone in an elevator with a black man, turns into gansta rapper Biggie Smalls the minute anybody in the office pulls out a camera. “Yo, yo, yo! ‘supmynigga?” Yeah, the guy who secretly listens to Dancing Queen while waxing his chest hair is suddenly all pimp mack daddy hip-hop in deh ‘hood. I like to photoshop a Rainbow Coalition t-shirt onto those people.

- Men who spit in urinals: What the hell is this all about? I swear to God, a guy can be perfectly normal, and then suddenly as he approaches the urinal he turns into a cat coughing up a hairball. Hack! Hack! Hack! and then he hocks a loogie the size of a softball into the pisser like some sea elephant with terminal pneumonic plague hacking up a sea urchin. It’s like a reflex with these guys, “Hey I know it’s irritating as all hell, but I can’t piss without it, Man, and I really gotta go! You understand. Hack! Hack! Hack! Ptoooie! aaaaaahh! That’s better.”

- Billy Mays: Holy freakin’ shit, is there anything on the planet more annoying than Billy Mays the Infomercial Guy? Billy Mays is like a whole football stadium of guys who spit in urinals. I can’t tell you how much I hate this bearded idiot. And the crap he sells? Who buys that stuff? It’s a pretty good bet that if Billy Mays is pitching a product, it’s a total piece of shit. Seriously kids, stay in school, study your math – or you could end up hawking cheap plastic wall hooks and magic snake oil stain remover on the Home Shopping Network. And don’t get me started on Vince, the creepy child molester-looking ShamWow! guy.

And finally, for today at least:

- Google Searches that land on Things That Chap My Ass: Seriously guys, just stop it. Really, just stop it right now. “Guys who put things up there asses” [sic]. “What should I put up my ass blogspot.” “Things I like up my ass.” and so on and so forth and that’s just in the last two hours. Really, just fucking stop it right now. Look each to his own and all that, but for God’s sake do you really need to search for it online? Seriously, have you put so many different things up your ass that you’ve run out of ideas? So now you’ve got to search for ideas online? You do know that Google keeps a list of your search strings right? And is there nothing, not one damned blog title, that you people can’t turn into some kind of bizarre porn topic? And those of you searching for Sarah Palin naked combined with this blog title, you people are creeping me right out. Please, stop it right now.