The Continuing List of Things That Chap My Ass

Or, Don’t Be A Dick, Part II.

You know, it might not be such a good idea to antagonize the future Ultimate Emperor of the Universe.

Just sayin’.

Soon I'll have unlimited power over life and death. I’m a vindictive son of a bitch, and I’m taking notes.

I wrote a whole post the other day explaining how I’m going to impose my Don’t Be A Dick rule on the population once I take over as Ultimate Emperor of the Universe. Being as Stonekettle Station is wildly popular and read by adoring billions the world over, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable assumption that the word should get out and people would, you know, get ahead of the power curve, start sucking up, stop being dicks now, that sort of thing.

But noooo.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit regarding consequences for noncompliance – consequences involving a one way trip to the Imperial Penal Mines on Pluto, forced labor in hard vacuum, and a leaky space suit that might or might not be be filled with fire ants and the feculent corndog and caramel apple laced flatulence of sad circus clowns.

Pretty much everybody I’ve encountered for the last two days have been dicks.

Saturday before last I got the windshield in my truck replaced.  It was pitted and cracked and had at least seven large rock chips – i.e. the standard issue end of season Alaskan windshield.  After a while, it gets sort of hard to see through.  So I got it replaced.  Eight days – for those of you not good at math – eight damned days is the best I can do with a new, unbroken windshield.  Hey, you live in Alaska, you expect rock chips – but goddamn it, eight stinking days is the best I can do without getting hit square in the middle of the driver's side windshield by a rock the size of Rush Limbaugh’s ego? See, yesterday, I ended up on the highway behind Drive-On-The-Shoulder Girl. Half on, half off the road. Two tires on the rumble strip plowing through gravel at 70MPH, seriously what in the hell?  How damned hard is it to stay centered? It’s not like they don’t paint lines on either side of the lane to help you figure out where the edges are.  I mean bloody hell, if you’re so cockeyed that you can’t keep it between the lines, if you can’t master a skill as basic as actually driving on the fucking road, well maybe driving a car is not your thing. Seriously, here, twenty damned miles with two tires on the rumble strip? Lady, buy a vibrator or go sit on the dryer or something. I’ve got a special Pluto spacesuit set aside just for this woman, it’s the one with the cracked helmet visor…

Then there’s Do-Business-in-the-Hallway Guy.  This loud dick has got an office of his own, but instead of using it, he likes to wander up and down the hallway all day, whistling (which ought to be a hanging offense all by itself. I hate whistlers).  He’ll pass people, nod, and then when he’s fifty yards beyond them, then and only then does he suddenly remember he needs to talk to that guy – so he bellows down the hallway. If you’re really lucky, he and the object of his attention will spend the next ten minutes discussing the intricate details of last night’s hockey game in their outdoor voices separated by the length of the hall like two gunfighters in the Old West. It’s like trying to work while locked in a room with a troop of horny howler monkeys at the height of mating season (seriously, I would know, I spent time in the jungles of South America, those things have got to be the most obnoxious non-human primates on the planet – they are the dicks of the monkey world). And in fact, once I assume the Imperial Throne, I’m going to have Do-Business-in-the-Hallway Guy dunked in a tub of hot girl-monkey pheromones and sealed in a spacesuit with a couple of vocal and randy silverbacks that have been on a straight weeklong Viagra and raw oyster diet (oh yes, howler monkey males love raw oysters and Viagra, it’s a fact, look it up).

Next it’s Order-for-the-office guy.  I hate this dick, words cannot express how much I hate this guy. I hate this obsequious suck-up son of a bitch. “Making a lunch run, anybody want anything? Come on! Last chance, last chance!” I hate this guy to the depths of my inky black soul. I’d cheerfully put a bullet in the back of this jerkoff’s head, toss his body behind the salad bar, and laugh while I order my Happy Meal.  But what really sets my blood to fizzing and smoking like three week old Burger King fryer grease is when Order-for-the-Office Guy decides to order for the entire office at the fucking drive-through.  “zzzzt…is that all sir?” “uh…no…I also need…uh…a Fatburger with…uh…extra onions…and no bun. That’s a combo.”  “zzzzt is that all sir?” “oh…no…I also need…uh…a spicy chicken anus special, hold the anus, with a sweet tea…no, wait, that’s a diet coke.”  “zzzzt is that all sir?” “no…I also need…wait, I can’t make this out…”  AAAAAHHHH! Die, dick, die!  This guy doesn’t get a spacesuit at all, he’s facing hard vacuum in nothing but his skin and that three page long list of lunch orders. 

Speaking of food, I keep running into the Donut Guy, and I promise you this sorry bastard doesn’t have long to live.  I like to stop in the morning and get a cup of coffee and a donut. I stop at the same place every day. Now, I don’t give a crap whether donuts are good for me or not. I don’t need a lecture on why donuts are bad for my 47 year old body. I don’t care. I sure don’t need a lecture about the evilness of donuts from somebody who’s dumping four packs of sugar and a quart of heavy creamer into their coffee at the same time. I like donuts. I like the chocolate kind. I like one with my black sugar free coffee. I don’t think I’m asking for much. A cup of coffee and a donut – life is a whole lot easier for everybody that I am forced to interact with during the day if I just get my goddamned donut and a cup of coffee in the morning.  But about twice a week, I arrive at the Quick Stop ten seconds behind the Donut Dick. Donut Dick likes to get donuts for the entire office, but he doesn’t like to go to the donut store. Instead, he just fills up a box with every single donut in the glass case leaving none for anybody else – well, none except for that pink coconut one. Seriously, what kind of dick gets a dozen donuts from the gas station? This is the same asshole who buys flowers for his wife on Valentine’s day from the illegal alien on the corner. This is only about one step up from buying a box of Dolly Madison Zingers for the office. Listen, motherfucker, I hate coconut and the gas station is not a bakery. You want to get donuts for everybody? Want to be the office hero, bro? Then you need to find yourself a goddamned Bakery. There’s at least a hundred of them in Anchorage. Avail yourself of the variety, dickweed. Because if you clean out the donut case at the quick stop again, I’m not going to bother with shipping your worthless ass to Pluto, I’m just going to have you run through the donut shop’s Hobart mixer and deep fried. Got it?

And speaking of the Quick Stop, tomorrow I’m bringing a pair of pliers when I go in to get my coffee and donut – and Tongue Ring Cashier is going to learn how to speak unencumbered English once again.  Seriously, what in the hell is the deal with this bullshit? You’re a cashier, you’re supposed to be able to talk to people, you can’t do that with a chrome bowling ball blocking your windpipe. Do surgeons wear baseball mitts while doing their job in the operating room? Do priests listen to iPods during confession? Do airline pilots surf the internet on their laptops while flying the plane? OK, bad example, but I am so damned sick of cashiers and waiters and customer service folks who mumble like they’ve got a mouth full of marbles the size of donkey balls. As Emperor I shall decree that these chowderheads get issued prison spacesuits pierced with exactly as many holes as they’ve placed in their own hides. 

The antithesis of Tongue Ring Cashier is just as bad, and that’s Sportscaster, Weather Girl, and that asshole who reads the disclaimer at the end of drug commercials. These people must have lungs the size of Rush Limbaugh’s enormous ass. Sportscaster guy can recite the entire Big Ten summary without taking a breath or using a period. Weathergrrrl must have gills, because that nasal bitch can talk for ten damned minutes without ever once stopping to take a breath – oh sure, don’t get me wrong, that’s a handy skill to have, her boyfriend must be a happy man. But, goddamn, is it annoying when she launches into a tour of the North American continent. And is there some special college of Monotone Broadcasting these people attend? Seriously, who talks like this? Thankyoumonicaandtodayinalaskatheweatherislookingdecentinsouthcentralvalleyregionwithcloudsdevelopinginthelateafternoon….

Jesus Christ with howler monkeys flying out of his holy rectum, take a fucking breath, slow down, talk like a normal human being, will you? The reporters don’t talk like that, the Anchor doesn’t talk like that, what the hell is the deal with Sports and Weather? I think this is what happens to those really hyper and annoying cheerleaders, well, that and QVC Hostess. I’m sending these people to Pluto just to induce suicidal despair in the other dicks – that should help cut down on long term care and maintenance costs.

And finally Benjamin Franklin.

That’s right, Ben Fucking Franklin. American Founding Father. Inventor. Diplomat. Scientist. And the asshole who came up with daylight savings time.

You know what, Ben? Great Idea. Great idea when the world ran on candle light and burning whale blubber – and even then I’m sure there were people scratching their greasy lice infested scalps and thinking, “What in George Washington’s Big White Powdered Wig is the deal with this nonsense? Hey Franklin, how about pulling ye olde head out of ye old arse! What? Have you been hit by lightening?” To which Ben probably replied, “Don’t forget to change the batteries in ye olde smoke detector!”  Nowadays we’ve got something called ELECTRICITY! We can make it light any damned time we want, why are we still dicking around with daylight savings time? Hey, Ben thought smelling your own farts and group sex was a great idea too, are we still doing that? OK, bad example, but still we’ve been saving daylight for two hundred years, when do we start seeing some interest on our investment? Probably never. Sure as shit the government has pissed the saved daylight away.  Hell, by this time we’ve probably got a daylight deficit, we probably owe billions of hours of daylight to China or some dammed thing. Our children won’t even have daylight, it’ll just be dark all of the time. Goddamn Ben Franklin. I’m digging that Bastard up and shipping his colonial ass straight into the sun.  Have all the damned daylight you can stand, Ben.

Feel free to name a few dicks of your own.  I’ll take their names down and put them on The List.

It’s the least I can do.

I mean, seriously, if they don’t read Stonekettle Station, well, it’s their own damned fault now, isn’t it?