"The Ultimate Experience"

Those words are posted as an advertisement in the cafeteria in the complex where I work. The cafeteria where they are posted is managed by the Marriott Corporation, so we're told the food is really great, not that salty, fatty, over-priced slop that I see there every day. Anyway, I went down to the cafeteria this afternoon to get some ice water with lemon (only 22 cents!) when lo and behold I was captivated by a sign posted by the coffee service.

"The Ultimate Experience" the sign read in a nondescript, aiming-to-look casual font, and it was plastered all over the coffee urns like some kind of Marriott corporate fake-out. The Ultimate Experience? Excuse me? Should anyone DARE to take a cup of coffee and not be terrified that, in so doing, they were courting a growing depression that would eventually rob their life of any hope of joy and pretty much end it all? Because let's face it: after the ULTIMATE Experience it's pretty much all downhill.

Really, The ULTIMATE Experience? In a fucking cup of coffee? Well, shit, if I pour myself one of these magical suckers I might as well lay down and die immediately afterward. It will be, after all, The ULTIMATE Experience. Once I drink this coffee there will never be another experience in my life that will even approach this one since ULTIMATE is pretty much the tip top of anything.

ul - ti- mate (adjective) not to be improved upon or surpassed; greatest; unsurpassed

Greatest. Unsurpassed. Not to be improved upon. You better be fucking careful mofo, cause if you drink this coffee you will never, ever, in this life, approach this moment with anything even remotely resembling happiness or fulfillment or contentment. Finding "Mr. or Ms. Right"? Don't bother; you've already sipped The ULTIMATE. Having children? How could they ever hope to compare to The ULTIMATE, which you have, sadly, already experienced? They'll just be an ongoing and life sapping disappointment to you. Finding any happiness whatsoever through work or an avocation or just plain living? FORGET IT, MOTHERFUCKER! Been there; done that! You drank The ULTIMATE Experience, remember? Give it up!

Which is what brings me to the apex of this blog post: my burning hatred of the wholesale overuse of the English language in the name of the great god of commerce. THE BEST! THE BIGGEST! THE GREATEST! THE ULTIMATE! Is there no advertising executive with even one iota of shame when it comes to using superlatives to try shill for any product from flushable toilet wipes to a fucking cup of coffee?

Why not be more in line with reality? What's wrong with that? Instead of The ULTIMATE Experience why not: "Our hot, freshly brewed coffee. It'll wake you up!" Or: "Take a drink and get a jolt", or how about the simple, straightforward: "Our coffee: have some!"

I'm down with all the misplaced exclamation points, I mean I'm not a total curmudgeon. But for the love of all that is holy, please stop screaming at me about how your piddly ass product is going to be my motherfucking salvation!

I'm ULTIMATELY never going to buy it!

Thank You For Sharing Your Music With Me

Here in Baltimore we get about 3.5 truly nice weather days a year. It's either not cold enough for snow but cold enough for freezing rain or it's hovering around 100 degrees with humidity levels typical of the Amazon river basin.

Last Sunday was one of those 3.5 beautiful days with sunny skies, temperatures in the 60s and a gentle breeze. Now normally the ABIB is not an outdoor person. Normally just the thought of the outdoors gives the ABIB hives, but Sunday, for some reason was different. I was outside, enjoying the weather and cleaning out my car. I've probably mentioned that I live in a typical Baltimore rowhome community, which means that I, and everyone else in my neighborhood shares a wall with somebody. I'm monumentally unlucky enough to share both walls with somebodies. But one side in particular makes me regret daily my choice of real estate.

"Jesus Freaks Through the Wall" was the subject of one of my posts and they were out in force last Sunday, with all their Jesus freaky-ness in full, evil bloom. Religious zealots of any stripe make my blood boil. They of the self-righteous attitudes and holier-than-thou positions of pseudo superiority. But probably, for me, the worst of the lot are the Jesus freaks. Holy shit they piss me off! Sick fucking wierdos with their judgmental anti-gay, pro-life, I'm-going-to-heaven-and-you're-not crap. To quote a bad movie with one very good line: "Capital P, capital U, capital TRID."

There I was, minding my own business, cleaning out my car and enjoying the communal nature of the day, when suddenly the air was riven with the sounds of the most unspeakably insipid, vile despicable "music" I have ever heard. The spawn of the White Whale and Brunhilda had gotten into their GIGANTIC FORD EXPLORER and had turned the radio on full blast. To a Christian "pop" station. Big truck, big speakers, full blast.

"OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!! IN THE MORNING, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, IN THE LIGHT OF DAY, OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!! AWESOME, AWESOME GOD, OUR GOD IS AN AWWWWWEEEESOME GOOOOOODDDDDD!!"

What the FUCK? WHAT THE HOLY FUCK?! Suddenly all that could be heard, which amazingly enough even drowned out the continuous blast of noise that had been their enormous family squawking and honking and screaming and yelling and basically poisoning the air with their ever-present cacophany of SOUNDs, suddenly all that could be heard was this nauseating treacle with it's freakishly bright voices informing everyone for sixteen blocks that THEIR GOD WAS AN AWESOME GOD!!!

First of all, assuming Jesus Christ exists and if so, that he enjoys hearing music all about himself, wouldn't one hope that, as a freaking DIETY, he would have better taste than "OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD"? Lord have mercy, it sounded like the fucking Wiggles, like Barney the Dinosaur. Wouldn't Jesus be just a little bit more discriminating about songs about him? Shit, most mortals would! I'm thinking that he'd want something a little bit, oh, I don't know, BIGGER? How about the Star Wars theme? Or Indiana Jones? Or even Spiderman for Christ sake! But OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD with the synthesizers and the snare drum and the too-happy chorus of voices? I don't think so, babe.

So there I was, cleaning rag in hand, glaring with my angry, Jewish eyes toward the offending crush of sound, willing them all to instantly DROP DEAD, when White Whale figured he'd allowed enough of the healing power of the music to wash over my heathen head and he ordered Peppermint Patty to turn off the radio. Suddenly I could hear the birds again, the soft "whoosh" of the breeze through the tree branches overhead, the muffled sounds of life in the Garth.

But then the demonic shriek of Brunhilda rang out from inside the house like the screaming of the Hound of Hell:

"JORDAN!!!! WHY ISN'T THE FLOOR VACCUMED?"
"PETER!!! TAKE OUT THE TRASH!"
"MICHAEL!!!! SIT ON YOUR POTTY!!!!"

I take it all back! Your God IS an awesome God! I swear! I swear! I'll listen to the music until I'm cross-eyed, I'll do anything you say just PLEASE SHUT THAT SUCCUBUS UP!!!

Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?

Get Your Fat Ass Out Of My Way!

The ABIB was raised by two very polite people. Most of their sensibilities in this area were transferred to me so when I get confronted with IMPOLITE people I'm tempted to kick their ignorant asses through the nearest portal. But I don't; I just seethe inwardly and then empty my spleen on this blog.

It happened today. There I was, walking through the lower lobby of my very populous office building, navigating POLITELY through and around the hoardes of other people in my way. It was further crowded by the presence of a vendor selling her sickeningly sweet handmade crap surfeit with little stuffed Easter bunnies, little dancing plush chicks and other hand-made gewgaws aimed directly at the Anne Geddes crowd. Makes the ABIB vaguely nauseous. Which is why you can imagine I was in a bit of a hurry to navigate my way through the horde and get to the cafeteria for my breakfast food. That and since I also pretty much hate most other people, just being around so many of them in one confined space gives me the heebie-jeebies. French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre had it right: "Hell is other people".

I was almost to my destination when smack dab in front of me and everyone else for that matter, was a conclave, a gathering, a fucking herd if you will, of about six big, fat women. Standing there. In the middle of the path. CHATTING!! Chatting and laughing as if they were standing out in a 17 acre meadow rather than directly in the way of anyone coming from or going to the cafeteria. Which, at 9:30 in the morning, as you can imagine is quite a lot of people. So, small space, only one way in and the same way out, with oodles of space anywhere ELSE in the lower lobby, these ignorant bitches decide to have themselves a little "catch up".

GURRRLLLLL, you did NOT just say that!
OH YES I DID!
LOOK OUT, ya'll! Sista 'bout to throw down!
AHHHHHHHHAAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAA!!!
EEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Oblivious to the huffing and puffing and evil sidelong glances all around them as people squeezed by on every side, these gals just kept on hollering and laughing and BLOCKING THE PATH. I wondered then if, just this once, it would be OK to step out of my learned behavior, risk shaming my deceased parents who I imagine to be occasionally peering down from heaven and let loose with decades of repressed rude behavior. I picture it going something like this:

Say what? He was NOT in that condition on your anniversary!
YO! FAT ASS BITCHES!! LISTEN UP! Everyone in this hallway has had to circumnavigate past your ignorant lazy asses while you stand in the MOST inconvienient place in this building right now. Why don't you all just take your big 'ol butts to the left, the right or straight ahead and finish your conversation in such a way that not everyone but YOU is inconvienienced? OK? I think I speak for everyone here when I say that WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL LIVES! MOOOOOOVVVVVEEEE!!!!

Their heads would swivel on their fat necks in shock, at first not really understanding what was happening. A thunderclap of silence as everyone else stopped dead in their tracks since what was about to go down must surely result in someone's imminent demise. Then, outburst relieved, I would stride past, my stiff-necked indignation on display to the outpouring of applause and cheers of everyone else who wanted to do what I did but were, like me, raised to be polite.

SNAP! The ABIB wakes up from this lovely daydream and, with a passive aggressive scowl on her face, sidles past the oblivious buffalo herd as best she can, just like everyone else. Damn my good upbringing!

American Idolatry

OK, the ABIB is an American Idol fan hook, line and sinker. I get all wrapped up in the tryouts and the inexplicable auditions of some of the freakiest, scariest folks on the planet and then I get all carried away with the top 24 and then the top 12 and so on.

But I have to say that, even as a fan, I'm getting a little tired of having to listen to barely warmed-over copycats who have no original style and aren't called on it. For example, this year's batch has a guy who looks and sounds EXACTLY like Justin Timberlake. Now what's really crazy is that, in the ABIB's opinion, Justin Timberlake is a sucky-ass wigger who just a few short years ago used to be in a boy band. Yeah, Justin, we all remember 'Nsync. But now he's throwin' down like a regular thug from da hood. Please, he was in the fucking Mickey Mouse Club.

So here on this year's AI we have a Justin wannabe for Christ sake. I don't even want JUSTIN to be JUSTIN, let alone have one of my Idol top 12s trying to be him. And the thing that amazes me is that nobody calls him on it. God forbid anyone should try and cover a popular singer and present even the whiff of similarity. The judges enter into a chorus of "KARAOKE!" "I'm not gettin' you dawg; where's YOUR sound?", and the positive kiss of death from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm: "Well...you LOOK adorable!" If you can't please even Paula you might as well go the fuck home.

But this guy saunters out on stage with the day old stubble and the wigger Marine buzzcut and proceeds to fucking IMITATE Justin Timbergag. The same intonation, the same key range, the same godforsaken endless melisma. Its enough to make a fan PUKE! But the judges smile and heap praise on this KARAOKE MACHINE like it was absolutely the first time they'd ever heard this "original" sound. One of them even cited the way the contestant "reminded" him of Justin Timberfuck. Reminded him? Yeah, like Saturday reminds you of the day after Friday.

It's a real pain in the ass, but I keep watching because I'm a ho for the Idol and it gives me someone to rant and rave at outside of this blog, which is good because I generally have enough unexpressed rage built up after the average work day to fuel a moon launch.

So, bring it on Justina: you keep sounding like a warmed-over version of a really bad singer and I'll keep screaming at my TV and entertaining the neighbors. Or not.

Happy Edibles

At one time in her past the ABIB was a vegetarian. I had sworn off all animal flesh for a period of several years. What broke my resolve you ask? That well-worn meat eaters fiesta of gluttony: Thanksgiving. Yep, a few years back at a traditional family Thanksgiving meal that slice of holiday turkey on my seat neighbor's plate suddenly became irresistible and I took a piece. It was all downhill from there.

Now, I'm not sure if other fallen vegetarians suffer from the same periodic self-loathing that I do, but at random intervals I'm afflicted with a sense of profound failure. As I sit in the McDonald's line waiting to claim my fish sandwich I wonder: how did it come to this? But by god, I have to believe that it's not only the neurotic, guilt-ridden ex-veges like me that have a problem with the topic of this post.

By Happy Edibles what I mean is the need for humans in the advertising trade to anthropomorphize food. Why, just today while driving to work I saw, not once but twice, a truck with a picture of three smiling dead things. The tableau was creepy and inappropriate and just plain wrong: on the left a vaguely human looking cartoon cow positively beaming with joy, on the right a chicken with roughly the same amount of happiness emating from two twinkly eyes and a beak upturned in an open-mouthed clearly toothless smile, and in the center, with his two gigantic claw arms draped across the shoulders of the other two a red (boiled to death!) lobster with a bizarre set of humanish eyes and a nose. A NOSE! Now, quite apart from the physical impossibility of that since lobsters in their natural state live under water, the notion that humans are actually comforted by the happy faces of something that they are about to devour is just plain ghoulish. Its like something out of Night of the Living Dead. Christ, I felt like I needed to take a shower.

Then, when I got to work I reached into my lunch bag (the ABIB is nothing if not thrifty) and got out a fresh banana for a nice mid-morning snack. Lo and behold, there on the lovely yellow background of the banana peel was a Dole sticker that had a banana with a human face wearing a fucking baseball cap with a tee-shirt labeled "Bobby Banana". "Bobby Banana" was smiling (again with the uber-happiness theme) and cradling a RABBIT in his arms? What the fucking hell is THAT all about? Now my bananas are named, they wear clothing and are pet owners! Is nothing sacred? I mean, it's bad enough when they try to freak me out of eating meat thinking about those cheerful faces and the implied camaraderie of the lobster claws about the shoulder thing, but now the fruits, too? I have to make a decision if I'm going to eat "Bobby Banana" and leave that poor little bunny a homeless, banana-less orphan?

It's all too much; I'm going to back to bed and when I get up it's nothing but bread and water for me. Hopefully my loaf of wheatbread won't have sprung its own personality by then.

The Courtesy Flush

Let me begin this entry with a definition:

Ladylike, adjective: 1. like a lady; 2. befitting a lady: in a ladylike manner; Also, well bred, well mannered, courteous.

K? I work in an office. I am a female and there are, by my rough estimation, a hundred or so other females with whom I share a public toilet. Now its not like we all have to squat on the same can, there's a few of them in there, but the room that houses them is your typical communal space. Nothing but little stall doors and AIR separates me from the other few gals who, at any given time during the work day, are sitting on the can doing their business.

It's never, ever pleasant for me (and I'm guessing for most women) to use a public restroom. The variance of discomfort ranges from "let's get this over with as quickly as possible" to "Oh, fuck, no! I'll fucking HOLD it". The former is what I feel about my work bathroom the latter, any given gas station restroom. But somewhere along the way the rule book that I (and blessedly a few others) got was somehow not transmitted to the remainder of those BITCHES I am forced to share crap space with. I'm talking about the Courtesy Flush.

We all know that when you gotta go you gotta go and with the coffee and popcorn and other unspeakably horrible-smelling shit that wafts from the (also communal) microwave and that presumably people actually EAT, the ladies that share my crapper gotta go kind of alot. At any given time you can be sitting in a stall, minding your own business when out of the stall just a few feet (maybe INCHES!) away, come the unmistakable sounds of a big dump. I really don't think I need to detail them here; they're pretty much universal in the human species.

I'm stuck there, because, unfortunately, I, too, am mid-dump, and I begin to panic and to sweat and to say a silent prayer to the god of good manners, that this biotch got the memo: At all times we utilize the COURTESY FLUSH! The Courtesy Flush is just that: it's the courteous way to think of others who, through no fault of their own save the bad timing of their own digestion, are stuck seated so near to you that if there were no wall you could embrace. The Courtesy Flush is a flush that you exercise with each emanation from your bowels. Some goes into the crapper? Flush that sucker away! A few seconds later another blast? Flush, flush, flush! The secret of the correct use of the Courtesy Flush is speed. A hairtrigger flushing response is the ideal way to save your coworkers from the horrific situation of being engulfed within a brown cloud of the stench of your crap.

For those of you who have not gotten it yet, what the Courtesy Flush does is, to the extent possible, clear the air of the SMELL of your dump. It's not foolproof; some stink still persists, if say, there was fart action along with the dump action. But that smell, being considerably smaller, is largely contained to the stall. But, Christ Almighty, it's a far cry from the monstrously unthinking, self-centered hos who insist on sitting, flush-less until they are completely and totally cleaned out! HEY! Just because you are enjoying the aroma of your own brand doesn't mean the rest of us are! Don't the choking sounds and the moaning coming from ALL AROUND YOU give you a clue? FLUSH THAT SHIT AWAY, HO!

I've even heard vocalizations coming from other stalls (and maybe even have uttered one myself). They sound almost involuntary: "Oh MY GOD!", "LORD HAVE MERCY!" "Gagggggacckkkk". But does the perp get the message? Nope. She persists on sitting in silence, awash in that unspeakable stench, as the rest of us gag and retch and struggle to get finished as quickly as possible so that we can escape that odorous Hell.

I think that toilets should be rigged with automatic odor sensors that trigger a response whenever one of those lazy bitches refuses to do right by the rest of us. As the stall fills with her stink and the flush handle remains idle, a recorded voice should be tripped on that says loudly and repeatedly in a shaming way: "YOU ARE A STINKY LADY! YOU ARE A STINKY LADY!" followed by the flash of a tiny camera mounted in the stall door that snaps a pic of the ignoramus. Then, once a week, those pics get posted on the bathroom "Wall of Shame" for all to see and identify. So the payment we'd get is a good laugh as we stagger out the door. Considering what that place smells like on any given day I'd hardly call it even but it'd be a start.

The Seventh Circle of Hell...Cubicle World

Working, as I do, in a rat's maze of cubicles, has given me a new appreciation for the evil genius who invented the "cubicle". Cubicles, it is said, are meant to create a world of collaboration among the congenial colleagues that come, lunch pails in hand, into the wonderful, open-space world of just about every bureacracy on earth. What these mauve and grey colored jungles actually do is create a world of sounds, sights and smells from which you, as a cubicle worker, can never, ever fucking escape. It makes matters monumentally worse when the cubicle village is ringed, as it generally is, by the offices (with CLOSING DOORS) occupied by the elite in our pathetic world: management.

Can't you see it? What they've got going here is a caste system based on the hierarchy of rank that has been awarded to those who kiss ass the very best by those who have kissed ass before them. Dating back to the stone age I see an unbroken string of lips pressed to asses in an obsequious frenzy of groveling. The currency of this evil culture is privacy. If you are important you get to close your door on the teeming unwashed whenever you want.

"I can't stand to see your sorry, loser asses anymore", smartly translates to: "Sorry, my door's going to be closed for a bit, I've got a conference call that requires my attention."

"What a bunch of saps you all are, how I loathe your pathetic insignifigance", becomes: "I've got to close the door for a bit to work on your evaluations".

And finally, the exercising of the true perk of being in the monstrous elite class known as management, "I'm going to take a little nap now and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it. Get back to work!" becomes: "Please don't disturb, I've gotten an assignment from senior staff that has to be done by COB".

So the rest of us sit, cheek to jowl, awash in each other's funk and personal crises without one iota of a sense of self-respect while our feeble-minded managers sit, like so many Jabba The Hutts, behind the blessing of a closed door. I picture them all in their self-important "manager meetings" behind those same closed doors blithely sharing stories and chuckling at their own grossly misplaced sense of importance.

But for me, one of the worst of the cubicle world affronts is having to listen to the pointless "small talk" that passes for communication in the world of cubicle-ites. The favorite topic, hands down, is the weather. Punctuated, as all good cubicle banter is, by the ALWAYS misplaced fake laugh firing off like some kind of mutant machine gun. "Whew is it hot out there - heh, heh, heh; heh, heh it's too cold for me; Holy Mackerel heh, heh, it's not cold enough; wow! How about all that snow? heh, heh, heh; sure would love a heh, heh, snow day; oooooo, how are we going to drive if the weather gets worse heh, heh, heh; have you been outside heh, heh; Is it warm out? Need my coat? Didn't remember my hat, and boy was I sorry HEH, HEH, HEH!" On and on and on and Oh....MY....GAWD! SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU INSIPID MORONS!! Christ Almighty!! What did I do to deserve to be trapped in this wasteland? Let me say this here and now: people who are not funny (which is the VAST majority of humanity) relinquish all rights to polite protocol when they insist on foisting their NOT FUNNY shit on the rest of us. "How's about this one, dorkwad: YOU'RE NOT FUCKING FUNNY! HEH! HEH! FUCKING HEH!!!"

Then there are the lucky bastards that can actually manage to escape into sweet, sweet sleep while trapped in Cubicle Hell. Who cares if everyone can hear you snoring? See your slobbering drool hanging out of the corner of your mouth? Motherfucker, you've ESCAPED! Escaped the mindless, soul-searing "chit-chat", escaped the burps and the farts and the personal crises played out endlessly within earshot of all of us when some poor sap has to make a phone call. "Luann, honey, drawing a pentagram on your teacher's car with an Exacto blade is not good judgement, now is it? Hello? Hello? Hellooooooo?" Awkward silence as we all peer ever more intently at the glow of our computer screens and pray for the day to end. Or for the bitch to shut up. Or both.

Cubicles were created for one thing: to make office workers feel like the unappreciated drones that we are. Privacy? Rats don't need privacy! Peace and quiet? You can get that somewhere else. Here you're one of the many, the proletariat, the underclass. If listening to some slob slurp his coffee and scrape the bottom of a styrofoam cup for 15 minutes to get the last drop of oatmeal every single fucking day makes you want to jump out the window, then dude you best start puckering up 'cause those offices don't come cheap.

Bend over bitch!

The Gender Divide

How is it that the average middle-aged woman is constanty reassessing her appearance, her demeanor and her wardrobe, while the average middle-aged man is blithely unaware of exactly how boring, homely and unspeakably un-funny he is? I see it all the time where I work: middle-aged men who have likely worn out the welcome mat at home years earlier, hanging around the cubicles of younger, attractive women and offering preposterous "banter" aimed at charming said younger women. And believing that IT WORKS!!!

I mean, dude, have you LOOKED in a mirror this decade? You're not a "playa", you're a fucking homely-ass freak, for God's sake! In spite of your heroic efforts at containing it, your flabby-ass gut is blobbing over your "hip" Sansa Belt slacks and your shirt buttons are hanging on for dear life. How can you not see that? And another thing: stop trying to flirt with us! It's just plain sickening is what it is. YOU'RE OLD AND NOT RICH!!! WE'RE YOUNG!! GO AWAY!!!

Bad posture, yellow teeth, rheumy eyes and that terrifying comb-over, quite against the popular "wisdom" of your current issue of "Old Dude", is not sexy, not appealing and may very well be fodder for legal action. Back off, buster, or we may be forced to yank that bad rug right off your big-ass bald head. And no, it wasn't fooling anyone.

The ABIB Hates to Love...

Starbucks. I have been known to pride myself, (largely delusionally) on being one of the many, the salt of the earth, without pretense, airs or sense of entitlement. Of course in reality I am ALL of those things and then some. The ABIB is your basic alienated, effete urban snob and like so many others of my ilk cannot get enough coffee. I've said before in this blog that I do love a good cuppa and that my daily routine, God help me, includes the local Dunkin' Donuts drive "thru". What I'm about to tell you now is that on the weekends, being the good urbanite that I am, what I truly and deeply crave is: a venti Starbucks latte.

So here we are, at the crux of my deepest fear: I am, indeed, one of THEM. I just used the words "venti" and "latte" in the same sentence. The fact that I used them at all fills me with a deep and abiding dread and makes me just a wee bit nauseous. But they're DELICIOUS. I love their foamy tops and the creamy steamed milk that perfectly blends with the strong espresso. Excuse me, I have to go puke.

Thanks, I'm back. Anyway, I figure that the penance I pay (and rightfully so) for being such a Starbucks whore, is, well...Starbucks. Is there a more dreadful place on earth than any given Starbucks on any urban street in America? If you've ever been in one you'll know that the answer to that is an unequivocal: OH, HELLS NO!

You know the drill: you get in line to place your order and immediately you realize that for the forseeable future you are going to have to listen to the latest urban-cool music which has no discernable words but does have a digeradoo playing in the background. The music quickly becoming a milquetoasty nuisance, the next thing you notice is that you are literally surrounded on all sides by the scariest people on earth. The person (you think its a person) right in front of you is a woman who is wearing jeans that have a crease (they've been fucking ironed, but not by her, you can bet your ass), are approximately a size one and are just the right level of faded to make them look "hip". Which, on this woman, is the only reason you would ever use the word "hip". She's wearing the latest six hundred dollar pointy-toed, designer high heels and her hair is coiffed to within an inch of it's life. Her nails are perfectly manicured (you can see them because she keeps reaching back to fluff her hair) and she's wearing sunglasses inside. In February. At 5:00 PM. Also, she's talking in a constant, low-level stream into the Bluetoof earpiece of her Blackberry-enabled, five hundred dollar cell phone.

Everyone in there looks like her, except you, in your sweats and your sensible Birkenstocks and your pulled back hair, unwashed beneath last year's Disney World baseball cap. The sounds you hear are almost too much to bear, as voices sing out: "double espresso, triple skim, decaf latte, two Equals" and "cinnamon machiatto with a shot, low fat soy, four Splendas", and "vanilla frappachino, no whipped cream, half ice, half skim", and...and...and God help the poor sucker who gets up to the counter and orders the unthinkable: "a large coffee, please". A thunderclap of silence as everyone swivels in place to look at this alien in their midst, and they all take a single step back to give him a little bit wider berth. His uncool vibe, his plain, sad sack demeanor, his utterly unassuming taste could be, godforbid, contagious! He actually blushes with shame and you feel a certain kinship, a deep empathy (run for your life you poor sucker!!), but you dare not speak as he shuffles out, head down, eyes averted. You dare not because you're still waiting for your delicious, dirty little secret in the shape of a cup full of milky foam. It's that bad.

And it feels like if you don't get your fix soon your head will explode from the psychic dissonance of actually BEING inside the Starbucks, waiting with all of these CREATURES who never, ever, ever stop being obnoxious and nattering about nothing, "I told her that her daughter needs to get into the group, her CHI is out of wack and it's not helping the other kids at all at nap time".

I guess I deserve it. What can I say? I'm a ho for a good latte; we all gotta pay for our sins. And inside your head the chanting begins: "one of us! one of us! gooble gobble! gooble gobble!"

Self Love: Is There Any Other Kind?

Saw a bumper sticker today that actually made my angry little heart go all pitty pat. It was simple, straightforward and completely out there. It said: I HEART ME (replace the word heart with the actual little red heart shape and you get the real picture). I HEART ME, all CAPS which as we on the 'net know means that YOU'RE SCREAMING.

For a moment I was stopped in my tracks, so amazed was I at the sheer audacity of such a brazen statement. But slowly as I regained my composure, it began to dawn on me: "yes, how perfect, how diabolically, selfishly perfect, and so simple, so pure, so...right, somehow". I HEART ME, motherfuckers! ME, not your smarmy, earnest little Greek chorus of tragedy that goes sailing by me on the beltway and on side streets and in parking lots. Pity the poor Chesapeake Bay (SAVE the Bay!), shout outs to every breed of animal imaginable and some we'd rather not (I Heart My Ferret), and the ribbons, Christ gag me with every conceivable "cause" from "Autism Awareness" to the purple and black"Ravin' Maniacs" football fools, to the ubiquitous yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbons. Ack.

Oh, no, this brilliant soul cut straight through all that do-gooder crap and called a spade a spade, goddammit. I HEART ME, motherfuckers! All the rest of you whiny-ass wimps can eat my dust, I be all about lovin' number ONE! Brought a tear to my eye, it did and as I stared at that little gem for a few moments in the Giant supermarket parking lot I committed to this blog post as a kind of homage, a commemoration, if you will, of someone who clearly knows that when all is said and done, the autistics and the troops and the fucking Chesapeake Bay ain't there to tuck you in at night so you might as well show the love where it's most appreciated: to your own bad self.

The ABIB stands in awe of such evil brilliance.

Are There Any Creatures On Earth More Foul Than:

TEENAGE GIRLS? I tell you with all certainty that they are directly FROM HELL ITSELF. Minions of Satan, direct descendents all of The Dark One himself, they skulk around befouling this fine planet with their insipid comments, their mulish adherence to "group think" and their monumentally vapid behavior. Plus the fucking bitches are as mean and as dangerous as poisonous snakes three weeks shy of a meal. You've seen them: in the malls, on the street, maybe (godforbid) in your own home. Take care and stay sharp, cause they may sound like harmless valley girls "oh my gawd! fersher!" but they will take your fucking head off, eat your brains and have a good night's sleep. All with a sweet smile and an "I was just kidding!" Don't be fooled; these simpering, cross-eyed, buck-toothed faces will go from smiles to fangs so fast you won't have time to escape.

And that's all I'm going say about it...well, because you never know if one is...around...lurking nearby and ready to pounce. The ABIB is backing slowly away from the computer now 'cause them bitches seriously give her the creeps. Fer sher.

"In Case of Rapture...

"...this car will be unmanned."

Saw that on a bumper yesterday and didn't know where to begin. For one thing, a WOMAN was driving the car. HAH! What a sad sack: the bitch doesn't even get it that "in the case of rapture" her ass is still going to be driving that old jalopy. I can picture it now:

Christ descending from Heaven, his beatific light shining on his beloved acolytes, his caucasian face beaming benevolently at all the dear souls as they fly on past up to their heavenly reward behind the pearly gates. All the male acolytes, that is. Those poor saps with boobs and a snatch are stuck behind the wheels of their sadly labeled vehicles, faces upturned, waiting for THEIR turn to fly, fly, fly. Sadly, a turn that will never come. Because the label speaks the truth, sistas: unMANNED.

Closed eyes begin to peep open as they realize: what the fuck? I'm still in this old-ass Buick? They scan the now empty landscape, devoid of all of their godly men, who, of course, being MEN, unMANNED their cars at the rapture. Christ, his earthly work now done, waves "bye-bye" as he heads back home, the last of his "unmanned" cars now empty, as promised.

Sorry, Charlie! Better luck next rapture. What a silly little oversight. What's that you say? There won't BE a next rapture? Oh, the irony of it all.

Stop Telling Me What To Do...NOW

How many times have I heard this one:

"Have a blessed day."

No thanks, if its any of your fuckin' business I think I'll just have a regular day.

The Highway Idiocy Continues

It has been my experience that all other drivers are insane and/or incredibly stupid. Please allow me to refine that further: all SUV drivers are giant douche bags with a constant need to justify their sorry-ass existence to themselves by bullying all other drivers on the road. Fuckers. Just a quickie to illustrate this point since I'm cooking dinner and the ABIB has MAD SKILLZ when it comes to the kitchen!

Baltimore is not known for doing well when the white stuff falls from the sky like it did today. In fact, Baltimore pretty much goes ape-shit when the white stuff falls from the sky. So I'm on the beltway, a five-lane expressway that circles Baltimore where the average speed is about 63 mph. Now the white stuff had been falling for about an hour and it was mixed (as it often is here) with freezing rain or sleet or some such crap. So you'd think that people might ease back to, oh, say THE SPEED LIMIT, which here is 55 mph. Most of us did, in deference to the laws of physics that say: motherfucker if you have to make a fast stop on this slippery ice you are seriously fucked up if you're travelling anywhere near anyone else. Plus, that sorry loser is as fucked-up as you are and he/she didn't even DO anything.

Here comes the big ass bully, the cowboy of the highway, the gigantic SUV barrelling up the left lane at approximately 70 mph. He (notice how I assume this behavior is a testosterone-based affliction) comes up behind some poor sap foolishly driving in the left lane at about 60 mph. What does said SUV do? Inch up (still driving at least 60 mph) to within a foot or two of the other car's bumper and hang there. On the treacherous road conditions, above the speed limit.

What a monmumental fucker! I'm, of course, driving in my car in the center lane screaming at the moron to "please, please, PUHLEEZE, do us ALL a giant favor and drive into a cement divider" and, (as Gandalf would say) "rid us of your stupidity".

Of course, my words weren't exactly quite that genteel, since I'm not an otherworldly being in the guise of a wizard. Yes, the ABIB is a Lord of the Rings geek and the first one of you that makes a crack about it's gonna get it. Here. In this blog. Won't be pretty, guaranteed.

What? I Have to Pay For This?

The ABIB loves a good cup of coffee. That's why I go, every morning of the work week, to Dunkin' Donuts for a big cuppa. It's all good, right? Couldn't be more wrong. The Dunkin' I go to has a drive "thru" window (thru? what? we're so rushed we can't even take the time to read the entire word?). Now usually there are several vehicles in front of me and I place my order:

"dunkydoobassinrah mayahelpu?"
"large coffee please"
"large coffee, creamandzugar?"
"no sugar, extra cream"
"large coffee, nozugarextacweam dollasixseven drithruwin"

There you have it; couldn't be more simple. I have my $1.67 or some amount above that out of my wallet and ready on the seat beside me. Now, as I've said there are always several vehicles in this line; we ALL have approximately the same amount of time to sit on our asses in our heated or air conditioned vehicles, radio on or not, and contemplate whatever it is we want to contemplate. Nobody, but NOBODY in that line is even remotely pressed for time when it comes to having their money ready. Oodles of time, seas worth of time, a vast expanse of time as the two or three or four Dunkin' lovers in front of you slowly advance to the window, pay, collect their booty, and leave. Invariably, though, there's some schmoe who didn't get the remedially simple memo that: YOU HAVE YOUR FUCKING MONEY READY AT THE WINDOW SHIT FOR BRAINS!

We move forward; the glacial, but steadily advancing pace lulling me into the false hope that today, maybe today, will be the day that they all get it right. The planets will align, the karma will hum and all will be right in the world of the Dunkin' Donuts drive-"thru" line. WRONG SUCKER! Why just yesterday it happened. Inching forward, as each giant SUV in front of me cleared the line and drove away my hopes rose. Three more, two more, one more car in front of me and then, well I guess you know what happened next.

You've all seen it: the silhouette of the fucker in the car in front you looks up at the drive-"thru" window attendant with confusion. They exchange a few words that, of course I can't hear, but I always imagine it goes something like this:

"large coffee and two frosted donuts, that'll be $2.25"
"Huh?"
"Large coffee and two frosted donuts, $2.25"
"I have to PAY for this? Oh hell, no! Well you're gonna have to wait while I rummage for the next seven or eight minutes for my purse and then my wallet and then while I forage around in the five or six compartments of my wallet for the money"

And we wait. The rest of us losers with our good do-bee habits, our money out and ready and waiting for OUR chance at the window, we wait. Here's what I think ought to happen next. I think that I should be able to purchase an attachment on the front bumper of my car that, at the push of a button from the air-controlled interior of my front seat, will cause a forged steel "cow catcher" to emerge from the car's grille and then I get to rev my engine and fucking rear end that lazy bitch into next week.

Ahhhhhh...wouldn't that be grand? Then I'd be at the window and, after all, I do have my money ready. More coffee, please.

Those Madcap Minivans

So I'm driving today, which I hate due to the crappy drivers that I encounter wherever I go, basically all of them, reference earlier post on that one. And while I'm driving I find myself sitting behind yet another generic Ford Windstar or Dodge Caravan or, god help us, the Dodge GRAND Caravan. So what's with that distinction? Is the mere Caravan only transporting the harem while the GRAND Caravan is toting around the Sheik himself? Anyway, I'm stuck behind one of those infuriating monstrosities (can't see around 'em, can't see over 'em, can't see under 'em, all you can see is THEM) and I find myself having to stare at the collection of inane messages on the back of said "minivan" (what? was a regular van deemed to have too much of a hippie connotation to the white, suburban mother of 2.5 children and one dog that is their demographic?). So, again, I'm staring at the back of this vehicle and having nothing whatsoever to do (can't see around 'em, remember?) I find myself reading IQ-lowering messages like the puke-worthy: "Mom's Taxi" (get a fucking job, bitch!) or "My Child Made the Principal's Honor Roll at Tiddly-Fuck Middle School", and the preposterously pompous "Again", "and Again" stickers affixed atop the original "brag-worthy" message to the rest of us. Well, guess what, Mom: in case you haven't been paying attention, the public school systems around here are in such a fucked-up, sorry state that your little darling's designation on the "Principal's Honor Roll" probably means that he/she managed to show up at school and not set the classroom on fire for 90 consecutive days. And the "And Again" one, well, I think you can figure that out for yourself, babe.

So I'm reading these silly shout-outs to the rest of us who, of course, couldn't give a rat's ass about their little attendance allstars, but who have no choice, sitting, as we are, behind this squat abomination of a...what, exactly: is it a truck? a bus? a truss? But then my eyes rest on the one that makes me want to exit my vehicle, tear said "Mom" from the driver's seat, trailing the bluetooth earpiece mid-air behind her, and pound her within an inch of her sorry, comfortable little life. Yes, folks, I'm talking about the soccer ball that is affixed to just about every godforsaken minivan and SUV on the roads today. What? Is it some kind of secret cabal that makes you sign in blood when you drive one of those stupid things that your kids automatically have to be enrolled in every competitive sport available today? Which, as you know, ranges from diving to horseback riding, to hockey, curling and (my personal favorite since these kids are generally the biggest assholes among the asshole elite that today's child "athletes" have become) yes, I'm talking about the lacrosse players.

So, depending on how many "Principal's Honor Roll" candidates this bitch has spit out, I could be staring at a soccer ball, a lacrosse stick or the ubiquitous "LAX" sticker (they make lacrosse sticks, I can't fathom how LAX relates to that, either) a baseball, basketball, tennis racket and/or a shadow figure on ballet pointe, for christ sake. Hmmm, I wonder, now I know that this is a "minivan", and I know that it is being driven by a woman somewhere between the ages of 25 and death, and I know that she is wearing expensive exercise clothes (because, depending on the time of day she is either enroute to or from her Pilates class), and I know she's sipping from a Starbucks cup (triple decaf skim latte, no foam, three Equals) and that her hair has been coifed into that generic yet primped style that says: "I've got the money to look like I don't try all that much, don't you admire me?".

And now I see the soccer ball. Thanks, bitch, for that clue as to who you are. I guess without that darn soccer ball to alert me I would never have guessed that I'm late for work and I'm stuck behind the woman we all LOVE to loathe, unless of course you're one of them, I'm talking, of course, about THE SOCCER MOM! Soccer Moms spend all day running errands, going to the gym, getting coffee and talking to other Soccer Moms about their KIDS! And of course, shuttling their little darlings all over creation, because godforbid they should have one freaking moment to themselves to just sit and stare at the wall.

I often find myself wondering how we as a nation can be in the grips of this terrifying obesity epidemic with so many Windstars and Explorers and Caravans, both Grand and not, getting in my way and blocking my view of everything except their goddamn SOCCER BALL STICKERS. Why, we should be setting the world's standard for fitness by my observation, 'cause you know what: these bitches are everywhere!

Pharmaceuticals: Listen Up

To all of you at the major pharmaceutical companies pouring millions of dollars into research for new drugs to get people to sleep, I have a tip:

Tape any random meeting at any random bureaucracy and I will guarantee that your customer will be in slumberland within mere moments.

So to recap: don't worry your heads about how you're going to pay for those trips to the Amazon River Basin to collect iguana spit or down to the Nile Delta to dig up some 2,000 year-old, preserved camel dung. Just trot your asses down to the nearest Radio Shack, pick up any old tape recorder and find yourselves a meeting to record.

Guaranteed that the endless, droning blather (such that I just heard and had me fighting mightily with the NEED to escape into sleep) that you collect will pay off in spades when these little tape recorded sleep bombs fly off the shelves for you. And just imagine the profit margins! Good times, good times.

Jesus Freaks Through the Wall: My Neighbors, Part I

Oh the joys of living in the squalid, communal, shared-wall existence known in Baltimore as the row home. As in "I live in a rowhome, hon". And I do, god help me, I do. In some places in my house I can hear every syllable uttered by one of the five kids that Giant Jesus Lover (also know as the White Whale) has sired. He of the giant belly, the balding head, the glasses and the short stature (dude stands about 5 foot 5), has somehow convinced two women to breed with him. First wife he divorced after having three kids with her. Interesting, isn't it, how these holier than thou "christian" types frown on everything the rest of us in the secular world do because it doesn't gibe with their view of the world, which is largely informed, by the way, by a 2,000 year old book, but as soon as they personally need something to extricate themselves from some nasty, little mistake, say, a marriage, then with a wink and a nod suddenly divorce becomes A-OK. What a bunch of idiotic saps.

So White Whale breeds with wife number one and she spews out three urchins that we'll call Peppermint Patty (the oldest girl, named as such since her father has said that she'll be the first girl to play professional football, I think you get the picture), the middle boy is Junior Mint (so named since he's Jr. to his father and he's just a shade minty), and the youngest is the Other Girl (so named because, well, she's so nondescript and boring that coming up with a spayshul name for her just didn't make sense). These three are at their father's house, and therefore at MY house, too, constantly. Who knows, maybe wife number one didn't buy into the whole "Christianity is my life" like her wack-job ex and so is deemed "unfit" to mother by White Whale and wife number two.

Wife number two gets her own paragraph because she's just that...I don't know...colossal. We call her Brunhilda. Picture, if you will, a woman who stands, oh, about 5 foot 8 or 9, weighing in at a cool 275 with a face that would stop a clock and a hank of red hair (are you a natural redhead? EWWWWW), that is in a state of perpetual scowl. Brunhilde is so named because she looks just like she stepped out of the Valkyries, sans horned helmet. A big, brutish woman with a face that was etched into stone from 1,000 years of life picking potatoes in the fields of Lithuania and then pounding them into submission with the same zeal that she pounds her kids and the White Whale into submission. She don't give no-one no slack; our Brunhilda rules the roost with an iron fist and woe be to the man, woman or child that opposes her. She'll smite you, motherfucker.

Brunhilda likes to scream and when she screams in her house she screams in my house. So I get to hear this BITCH'S big, fucking mouth every godforsaken day of my life. What a treat, considering at a conversational pitch it's got that nasal, pinched squawking quality that when given the volume that those Valkyrie lungs can manage, can make your ears bleed. I hear her scream at White Whale's first three and I hear her scream at White Whale, and I hear her scream at her two unholy spawn, namely: Frankenbaby and Big Buford.

Frankenbaby is a freakishly giant three-year old whose steps on the hardwood floor of his upstairs hallway can be heard through a closed door. In my house. Through the wall. Yo, I'm not making ANY of this us up. How could I? I mean, really. Frankenbaby has his father's and mother's giant body, his mother's slitted eyes and round, flat peasant face, and his father's short, stubby legs, plus they've got his blond hair in a Marine buzzcut, which is inexplicably the style around here among the blue collar unwashed who are my neighbors. So basically, this incoherent (Frankenbaby still speaks in gibberish that only Brunhilda can understand) giant thunders around the house and babbles and when he gets a wild hair because one of his slaves (I mean step-siblings) doesn't hop-to-it fast enough to suit him, he opens a mouth and lets out a bellow that can raise the dead. So I get to hear him every day, too.

Big Buford is Frankenbaby's baby sister. I'd say she's just over one year old. Basically she's Frankenbaby with icky, pale brown hair tied into a preposterous Pebbles ponytail on top of her head with a pink ribbon. Thank Christ it's pink, to give people a fighting chance when they try to make a typical gender-based comment: "what a cute, little...girl?". We don't hear all that much from Big Buford yet but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

Did I mention that they're Jesus freaks? Did I? They drive a big Chevy Suburban that takes up two parking places on our parking-challenged, little street and they've got that fucking Jesus fish bumper sticker on one side of that big-ass boat of a car and on the other is the ever-so-subtle "She's a Child, Not A Choice". Well guess, what, fuckers: I'd say the jury's out on that just yet. We call that big, obscene vehicle The Jesus Van. It figures, right? I mean, why wouldn't people who are already taking up WAY more than their share of MY air and MY water and MY fucking SPACE on EARTH with their fucking BROOD of cretins, be driving a giant, gas-guzzling, environment-despoiling monstrosity that takes up WAY TOO MUCH ROOM?

In case you haven't noticed, I fucking hate my Jesus-loving, earth-over-populating, giant car driving neighbors who, since I live in a "rowhome, hon", LIVE WITH ME!

My Job

I work in the equivalent of Tod Browning's "Freaks". For real. Here's the deal: I say all the time that you can't make this stuff up, that if my friends and I went to a TV producer with a pitch for a new office TV show and all we did was exactly describe the people at my office they would never believe it. "Oh, hell no" they'd say, and "nobody is actually this bad". Dude, you have no idea.

Let's start with Thong Boy. See, we give them code names, well, for obvious reasons, of course, but it's also really mean. And that's good. See the title of this blog for explanation of that. Anyway, here's the deal: Thong Boy wears a thong. Just like Stoop Kid sits on his stoop. What? You've never watched "Hey Arnold"? Loser. Anyway, Thong Boy is probably about 50-55 years old and unless you havent' made the connection, the fact that he wears a thong and that we know it because he said so one day at a luncheon (don't even start me) is like one of the creepiest, ickiest pieces of information you can know about a stoop-shouldered, balding, baggy pantsed (in a creepy old man way, you know what I mean) wierdo. It's right up there with "I'm having to wear adult diapers these days". We got one of them, too, but that's the topic of another post.

Thong Boy sits on a funky pillow because he has a bad back. The pillow is covered by a pillow case that, to my observation, has never, ever been removed and washed. Did you get that? Thong Boy sits his funky ass on a pillow (the kind the rest of us lay our HEADS on for Christ sake) all day, every day. Freak. He carries it with him to the cafeteria and sits his funky ass on it down there while he stares out the window, presumably to regain his equilibrium because: Thong Boy is also Nature Boy. He farts in his cubicle (into said pillow, for sure) and he walks around the building all the time, presumably to get fresh air, but in our cubicle farm life I'm always happy as hell when he's on one of his jaunts 'cause you know, he's gone; always a good thing.

So Thong Boy drinks lots and lots of water, I guess because it's supposed to be good for you, who knows, maybe he's also got kidney issues. But he's too fucking cheap to actually BUY some water, so he's got these two-year-old, empty, glass green-tea bottles that he just keeps refilling (at no cost to himself) from the purified water dispenser in the front office that THEY pay for but for some godforsaken reason nobody has ever stopped him and said" Yo, you cheap-ass motherfucker! How about actually contributing a few bucks to the water fund considering you guzzle it down like a freaking' water buffalo." People in offices are WAY too polite in my opinion.

So, because of where we are situated in the cubicle lane, Thong Boy's endless water refills take him past my cubicle, on average, five or six times a day. I can hear him starting his water refill journey: the old, filthy empty bottles clink together annoyingly as he gathers them up, and they continue clinking as he slowly shuffles by, stoop-shouldered, his face always screwed up in the same, infuriating, slightly confused expression. He passes by my cubicle and I grit my teeth because I know that in a few moments he'll be coming back, old-ass bottles filled with water. Cheap bastard.

So what if, one day, I just reached out a foot as he was passing by with his filled bottles and tripped the dork? I can't tell you how many times I've gone over this scenario in my mind: the sight of him losing his footing, the idiotic expression switching on a dime to that one that says: "Oh shit, I'm going down and when I hit the floor, man am I fucked." But the best part would be those old-ass bottles as they go flying through the air (this part I actually imagine in slo-mo), the water spraying everywhere, but mostly on him, and the sounds they make as they hit the floor followed immediately by the thud of him landing on them and maybe, just maybe, cracking one of those suckers all to hell. A shard in the eye? The ear? Sever a fingertip? If that wouldn't keep his sorry ass out of the office for at least a month, then nothing would. Hell, maybe he'd put in his retirement papers. A bitch can dream.

Who Gives a Rat's Ass

The Ravens? Oh, please.