I was watching the BYU – UNLV MWC tourney championship game yesterday. I’m a BYU fan, despite my feelings for the church. BYU didn’t play well, and ended up losing the game.
After the game, however, some idiot fans decided to get into it. On the news, they showed a bunch of UNLV fans on the court taunting the BYU fans.
What the hell, people? It’s a damn GAME. How completely stupid do you have to be to get into a fight because your team wins or loses a game?
We’ve got a neighbor with… issues. I have no idea how old she is — she looks like she’s in her mid to late 40′s, but since she doesn’t bathe, it’s hard to tell how much of her countenance is age and how much is grime.
Anyhow, this lady also two kids, who she can never get to school on time. Why? Because she doesn’t know how to drive. Or read, apparently.
She also regularly tells my wife and I how little money her and her husband have, how they’re on welfare (both from the state and from the church), and how they’ve almost been evicted three times.
What. The. Fuck.
I have told this woman several times that I don’t want to know the details of her sorry life. (I was a little nicer then that, but the basic message was the same.) She doesn’t get it. I don’t know if she wears her sad life as a scarlet letter, or what the hell’s going on in her mind. I strongly suspect that she’s got some sort of mental illness, but I’ve known people with some pretty bad shit goin’ on that have pulled themselves up and made something of themselves.
Now, I’m not a cold and heartless bastard (though, you may already think I am). I can understand that everyone falls on hard times, and everyone needs a hand from time to time.
What I don’t get is, when people continue to find themselves in the same situations… over and over again… year after year… why they don’t decide to do something with their life and make a change.
In this particular case, knowing what I know of this woman, I suspect that the main problem is laziness. Yeah, I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that these people don’t want to do SHIT and expect the rest of the world to take care of them. Her husband has had long, LONG bouts of unemployment, and invariably his parents end up taking care of them. Why work when Mom and Dad are willing to pay your bills?
What pisses me off more then ANYTHING, though, is the fucked-up example these two are setting for their kids. These kids are not far in age from my own children, and actually come over to my house semi-regularly to hang out with my kids. I hear from others in the neighborhood that these kids are BAD KIDS and that they do BAD THINGS. What I see is a couple of kids with no parental guidance in their life.
That’s what makes me the most angry about their situation. I think that once you have kids, you lose the right to be stupid. Period, end of sentence. Yes, I am well aware that the world does not work this way, but it’d be a damn better place if it did, wouldn’t it?
My wife and I just got done watching a National Geographic special about 9/11. They focused on speaking with the people that were actually there, and in a lot of cases talked to the emergeny operators and survivors.
I was surprised how emotional the whole thing made me. A lot has changed in my life since that day, most especially the fact that I now have a wife and kids. I think it hit closer to home as they talked about speaking with people in their last moments of life, and how most of them just wanted their families and loved ones to know they were OK.
Another emotion that erupted from within, which somewhat surprised me, was anger. That there were people in this world capable of inflicting that kind of damage on an entire society, merely because we believe differently then they do.
This is not anger with Muslims, Arabs, or any particular race or culture. This is the same anger I feel when I read about the man in Utah County who shot his wife, Kristy Ragsdale, as she was getting out of the car to go to church Sunday. Or when I read about Verne Jenkins, who was shot and killed after chasing a would-be thief out of a convenience store for stealing, of all things, a pack of gum.
It leads me to ask the question: What the HELL is wrong with these people?
Sometimes, I think people like this should be taken somewhere and executed. Painfully. Or tortured, or something far worse. Think of the pain and suffering these people and countless others have evoked on the friends and family these people have left behind.
And on the flipside of that intense hate, I wonder what circumstances could possibly have led up to these tragic events. What types of environments could these people have lived in to cause them to feel that these actions would somehow grant them a paradisiacal afterlife with God? Or, that shooting this person was the only way out of their current situation? What drives a person to kill?
In some ways, it’s why I fervently hope there is a God with the power to dish out punishments worthy of such offenses.
Unfortunately, all I can do is hope.
Today, a former employee came to visit us at work. (Actually, the guy that I replaced.) As I understand it, he left because he had several disagreements with other employees. I guess he just got to the point where he couldn’t stand it anymore, and walked out.
It became clear that he was still pretty upset with one of the individuals, in this case the “straw” that broke his back. When she said hi to him, his response was “Fuck you.” And I thought… “Wow, how classy. What a jackass.”
I started thinking about how silly it was that he was upset with her after several months had passed.
But, as I thought more about it… don’t we all hold grudges to one extent or another? I know I do. Especially lately… since it’s come to light that my in-laws are not particularly happy with me for one reason or another. I think that, for the most part, these sentiments wouldn’t bother me if these people were not such a big part of my life. If a co-worker expressed the same opinions, I would be a little bothered (to the extent that it affected my job, anyhow). If a complete stranger told me they thought I was a manipulative jackass, I’d tell them where they could stick it.
But these people are my wife’s parents. They are my children’s grandparents. As much as I’d like to deny it, their opinions (no matter how misinformed) do affect me to some extent. And, honestly, it’s a bit troubling that they feel so maligned by me.
Bottom line: I am holding a grudge against THEM just as much as they are holding a grudge against ME.
So, that’s a nice thought. Now, how do we fix it? That’s the hard part.
So, yesterday, my wife informs me we’re short on food. Yeah, December 26th. The day after Christmas. The day that a bunch of morons go to the store and return things they didn’t like or need or want.
Apparently I am one of those morons. I don’t like making two trips for ANYTHING. You wouldn’t either, if you had four kids. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone.
Here I am, at 7pm, standing in line to return my unwanted gifts. (Sorry honey. I appreciate the effort, though. All your gifts rocked the house, except for the ones purchased at the last minute. Which I told you not to buy anyhow.) I’ve got my daughter, who is awesomely well-behaved, and my barely-under-three son who is just thrilled he’s not sitting in the cart. The line is long, but not as long as it could have been (and apparently HAD been earlier in the day). Said child is starting to lose patience, and wants to go find Mommy (who is picking up the groceries whilst I wait).
I am not a patient person. I’m getting better (having kids makes this a necessity), but I’m still not perfect. The rest of these Wal-mart shoppers sure make me feel better about myself. Here’s why.
First off, why the HELL do people go to Walmart on the DAY AFTER FUCKING CHRISTMAS and get upset when there is a line for returns? How could you NOT expect this line? And how can you NOT be patient with the person in front of you, WHO IS DOING THE EXACT SAME THING YOU ARE WAITING TO DO?
Second off, why do you wait for 20 minutes, and then leave when you’ve almost made it to your destination? I don’t mind, because it means there is one less person in front of me… but, seriously, how much time did you really save? You’ve wasted the 20 minutes… waste another 10 and get your item returned!
Third off, please do NOT cut to the front of the line just to see how many employees Wally World has workin’ the customer service registers, and then stand and curse about the lack of staff. I’m no expert here, seeing as how I’ve never managed a retail store (thank God), but it seems to me that if they HAD more employees to staff this area, they’d PUT them here to man the registers so they can stop listening to people like you bitch. Oh, and did you notice the rest of the store? How they had every freaking checkstand open to serve the REST of the throng that is actually trying to PURCHASE something on the store credit they got for said returned, unwanted gift? Maybe THAT has something to do with the lack of staff here…
I made it through the line, got cash back on the returns (yay for receipts), paid for my groceries and got the hell outta there.
And I bought my “replacement” gift online. 