It's a good thing I don't have a concealed carry permit...
...or it would be open season on SUV drivers who think it's great sport to splash pedestrians with half-frozen slush in winter. Yesterday I was lucky: I only got splashed once on the way to work, and only from the knees; Friday morning I got hit four times, leaving me soaked in icy muddy water from the hips down front and back and Tuesday I got hit twice and was able to dodge once, leaving me hip-down only on one side, though the other side got taken care of on the walk home.
All this while walking in two-three inches of "wintery mix" which defies the waterproofing on my snow boots, and my hiking shoes, even when it isn't backed up due to the frozen drains and gutters to deeper than my ankles, as it often is. If I ever need to write about what it feels like to march for miles in wet wool socks and bootliners in a northern temperate winter (yes, wool will keep your feet warm - sorta; no, it's not at all pleasant) I have all the data I need to do so firsthand instead of basing it on Mauldin's accounts; just as three years ago I gathered all the necessary data to write about getting triple-layered Liberty dollar-sized blisters from thin boots on hard roads...
And no, it wasn't that there wasn't room for these assholes to move over: the other lane was clear, and they didn't even make the token effort of edging away from the pedestrian - either they figured that anyone too poor (lazy, stupid) to own a car deserved to be drenched, or they didn't even register that there was a human being there who might prefer not to walk the remaining two miles carrying a pound or so of freezing water for the duration.
Ergo, no energy to post on any of the list of titles I have jotted down and carry around in my to-do list of things that just gets longer and longer; I thought I might this past weekend, but my jaw abcesses flared up again and I spent the better part of the time nursing them with over-the-counter novocaine and booze and sleep. Sorry - I know, I'm just lazy, that's why I'm poor. Lazy and stupid. Otherwise I too would get offered a good full-time job with benefits and training just like my degreeless and unexperienced BiL just did - oh wait, that was due to family connections...
If one more privileged idiot says to me perkily "Well, at least you're saving money on gas!" I will feed them their teeth.
ETA: amy34 is not only an ass, as she admits here, but an asshole hailing from Planet Privilege - and a coward too. I usually don't call individuals out like this on non-ideological matters but since a) she banned me from commenting as well as pulling an Aravosis w/r/t the offending post, and b) it IS an ideological matter when someone says - repeatedly - in their blog that poor people and beggars are just lazy and stupid, I'm going to point out right now that a SAHM housewife who doesn't have to do anything to keep the lights on but sit around and do crossword puzzles and work on her novels is probably the very last person in the world to claim that those who are out of work are just "lazy".
But hey, if her husband gets laid off and she has to try to find one to avoid being one of us marginal wretches, the Economist will probably want to hire her, since like Megan McArdle she just regurgitates their conservative Podsnappery, so no worries! (If anyone wonders how this 19th-century social darwinism gets passed on and on into the modern era, well, she's got a kid, what do you think she's teaching him in re us Great Unwashed? Brainless worshippers of the religion of the American Dream pass it on, and cannot tolerate even the slightest contradiction to their dogmas - ban the heretics! Although she was at least ashamed enough to take down the post, so that suggests that she suspects maybe her Success Gospel creed isn't quite enough to explain all the complexities of reality... I guess there's always hope of redemption, no matter how blind and proud the sinner.]
All this while walking in two-three inches of "wintery mix" which defies the waterproofing on my snow boots, and my hiking shoes, even when it isn't backed up due to the frozen drains and gutters to deeper than my ankles, as it often is. If I ever need to write about what it feels like to march for miles in wet wool socks and bootliners in a northern temperate winter (yes, wool will keep your feet warm - sorta; no, it's not at all pleasant) I have all the data I need to do so firsthand instead of basing it on Mauldin's accounts; just as three years ago I gathered all the necessary data to write about getting triple-layered Liberty dollar-sized blisters from thin boots on hard roads...
And no, it wasn't that there wasn't room for these assholes to move over: the other lane was clear, and they didn't even make the token effort of edging away from the pedestrian - either they figured that anyone too poor (lazy, stupid) to own a car deserved to be drenched, or they didn't even register that there was a human being there who might prefer not to walk the remaining two miles carrying a pound or so of freezing water for the duration.
Ergo, no energy to post on any of the list of titles I have jotted down and carry around in my to-do list of things that just gets longer and longer; I thought I might this past weekend, but my jaw abcesses flared up again and I spent the better part of the time nursing them with over-the-counter novocaine and booze and sleep. Sorry - I know, I'm just lazy, that's why I'm poor. Lazy and stupid. Otherwise I too would get offered a good full-time job with benefits and training just like my degreeless and unexperienced BiL just did - oh wait, that was due to family connections...
If one more privileged idiot says to me perkily "Well, at least you're saving money on gas!" I will feed them their teeth.
ETA: amy34 is not only an ass, as she admits here, but an asshole hailing from Planet Privilege - and a coward too. I usually don't call individuals out like this on non-ideological matters but since a) she banned me from commenting as well as pulling an Aravosis w/r/t the offending post, and b) it IS an ideological matter when someone says - repeatedly - in their blog that poor people and beggars are just lazy and stupid, I'm going to point out right now that a SAHM housewife who doesn't have to do anything to keep the lights on but sit around and do crossword puzzles and work on her novels is probably the very last person in the world to claim that those who are out of work are just "lazy".
But hey, if her husband gets laid off and she has to try to find one to avoid being one of us marginal wretches, the Economist will probably want to hire her, since like Megan McArdle she just regurgitates their conservative Podsnappery, so no worries! (If anyone wonders how this 19th-century social darwinism gets passed on and on into the modern era, well, she's got a kid, what do you think she's teaching him in re us Great Unwashed? Brainless worshippers of the religion of the American Dream pass it on, and cannot tolerate even the slightest contradiction to their dogmas - ban the heretics! Although she was at least ashamed enough to take down the post, so that suggests that she suspects maybe her Success Gospel creed isn't quite enough to explain all the complexities of reality... I guess there's always hope of redemption, no matter how blind and proud the sinner.]