The UTI might be to blame, too. But that's not my fault.
It started when this French guy got snippy in Target.
I don't rant much anymore. I don't usually need to, and I definitely don't like to, but after three solid weeks of close calls in the car, vague rudeness from family, and a broken toilet, I may have snapped a little last night.
The F and I were standing in line in Target, waiting to check out. There were two lanes open, and a group of French people standing several feet away from both of them, chatting amongst themselves. We stood behind them, patiently waiting, until another Target employee asked, "Are you two ready to check out? He can take you on lane 7."
Great, right? We go to lane 7, and just as we put our stuff down, this French bastard says, with an expression of entitled smugness on his face, "Um, excuse me? I was here."
No, motherfucker, you weren't. You pick a goddamn lane to wait for, and you wait for it. You don't get to hover in the big horizontal aisle and just cherry-pick your cashier. You do what the rest of us do: you pick the wrong fucking aisle, you bitch about how long it's taking as compared to the aisle you didn't pick, and you move the fuck on.
My problem is not that the guy was French. (As an aside, there's a comedian whose name escapes me--The F will know if he comments on this--who says that the difference between telling a story and being a racist is word order. You say "this Asian motherfucker" and you're clear. You say "this motherfucking Asian" and it's all, WOAH, HOLD UP. Anyway, he's a French motherfucker, not a motherfucking French guy.) The thing that bugs me that is related to his ethnicity is that because of how he sees me, he will go back to France assuming all Americans are pushy, rude morons who cut in line when in reality, YOU WERE THE ONE WHO FUCKED UP.
My problem is this: I hate being blamed for things that are not my fault.
It's not my fault that you don't understand how waiting in line works, but you make me look like a douchebag for following the Target girl to the register.
It's not my fault I had a green turn arrow and you had a red goddamn light, but you looked at me like I'm in the wrong.
It's not my fault you were in the not-turning lane and I was in the straight/left turn lane, but you just turned right the fuck in front of me anyway, nearly t-boning The F and me in the process, and you don't even acknowledge that you messed up.
It's not my fault that there are members of our family who have yet to see our new house, the place we've now been living for four months. It's not my fault if feelings get hurt over things that are out of my control. It's not my fault if my life isn't arranged how you want it, or if my house isn't arranged how you want it, or if the whole fucking world isn't arranged how you want it.
None of this is my fault, but through some clever maneuvering when I was a kid, I feel like all of these things are my fault. It's taking some incredible patience and effort on the part of the people closest to me to reverse this automatic acceptance, that whenever someone is upset, I'm to blame. But it's not going to do any good if the whole goddamn world keeps insisting on shaking my confidence.
I've been giving a lot of thought to this over the last few days, and the lack of empathy on the part of the rest of the planet is really starting to get to me. Everyone is simply concerned with themselves, and fuck everyone else. That's why people cut you off in traffic. That's why they walk in front of your car in a parking lot without even a glance in your direction. That's why they're in your way without apologizing, that's why they won't return your phonecalls even if they're family (and I'm still pissed about that--The F's dad's cousin was supposed to give us an estimate on new windows a month ago and won't return The F's calls and what the fuck, this is FAMILY we're talking about!), and that's why I'm starting to hate leaving my house.
It's not that people are intentionally bad drivers. I don't think they mean to be rude. It's that they're oblivious to anyone but themselves and it comes as a huge shock that things may have transpired around them affecting other people. They just assume they're first, or next, or entitled to whatever's coming simply because they're there.
I'm going on a mini-honeymoon tonight. We're staying at a hotel for the evening and then going to a water park/amusement park for the day tomorrow. So if you read a headline in the papers or see a story on the news with some caption like, "Michigan Woman Snaps, Runs Screaming Through Park Ranting About Manners," well, you'll know it's me.
And trust me, I could run for a pretty long time at this point. It'd be a great story.
I don't rant much anymore. I don't usually need to, and I definitely don't like to, but after three solid weeks of close calls in the car, vague rudeness from family, and a broken toilet, I may have snapped a little last night.
The F and I were standing in line in Target, waiting to check out. There were two lanes open, and a group of French people standing several feet away from both of them, chatting amongst themselves. We stood behind them, patiently waiting, until another Target employee asked, "Are you two ready to check out? He can take you on lane 7."
Great, right? We go to lane 7, and just as we put our stuff down, this French bastard says, with an expression of entitled smugness on his face, "Um, excuse me? I was here."
No, motherfucker, you weren't. You pick a goddamn lane to wait for, and you wait for it. You don't get to hover in the big horizontal aisle and just cherry-pick your cashier. You do what the rest of us do: you pick the wrong fucking aisle, you bitch about how long it's taking as compared to the aisle you didn't pick, and you move the fuck on.
My problem is not that the guy was French. (As an aside, there's a comedian whose name escapes me--The F will know if he comments on this--who says that the difference between telling a story and being a racist is word order. You say "this Asian motherfucker" and you're clear. You say "this motherfucking Asian" and it's all, WOAH, HOLD UP. Anyway, he's a French motherfucker, not a motherfucking French guy.) The thing that bugs me that is related to his ethnicity is that because of how he sees me, he will go back to France assuming all Americans are pushy, rude morons who cut in line when in reality, YOU WERE THE ONE WHO FUCKED UP.
My problem is this: I hate being blamed for things that are not my fault.
It's not my fault that you don't understand how waiting in line works, but you make me look like a douchebag for following the Target girl to the register.
It's not my fault I had a green turn arrow and you had a red goddamn light, but you looked at me like I'm in the wrong.
It's not my fault you were in the not-turning lane and I was in the straight/left turn lane, but you just turned right the fuck in front of me anyway, nearly t-boning The F and me in the process, and you don't even acknowledge that you messed up.
It's not my fault that there are members of our family who have yet to see our new house, the place we've now been living for four months. It's not my fault if feelings get hurt over things that are out of my control. It's not my fault if my life isn't arranged how you want it, or if my house isn't arranged how you want it, or if the whole fucking world isn't arranged how you want it.
None of this is my fault, but through some clever maneuvering when I was a kid, I feel like all of these things are my fault. It's taking some incredible patience and effort on the part of the people closest to me to reverse this automatic acceptance, that whenever someone is upset, I'm to blame. But it's not going to do any good if the whole goddamn world keeps insisting on shaking my confidence.
I've been giving a lot of thought to this over the last few days, and the lack of empathy on the part of the rest of the planet is really starting to get to me. Everyone is simply concerned with themselves, and fuck everyone else. That's why people cut you off in traffic. That's why they walk in front of your car in a parking lot without even a glance in your direction. That's why they're in your way without apologizing, that's why they won't return your phonecalls even if they're family (and I'm still pissed about that--The F's dad's cousin was supposed to give us an estimate on new windows a month ago and won't return The F's calls and what the fuck, this is FAMILY we're talking about!), and that's why I'm starting to hate leaving my house.
It's not that people are intentionally bad drivers. I don't think they mean to be rude. It's that they're oblivious to anyone but themselves and it comes as a huge shock that things may have transpired around them affecting other people. They just assume they're first, or next, or entitled to whatever's coming simply because they're there.
I'm going on a mini-honeymoon tonight. We're staying at a hotel for the evening and then going to a water park/amusement park for the day tomorrow. So if you read a headline in the papers or see a story on the news with some caption like, "Michigan Woman Snaps, Runs Screaming Through Park Ranting About Manners," well, you'll know it's me.
And trust me, I could run for a pretty long time at this point. It'd be a great story.