"Please Listen Carefully..

as our menu options have changed." Hmmmm...where have I heard THAT request before? Oh, yeah! On every annoying outgoing message on every automated IVR (interactive voice response) system EVER! When, in reality, did most of these incredibly dynamic, ever-changing environments actually change? Roughly 1998. Sometimes they try and fuck with us a little by adding the doubtful word "recently", as in "...as our menu options have recently changed." Then they hook your ass into listening to the entire, fucking list even though you know...you KNOW that nothing has changed in this telephonic wasteland since, as I already said, roughly 1998. I can usually imagine the digital tumbleweeds rolling along the fiber optic cable between me and whatever purveyor of whatever I happen to need right then.

Me? I don't care if all I need to do is check a balance, as soon as I hear that fucking, old-ass trope I immediately press 0 for all it's worth. Even if 0 means that I'm lining up to hear the selections in Croatian, I don't care because usually it means I get to speak to a person. I know, I know exactly what you're thinking right now: ABIB what are you, like 80? Isn't that the Number One complaint of the pre-Boomer generation aside from the loss of daily home milk delivery? No matter; I refuse to be mentally manipulated by a recorded voice who lies about something as easy to identify as how recently an automated menu has been all changed up. What? I wanted to talk to someone about purchasing a subscription! Fifty seconds ago that was number three but now it's number five and three minutes before that it was number eight! Holy crap! Thank goodness for this recorded warning or I would have gotten all kinds of hosed up in this impossible-to-decipher labyrinth of numeric choices. Depending on the relative sophistication of the ever-changing menu system, I'll get asked a couple of times if I'm sure that I want to go ahead and select 0, don't I instead, maybe want to listen to the menu choices and let the IVR lead me to a more specific, a more direct, a more personalized menu option? Uh, no, asshole. I want option 0.

So then, once it's realized that it's electronic entreaties to me to be more sheeplike have fallen on deaf ears (on a phone, hah!) the IVR is programmed to punish you. OK, asshole, it thinks, now you find out just how sinister and repetitive I can be.

Please enter your 10-digit telephone number now!

Hmmm....I just did that like 30 seconds ago when I first began this relationship. So I enter my 10-digit telephone number like a good little consumer.

OK, so I'm sure that I'm sending you to the right department, please enter your 14 digit account number now.

Hey, wait a minute! I did THAT just after I entered my 10-digit telephone number...for the first time! But I know she'll never let me get to the Holy Grail of the actual human behind door number zero unless I jump through her automated little hoops. So now I enter my incredibly laborious 14-digit account number and I have to do it at least twice because the first time I forgot where I was in the string of numbers and then the second and third times I fat-fingered the wrong entry on number 12 and had to go back to the beginning.

OK, whew, 10-digit phone number: done! Fourteen digit account number: done!

Just another moment and I'll connect you...

The fuck?

Please enter your zip code now! Your nine-digit zip code!

At this point, with the sweat beading on my forehead, I swear I can faintly hear the staccato of her automated, electronic chuckle and it sounds so very, very...evil. Man (or in this case, woman) against the machine. My human resolve is being tested; I know that I cannot falter or show weakness because she'll know and then I'll never, ever, ever get out of this electronic maze of digital choices constructed to keep humans confused and subservient and so very...grateful...when we finally reach the correct end point. Bring it bitch.

Slowy, with the careful dexterity of a bomb disposal expert, I enter my full, nine-digit zip code. There is a moment of silence, which I choose to construe as stunned, as she realizes that she is beaten but no, there's one more test in this battle of wills. In a cheery chirp that is nothing if not a thinly veiled warning she delivers the coup de grace.

Almost done! Using the letters on your telephone's numeric keypad, please enter your mother's maiden name followed by her place of birth. And the name of the hospital in which she was born. And the name of the attending physician.

Oh, how I hate you with your perky vacuousness, your perfectly enunciated, non-regional diction, the sound of the bitter smile pouring through your words. The final gauntlet has been thrown down; this is the defining moment, human versus machine. Will I make it to the other actual human voice waiting at the end of this electronic tunnel of the test of my resolve? You bet your fucking non-corporeal ass I will.

Mother's maiden name: check. Place of birth: check. Name of hospital and attending physician: after a two-hour search through Mom's strongbox for her birth certificate and an examination through a magnifying glass of the 87 year-old, smudged, hand-written entries: check. Take that you electronic harpy from Hell!

Th-thank you for choosing Best Buy. I'll connect you now. Have a NICE day! Call again REAL soon!

The feeling of complete satisfaction, complete vindication, complete victory is a physical sensation! I WON! I WON! I WON! I...

Hello, this is Christina how may I help you?

A real human voice!

Hi! I'm interested in your gaming subscription services.

Oh, well this is car audio installation. Let me put you back to our automated menu to get you to the right person. Have a great day and thank you for calling Best Buy!

Wait! Wait! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Food Zombie Alert!

I'm pretty sure that Food Network self-proclaimed "Barefoot Contessa" aka Ina Garten is a zombie. No, but really she's an insufferable, pretentious annoyance who inexplicably has her own cooking show wherein she regales her viewers with barely audible brags about her wealth, her incredibly well-heeled friends and her vast past experience running her chi-chi patisserie. In the fucking Hamptons. Someone is always stopping by to eat with her big ass and gush to her about her amazing cooking. She makes constant reference to her Republican operative husband who supposedly adores her big ass in spite of well, her big ass, and is fan numero uno of whatever special crap she chooses to whip up in her kitchen. In the fucking Hamptons.

Anyone who refers to themselves as "Contessa" shod or not is a grade A douchebag. It's not bad enough that you dub yourself a Countess but then you have to make it the Italian Contessa for good measure. What a tool. And the way she talks so quietly as if she's sharing a delicious little, well-bred secret with us. Except that we're sitting in our rowhome living room in Baltimore and she's...say it with me now: in the fucking Hamptons. And that stupid, nervous giggle that punctuates every third word and tells me that she thinks of herself as some coquettish little minx. Even though she's gotta be past the halfway point between birth and 100. It makes me want to hurl my perfectly buttery, homemade pie crust at her self-important, piggy little face. So, ABIB, you must be thinking about now, why not rouse yourself from that well-described TV stupor of yours, fumble for the remote and press the button whereby the channel gets changed and you no longer have to watch Ina Myna Moooo? Why not indeed reader? Well, considering I am The ABIB, I watch insufferable prigs like Ina Garten that I clearly despise because, well, as The ABIB all that resentment and bitterness are manna from The ABIB heaven, the food that fuels the righteous ABIB anger, to stay on point of today's rant. I love hating Ina Garten just like I genuinely LOVE loving Paula Deen my Redneck Queen of the Screaming Arteries. You see, Paula is the anti-Ina. Paula is the celebrity chef equivalent of chewing tobacco, PBR and Slim Jims, she's the reason I tune to the Food Network as often as I do. Her and "Down Home With The Neelys". OK, OK and Sandra Lee. I mean when your signature recipe is The Lady's Brunch Burger and it consists of fried burgers topped with bacon and fried eggs all served between two halves of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, you're a special kinda crazy. Ina's signature recipe is...yawn...Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese sandwich. I love me some Paula. Not that I would actually ever cook and EAT any of the poisonous slop she prepares, I'm not NUTS ya'll. I watch Paula and Sandra and the Neelys because, well, they're fucking funny to me, being the ironic, snark meister that I am. But I digress.

Let me just conclude this evening's rant with this: Ina Garten is a self-important, pampered one-percenter who needs to come on down to Paula's place in Georgia for a week to get some deep fryer spray in that $500 haircut of hers. And let the Redneck Queen show her how the other half lives. The half that's not WHERE? In the fucking Hamptons! Food Network, it's your move.

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Smartphones: Taking Over Human Interactions One Byte At A Time

Happy New Year kiddies! Being the curmudgeon that she is, The ABIB is always glad when the holidays are approaching and then even gladder when they are done. Although I do love our sparkly, perfectly-shaped Christmas tree! Anyhoo, been closely monitoring the alien takeover of our species and I'm here to give you an update, folks.

Smartphones: those amazing gadgets that can do everything from the mundanity of making a call (YAWN) to helping you to propagate the species (Hey, Siri, where's the closest sperm bank?). Yes, they have invaded our lives to the point where I have to speak out, to issue in the strongest terms a dire warning: THEY ARE HERE TO ENSLAVE HUMANITY! Yes, folks, it's true, smartphones have been sent by...who knows but my bets are on the Thetans (more on that later), to take over our lives and they're doing it with our enthusiastic, nay, sycophantic complicity. It has reached the point where, if you don't have a smartphone you are considered to be either, a: sadly unhip/downright hayseed-y, and/or b: a fucking cheapskate. See, they have cleverly begun the tide whereby they turn us against each other with themselves as the point of belonging. I know what you're thinking: Hey, ABIB, what's your fucking problem? Are you one of those sadly, self-deluded "superior" types who resist the inevitable, technological move forward? Are you still laughably reading paper books and printed magazines? Are your feet hopelessly stuck in the mud of pathetically outdated Luddite landscapes that keep you vainly rooted to the past? Fair questions, my friends to which I say: FUCK NO! Hey, I have a cellphone (of the non-smart variety...does that make it a "dumbphone"?), I have FIOS, I have Facebook, I Google stuff! No, this is not about The ABIB being a bitter crank (which of course, she is), it is about humans being drawn inexorably into the Android, iPhone, whatever-other-world-construction of our own doom. Can anyone say "The Matrix"?

To wit: I was at the movies the other day and as I was making my way to the restroom, witnessed another theater in the vast multiplex emptying at the conclusion of a movie. Now, generally people go to the movies with at least one, but sometimes several, companions. Ostensibly they do this in order to share the experience, to have another PERSON to talk with about the movie, to be coupled in the same human frame, if you will, namely ENJOYING A MOVIE! So, there I was making my way to the can and was suddenly surrounded by a sea of people WHO HAD JUST SEEN A MOVIE! To my horrified amazement, one by one, immediately upon exiting the auditorium, they whipped out their smartphones and began to slavishly tap things into them. Now, I have to believe that at least TWO of those fuckers were together but I'm guessing the tally is much higher and rather than, oh, I don't know: ACTUALLY SPEAKING TO THE PERSON(S) WHO HAD ACCOMPANIED THEM TO THE MOVIE AND WHO HAD ALSO JUST VIEWED IT, they chose instead to begin communicating with their smartphones. Do you see where I'm going with this people? Where is the logic in actually being in physical proximity to a companion and, rather than engage that OTHER HUMAN in a conversation, instead you choose to communicate electronically with someone at a distance, or perhaps, in a more sinister vein, directly with your phone. This shit is FUCKING CREEPY, PEOPLE! I watched in amazement as they drifted by, unaware of others around them, mesmerized by whatever was being sent to them through the tiny screens in their palms. I tell you, if Rod Serling were still alive this would make the grand daddy of all Twilight Zone episodes.

One need only turn on the TV (see last post on THIS sorry subject) to find oneself lost in a morass of weirdly passive humans all willingly giving up their autonomy to their beloved smartphones. Two commercials in particular come to mind because as I watched them I found myself wondering: who the fuck wants to be like this? The first takes place outside a Verizon wireless store, it's a snowy, pre-holiday night and people are milling around (outside?) when one-by-one Verizon employees begin to activate electronic, smartphone screen-driven versions of things previously available only in the natural world. They "light up" an electronic version of a roaring fire, they activate an electronic tree of smartphone screens that make it "snow". The humans, rather than being horrified at the wholesale robbery of basic reality (FIRE AND SNOW? ANYONE?) are instead mesmerized, awestruck, their blank, shining eyes glazed over with what can only be described as hypnotized emptiness. FLEE MOTHERFUCKERS!! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!

OK, so the second piece of TV commercial evidence I present to you is one for AT&T and their new 4G network, whatever that means. Two lazy-ass motherfuckers are sitting inches apart in lawn chairs, clearly at a football game tailgate party, they are, of course, not speaking to each other or anyone else, rather they are slavishly "interacting" with their AT&T smartphones on the "blazingly fast" 4G network. Three different humans approach them with "news", the first being about ticket availability, he's excited, animated, this is, after all, GOOD news! They slowly raise their deadened eyes and in the MOST INSUFFERABLE manner possible, display their smartphones to him in unison, with proof that, not only do they already know about the available tickets, these two horse's asses have already BOUGHT them and they are waiting at Will Call. The refrain they offer to their HUMAN FRIEND who brought them this information? A superciliously superior snark of "so 27 seconds ago." The message of course being: resistance is futile, asshole; we will always win! This scenario is played out two more times, with the exact same trope: a friend approaches with what is "news" only to be shot down by these two motherfuckers who, in the same shitty way let them know that information gathered in the real world can't hold a candle to their 4G network-powered smartphone reality. And their lazy, fucking asses have never left their lawn chairs. "So 27 seconds ago". This commercial actually makes me want to hurl my television off of the highest building and see it smash into tiny smithereens on the concrete below. "So 27 seconds ago". I saw this commercial for the first time and I found myself wondering WHO WANTS TO BE LIKE THIS? Who indeed...my friends...who indeed. Well, if our smartphone alien oppressors have their way: ALL OF US!

But you don't have to give in! Resist! Buy a cheap-o dumbphone on eBay and use it for calls and (OK, OK) the occasional text! Fight the power! Risk ridicule and the marginalizingly withering bon-mots of your friends as they ironically try to shame you into joining up with the undead. Keep texting on your sadly ancient numbered keyboard, ignore the jibes of "why don't you get a REAL phone?" I have endured all of these and more in the name of the survival of our species' ability to think for itself and not rely on "Siri" (the same name as Tom Cruise's Scientology spawn? Coincidence? Thetans? Hey I watched the South Park episode, I know the deal!) to answer all of your questions. Get a fucking MAP for Christ sake! Wake UP! Think for yourself before it's too late! Don't make me go all Morpheus on your asses, because I would NOT look good in those pince nez sunglasses, people!

TV is Melting...Melting

So its been awhile. The ABIB has been dealing with a serious sitch that has kept her tethered to home and hearth for some time now. Of course being the pop culture/media vulture that I am that also means that I have been tethered to my TV morning, noon and night. Here's what I've learned while glued to the tube:

1. "The Jerry Springer Show" is way more entertaining than anyone with half a brain and an expensive education, save The ABIB, will ever admit. Being the modern equivalent of the Victorian freak show, it provides one with that dirty little voyeuristic peek behind the curtain that our hoop-skirted predecessors used to pay a halfpence for. Freaks of every stripe with tons of baby-daddy-cheating-boyfriend/girlfriend-teen-seeking-to-have-a-baby-to-her-trailer-park-Mama's-crocodile-tear-stained-chagrin drama and little access to modern dentistry scream, pull hair, spit on each other and practically speak in tongues during the jam-packed hour of mayhem and magic. Plus, the studio audience at any given Jerry Springer taping could, in a pinch, sub in for anyone on the stage. It's a hoot to sit in your living room watching the craziness unfold, feeling vastly superior and haughtily amused, while simultaneously praying that nobody chooses to drop by and actually see Jerry Springer on your TV. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

2. When all else fails I can actually watch back-to-back episodes of "The King of Queens". But then I have to take a shower afterward.

3. Most daytime commercials are hawking horrible fast food crap and they fetishize cheese. Every foodstuff from hotdogs dripping with eight different condiments to the endless versions of greasy burgers available at a dizzying panopoly of grease joints, to, I kid you not, a cheese-stuffed filet mignon, EVERY SINGLE FOOD PORN SHOT CONTAINS DRIPPING CHEESE! Being pulled apart in slo-mo so that it slooooooowly separates between the two halves of whatever it happens to be dousing, or clinging seductively to a forkful of chicken/beef/fries/tortilla chips. Clearly melting, oozing cheese is the visual food equivalent of the Playmate of the Year for the unemployed/under-employed goons (save superior me, of course) who are watching reruns of "Yes, Dear" at 2:30 on any given weekday afternoon. For the record I think all that melting, dripping cheese looks vaguely like puke and it would never sell me anything. Clearly I am not the daytime TV demographic that these food emporiums are aiming for. Thank. Christ.

4. "Maury" is the low class equivalent of Jerry Springer. The sad souls that appear on Maury Povich's show were not deemed to be highbrow enough by Jerry Springer's producers. Baby Daddy Drama is routinely supported by the hard forensic evidence of a DNA test to determine paternity with Povich himself delivering the news to the man child on the hot seat. Slowly he extracts the test results from the plain, manilla folder as everyone breathlessly waits to hear of this lowlife's next eighteen years in and out of child support proceedings or of his ongoing condom-free juggernaut of baby creation. Invariably the "culprit" affects the bored expression that clearly states: "I couldn't give a rat's ass." Frankly, neither could I, but it's way fun to see the triumphant baby mama leap to her feet in angry, superior glee as she announces how "NOW she's gonna get her money for that baby"! Good luck with that, sis. But these DNA test segments are really just the lead-in to the real power of "Maury". If you have a taste for the truly bizarre, keep watching and you will be rewarded. If you find yourself unable to stop laughing at ladies that have paralyzing phobias of balloons or pickles (I actually saw this on a "Maury" segment), clip on your diamond-studded grille from the Dollar Store and sit back and enjoy because "Maury" is for you, my friend. At this point in the show "Maury" literally has no boundaries. Each of these two women were respectively chased with a fistful of inflated balloons and pelted with a variety of pickles. They screamed! They ran! They tried to crawl into a corner! They could not escape the relentless "Maury" crew members who pursued them with the objects of their phobia with the relentless zeal that can only be mustered by a production assistant hoping to hang onto her job past the end of August. For the record: I laughed so hard I peed a little.

5. The nighttime version of number three above is ALCOHOL. Beer is the most frequently shilled beverage but depending on the hour, the network and the show, you can also be sold all manner of wine and a variety of hard liquor. Where the daytime coin of the realm is clearly shooting at the heart of slothful gluttony, the nighttime counterpart is all about skinny women, bubbles and FUN, DAMNIT! Skinny women raising bubbles to their smiling, Restalyn-plumped, shiny lips, views of skinny women laughing and shimmying in sparkly, slinky dresses, gauzy as a dream, through the bubbles lazily floating in a perfect champagne flute and bubbles foaming aggressively over the top of a beer mug in a clearly sexual explosion of froth and FUN, DAMNIT! Everyone in these commercials is continuously laughing, laughing, laughing. It's a never-ending world of FUN, DAMNIT! I guess it looks like fun if you're slumped on your couch with a chestful of potato chip crumbs and a stomach full of sour beer burps working their way up through all the melted cheese and greasy burgers. Because let's face it: TV is the universal hypnomachine and any time you sit down and flip it on you run the risk of waking up in a disoriented haze seven hours later amid Checkers food wrappers and McRib sauce vaguely craving a glass of something with bubbles and needing to put on a sparkly dress. But you know what? The dress looks pretty good on me.

Praise the Lord...

I got my car back! Oh happy day! What a joy it is to be driving once again in a REAL car that doesn't smell like stale urine for the first five minutes after turning on the air conditioner. In a car that doesn't prompt people to hum the "Sanford and Son" theme song whenever I drive up. In a car that actually has working shock absorbers that keep every little crack in the road from feeling like a full-on kidney punch.

Aaaahhhhh....so nice. It was really great returning the Enterprise Rent-A-Hoopdee, too. I got the obligatory:

"And how was the car?"

"It was terrible."

"What?" I was a little surprised to see just how startled the Enterprise employee was when I told him that piece of truthiness.

"Well, it was dirty, it smelled pretty bad alot of the time, and I'm now wearing a hernia truss as a result of repeated jolts to my back from the "suspension" in the car."

"Hmmmm...so sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, well."

Nothing more, no offers of any compensation for my trouble, but in all honesty I didn't make any demands either. And the part about the hernia truss? I threw that out there to him just for dramatic effect. I mean, have you ever seen one of those scary-ass things? Yikes. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and conclude this sordid chapter in my vehicular life. My beautiful smelling and looking car was out there waiting for me, it's silver paint twinkling in the sun idling patiently like the loyal, comfortable, excellent little conveyance that it is. Such a relief. And just think of all the free time I have back now that I no longer work for Enteprise Car Rental!

Apparently I Now Work for Enterprise Car Rental

So a couple of weeks ago my car was rear-ended getting onto the Baltimore beltway and now it's in the shop getting fixed until they feel like giving it back to me. Car repair guys: the frenemies you love to hate. But that's another post. This post is all about getting a rental car to tide you over until your real car is fixed. My insurance pays a pittance daily for me to rent a car from Enterprise Car Rental, a company that has apparently figured out, brilliantly I might add, how to run a business that not only generates easy income, but also gets it's customers to perform the work that any other business' actual employees would be expected to do. To wit: I got the car that was deemed covered under my pittance of a rental allowance and, no surprises here, it was a run-down, tiny, kinda scuzzy (lots of old spills of what I don't want to know staining all the upholstery and black spots of unknown origin or identity on the ceiling [black mold is a strong contender]), make that VERY scuzzy Hyundai Accent. With fucking CRANK windows and manual door locks. Really, Enterprise? Really?

So anyway, I picked it up and drove off the lot already feeling the beginnings of a headache induced by the atomically powerful odor of whatever industrial cleaning agent they used to expunge Lord knows what from the interior of this car. So basically I'm driving around in a hoopdee that smells 24/7 like the inside of a gas station restroom. YAY! I'm already planning how I'm going to call the repair garage hourly with escalating outrage that my CAR ISN'T READY YET, when I turn on the windshield washer to get some shit off the windshield only to find that the passenger side wiper blade is literally hanging off the frame in shreds. What the FUCK!? So now I've got those incredibly ANNOYING streaks that come from a wiper blade that isn't quite making total contact with the glass and the weather man is calling for storms. I'm in a pickle, aren't I? I figure I'll head home and deal with it tomorrow because by now my head is thrumming and I can't feel my nose.

So, brand new day I call Enterprise and in my best, most polite professional voice explain my windshield wiper dilemma and ask what should be done? I'm told to bring it in the NEXT day at 4:00 PM (apparently the only people that hold jobs are the desk jockeys at fucking Enterprise Car Rental but I need my wiper blade replaced so...) and they'll be sure to get it fixed right up. Praying it doesn't rain I plan MY schedule around Enterprise's bewildering timetable because, well, I have to.

Next day, at the appointed time, I drive the little rattletrap onto the Enterprise lot and head on into the waiting room. Nobody is apparently all that busy but I still wait a good five minutes for someone to acknowledge my presence. When they do it's as if I just then walked in because I get a cheerful, bright:

"Well, hello there! Welcome to Enterprise, how can I help you?"

Uh, OK. I explain that I had called ahead and that I'm the one driving the "car" with a shredded wiper blade. Here's what went down:

"OK, well I can switch you out to another vehicle or you can drive down the street to the Firestone place just past the next traffic light and get them to install a new wiper blade."

"Excuse me but the car's right out front; can't you just install a new blade here?"

Now she's getting a little annoyed with my lack of understanding of just how much (or how little) Enterprise actually does to keep it's vehicle fleet in good repair. Listening to her I'm starting to worry about other things...like the brakes.

"Oh, no, no, no, we don't actually SERVICE the cars here. That's done somewhere else. So do you want to swap out to another car or just drive on down the street?"

"Well, if I take another car will I be charged for getting the gas tank from one half to three quarters full which is where it was when I picked the car up?" As I ask this I'm looking at the little white board whose numbers are clearly updated with an erasable pen daily on just what that gas will cost me per gallon, Enterprise-style. I see that today's special price is posted at $5.25 a gallon. I just drove past at least three gas stations posting prices around $3.45 a gallon. Oh, Enterprise, you silly goofballs! You can take your fucking gas prices and go fuck yourselves.

"Oh, yeah. You'd be charged the gas for getting it back to where it was." This followed by a tight, "customer service is SO annoying", smile.

"So just to be clear: my two choices are either I get another car and pay the gas cost, which I see is $5.25 a gallon, or I drive it myself down the street and get the wiper blades replaced?"

"That's correct; of course we'll pay Firestone for the wiper blades."

"I see...well then I guess I'm driving down to Firestone."

She walked away from the counter, made a 30 second phone call to someone at Firestone and told me I could just go ahead down there.

Out I went, back to the rank, scuzzy hoopdee, and drove it, on MY TIME, down to the Firestone station where they replaced the wiper blades and sent me on my way. Thanks Enterprise Car Rental for letting ME help YOU do your fucking JOB because everyone knows just how critical that job is and that, in comparison to the criticality of your job, just how insignificant MY PERSONAL TIME is. Yeah, thanks for that.

So there you have it. I don't remember putting in the application. I don't remember ever being interviewed by anyone but apparently I am now a low-level, car-shuttling jackass who works FOR FREE for Enterprise Car Rental. Folks, it don't get any better than that.

A Story That Should Have Ended In A Classic Spit-Take

You know the kind I mean: the movie character takes a sip of some nameless drink just before hearing some kind of shockingly funny/surprising/angering news and forcefully sprays said nameless drink all over whoever/whatever is directly in front of them? Yeah, the classic "spit take". Now that we have that out of the way I'd like to bring your attention to an outrage...OUTRAGE...that I just read about. Some fool of a woman went to a Philadelphia area Dunkin' Donuts (or as I affectionately call it "Dunky Doo" co-opting the Bollywood phrasing that my BELOVED Pinky uses when taking my daily coffee order at the local DD squawk box) and alleges she ordered a coffee with artificial sweetener, only to find out, after drinking most of it down, that it was POISONOUS sugar in her coffee not the artificial kind as requested. She drank most, but not all, of it down and began to feel dizzy and light-headed and took herself immediately to the emergency room. Of course, something was WRONG WITH THE COFFEE and as an alleged diabetic she was convinced that Dunkin' Donuts had tried to kill her and now owed her an unspecified but sure to be ginormous sum of money in restitution for her terrible, terrible suffering.

Join me in this won't you: OH! BITCH! PLEASE! Now don't get me wrong: I fully understand the seriousness of consuming sugar when it is medically contraindicated, but even a DOCTOR will tell you that, as a diabetic, a few ounces of sugared coffee aren't going to put you into full-on sugar coma status. Plus, bitch knew to save some of the offending drink so that her ambulance-chasing, on TV at 2AM "lawyer" would be able to have it tested to bring serious scientific evidence to the slam-dunk case against the evil corporate drones that willfully tried to kill his client. Now I know that the world is filled with venal people, many of whom are always waiting for the chance to make a quick buck but this is just plain crazy. This is a client that Jackie Chiles would be salivating over. And I especially draw the line at this kind of unsubstantiated mud being slung at MY DUNKY DOO!!!

Anyone who has EVER tasted artificial sweetner in ANYTHING knows for a fact that it is NOT SUGAR. Likewise, if you're used to the taste of artificial sweetner, which I'm sure this constantly-on-the-edge-of-diabetic-disaster gal must be, you know at the first taste that it is SUGAR. Excuse me, but where does this numbskull's personal responsibility enter into the equation? I've mistakenly gotten sugar in my morning coffee order, immediately recognized the flavor as sugar, and returned for the correct order. NO BIG DEAL! So now, in addition to warning me that my hot coffee order is indeed likely to be hot, I'm going to have to read the disclaimer that it might also contain, entirely by mistake, of course: sugar.

I guess what I hate the most about stories like this is that we've reached this place where anything, from sipping a hot liquid to using a hair dryer, have to be filled with written (and in the case of the hair dryer) illustrated, warnings meant to disabuse the stupidest and most dully unaware amongst us, of the potential for disaster. My hairdryer says: DON'T USE THIS IN A BATHTUB FULL OF WATER OR YOU'LL GET ELECTROCUTED!! Just in case the person can't read there are pictures of said hair dryer falling into a tub full of water with horrible, gigantic lightning bolts aiming directly for the poor soul who just wanted to save some time and dry his/her hair WHILE BATHING!

See, to me the fact that we have to warn people who don't know that when they order a HOT COFFEE THAT IT WILL BE HOT, and that when they BATHE THEY SHOULDN'T USE ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES, we've all gone downhill and it needs to stop. I figure, if someone has to be told that "the delicious beverage they are about to enjoy is hot" or not to use a hair dryer while showering, they should be culled from the herd. Let them use that hair dryer while bathing, get fried and be done with it. Do we really need that DNA around anymore? I'm thinking maybe it's run it's course, you know? Who takes a shower and dries their hair? It doesn't even make crazy-person sense.

So anyway, I'll be hoping to see in a few months time, that this frivolous lawsuit was dismissed by a clear-thinking judge and that this avaricious harpy has been reduced to opening pickle jars at the local supermarket so that she can say she slipped on pickle juice and wrenched her back. But sadly I'm thinking that Dunkin' Donuts will settle out of court thus empowering all of the other pea-brained ninnies out there concocting their own exploits in easy money at 2AM while surfing home shopping channels. If I knew where she was I'd send her a year's supply of Splenda and tell the jackass to just order her coffee black and sweeten it herself. But you can't sue anyone for that, now can you?

Ripped From The Headlines!

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A Quickie

So I'm watching TV this evening and here comes a commercial for some version of Crest toothpaste. So they're shilling all about it's great success with scuzzy, funky teeth and to demonstrate how successful it is they employ a CARTOON, an ANIMATED demonstration of a toothbrushful of the Crest successfully removing green slime (not kidding, it was green) from the CARTOON teeth. OK, I get that no human who actually has GREEN shit on their teeth would be in decent enough shape otherwise to allow for an actual live action demonstration of Crest removing said green from otherwise white teeth. If they've got green on their teeth they're probably a) largely missing most of the rest of them; green on one's teeth is never a good sign; and b) the ones that are left are probably mostly brownish-grey.

So there it is, CLEARLY a CARTOON ANIMATION of toothbrushing-away-the-slime. It's all good until I notice that underneath the CARTOON activity there's a printed disclaimer that says: "DRAMATIZATION". Really, Crest? Really? I'm guessing that the people who need to be told that what they're watching, that is to say, the CARTOON that they're watching is a DRAMATIZATION, probably can't read the word DRAMATIZATION and if they can phonetically sound it out they don't know what the fuck DRAMATIZATION means. When we need to tell viewers that an ANIMATED toothbrush scraping away green slime from CARTOON teeth is a DRAMATIZATION, well then, I think we'd all better just hang it up. Even more disturbing is that I'm watching TV at the same time that this majorly disoriented, r-tard demographic is also watching. Time to seriously re-evaluate my leisure time activities. Fo rill.

Hallway Etiquette

This will likely be one of my shorter rants today, folks, because, in all honesty, it's such a straightforward bitch that I can't imagine it's going to take all that long. Today we'll be discussing hallway farts at work. Yes, that's right; hallway farts at a workplace where ONLY GROWN MEN AND WOMEN WORK. This is not a daycare center, elementary school, middle or high school where one MAY be able to forgive such behavior. No, this is the same federal facility that you've read about here before with the unfunny "comedians" and the screaming, door-blocking conversations and the hallway obstructing slow walkers. And it's populated by only adult employees.

Now I don't know about you all but I learned that it's rude to fart in a public place at a pretty young age, not least of all because of the high risk of horrifying ridicule and public outing. "He who smelt it dealt it" was always my favorite as it provided the novel twist that someone might try to outwit the rest of us by being the first to accuse but that we were having none of it. We always knew it was that person not least because the cloud of odorous shame hovered in their general vicinity. And don't try to walk away from it, mofo, that bitch be followin' your sorry ass. Literally.

So, here's the thing: I've mentioned before that my federal building has a bomb shelter-y basement within which you can walk from the elevator exit to the cafeteria. As a result there's normally a decent number of people traversing that underground cinderblock mecca going to and from the gym/cafeteria/coffee bar that exist on the ground floor. Two days ago I was walking that path with two co-workers who I am thankful to have working with me as they provide a blessed diversion from the normal caliber of others that I have to deal with on a daily basis. Anyway, there we were, walking from the elevator to the cafeteria when we passed another person walking in the opposite direction, toward the elevator. I nodded with a silent congeniality that I in no way actually felt, as we crossed paths with him.

Not 15 seconds later I and my two friends walked into the most fucking heinous fart cloud I have encountered in some time. And being a person (as all people do) who farts, I feel fairly sure that I can safely call a heinous fart when I smell one. The hallway seemed to constrict as we all gasped for air (an involuntary but dreadfully inappropriate action considering it brings MORE of the stench into your nose) and I believe I actually gagged.

"OH MY LORD!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"MOTHERFUCKER THAT IS HORRIFIC!"

It was everywhere and seemed to last forever. We walked faster; it followed us. It took us to round a corner and travel another good 50 feet to finally escape that wall of stench. Now, you know as well as I do, that the person that we had just crossed paths with was the cretin who had left that carpet bomb directly in our path. I know that because it was too fucking fresh, the air still too saturated to be anything other than very, very recent. So, I'm thinking, that fucker probably figured that as he was moving away from the offensive cloud, that he could never be pinned with the crime. Wrong, motherfucker! I remember your face and now I know that you cracked off that nasty fucking explosion and that YOU. ARE. NASTY MOTHERFUCKER! How much of a rude, ignorant asshole do you have to be to think that something like that is OK? Where were you raised...in an OUTHOUSE?

When I see him again, and it's just a matter of time, I'll probably do something childish like make a loud farting noise on my bare arm as I get just past him. I suppose I could confront him like an adult and demand to know, face-to-face how on earth he thinks it's OK to fart in public and then flee the scene of the crime like the chump that he is. Not unlike a crime scene though, this perp leaves behind air that points a finger with the authority of a good DNA sample. I figure that the loud, childish fart noise might make him think twice before he does it again. But maybe I run the risk of offering him up the kind of secret handshake known only to members of a hidden cabal, as in "yes, I too engage in our forbidden pasttime, fellow dweller of the underground fart chamber".

Whatever, if it makes him at least think twice before he does that again I will have done my job. With my luck though, he'll stop doing it in the hallway and wait until he gets in the elevator. Now THOSE are the worst! The door is closing as it hits you and then it's TOO LATE TO GET OUT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The World Continues to Fill With Ignoramuses (or is it Ignorami?)

Greetings all, tonight I'm here to talk to you about, as the title of this post says, ignorant-ass people. Now, I've touched on the specifics of tonight's tirade in another post about suffering the indignities of Wegman's. But I have to say, this most repugnant demonstration of ignoramussity (made that one up, you betcha) really calls out for it's own, full post. I'm talking about people who continue to talk on their cell phones while they are being waited on by service personnel.
Can I get an AMEN! people? Here's the way it went down. Yesterday I was at a local movie theater waiting while my other half got us a couple of tickets to see The Fighter (good movie, BTW, super call-outs to Melissa Leo and Christian Bale). Anyhoo, I'm standing around idly trying to decide if I want to spring for the $40 snack of popcorn and a soda, when I happen to see the BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS in the lobby saunter up to the ticket window where a perfectly visible ACTUAL PERSON sat taking money and dispensing tickets.
BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was, whot? whot?, of course yakking on her (yes, it was a her) cellphone. Now, you'd think that common courtesy would dictate that BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS would conclude the call prior to reaching the window but that she would, at a MINIMUM, conclude the call, OR AT LEAST PUT DOWN THE FUCKING PHONE, for the fraction of a few moments that it would take her to speak to the ACTUAL PERSON behind the glass, give said person her money and take the ticket(s).
But apparently BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was at that moment either: A) Dictating the landing instructions for the Space Shuttle, AS IT LANDED; B) Leading peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians; or C) Providing the final variable in the equation that would result in the cure for cancer. Because, quite frankly, anything less would have meant that BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was just a common, ignorant douchebag so convinced of her own importance that NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was going to come between her and her critical conversation. Not even a LIVING, BREATHING PERSON with whom she was having an IN PERSON CONVERSATION.
I watched with amazement as BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS continued to chat as she barely acknowledged that the woman behind the ticket counter glass had addressed her; did not fucking stop talking INTO HER CELL PHONE as she sloooooooowwwwly extracted some bills from her wallet, and KEPT ON TALKING as the person took her money and gave her the tickets. I heard, WITH MY OWN EARS, the theater employee cheerfully thank her and extend her wish for BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS to "enjoy the movie!" Needless to say, BIGGEST, FATTEST, RUDEST ASS just kep' on truckin', motherfucker, truckin' and TALKIN', that is.
Now for those of you who have been reading this blog, it should come as no surprise when I say that I find most other people to be barely, BARELY, tolerable. They're everywhere, they get in your way, and more often than should be allowed in a civilized society, they smell. But THIS! This was beyond the pale, I mean what kind of a FUCKING BONEHEADED DIPSHIT can't figure out the basic comportment required to be out in public? Bitch got her enormous ass into her incredibly inappropriately tight jeans. Bitch got her fat arms into her incredibly inappropriately tight sweater. Evidently bitch got her BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS to the fucking movie theater. But apparently bitch don't gotta stop her convo for no-fucking-body up to, and including, someone with whom she is engaged in a person-to-person interaction.
I have to tell you folks, it took every ounce of my self-control and my ongoing desire to not get myself arrested, to keep from marching over to that self-satisfied, ignorant asshole and ripping that phone from her skanky-ass ear. And if an earring came away in my hand, all the better. But of course, I didn't; I simply stared at her and shook my head in the way of all curmudgeons. Problem was BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS didn't even see me and if she had I'm sure her tiny, ameoba brain wouldn't have made the connection that I was staring with my shaming expression at her. And really, even if she had I'm sure she couldn't possibly have cared less. Because truth be told, that Space Shuttle wasn't going to land itself.

Google Instant Search Will Make Your Head Explode

How do I know this? Because it happens to me every, single, fucking time I use Google since they've instituted their "Instant Search" browser. OK, so not literally. But I'm pretty sure that Google Instant Search is actually a secret plot to thin out the Earth's population since every time I or anyone I know uses it, it clearly shaves seconds off of our lives in straight up stress. And when you're fucking GOOGLE, those seconds really add up.

So what is it about Google Instant Search that pisses me off? What doesn't? But at the top of the list has GOT to be the whole "as I'm typing and Google Instant Search is thinking for me, it fucks up my typing by guessing what it is I'm about to type and making what I'm ACTUALLY planning to type not make the cut". Because by my anecdotal evidence, Google Instant Search NEVER FUCKING GUESSES CORRECTLY! So it COSTS me time, Google ASSHOLES! IT FUCKING COSTS ME TIME!

How ironic. This from Google's helpful page wherein Instant Search's vast array of advantages is detailed. Oh, and I'm going to equally "helpfully" pick them to pieces.

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. WRONG! Here's the thing, as stated above: this has NEVER worked for me and only bungles the search criteria I'm typing in WHICH I FUCKING ALREADY KNOW! Also, whose life is so crammed with activity that the savings of, by Google's own estimation, FIVE FUCKING SECONDS makes a measurable difference? To that I say: Hey asshole, if you actually believe that five seconds per search is slowing down your life I'm pretty sure that you're either a meth addict or a hallucinating mental patient. Sorry to break it to you this way.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need. WRONG! Um, I don't particularly NEED predictions that can outthink me. That's just plain creepy. I mean we all saw (and were terrified by) the dystopian future depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL kind of took it upon himself (itself?) to make "smarter predictions" to Dave. We know where that ended up. And while I'm on THIS particular gripe can I also mention the DROID for Verizon Wireless whose actual SELLING POINT is to illustrate how the DROID actually is a couple of nanobytes away from being HAL? I mean, really, a couple of nanobytes...sheesh.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way. WRONG! Again, see above tirade about Google Instant Search "helpfully" providing that NORMALLY WRONG set of results based on what it "thinks" you're trying to search for. Not helping, Google nerds, not helping at all.

So there you have it people. Google Instant Search dissected. I'm not impressed and actually I'm annoyed since I CAN'T TURN THAT FUCKING PROGRAM OFF. Oh, they tell you you can turn off Instant Search. They helpfully point you to the Google preferences page where there is, indeed, a link to turning off Instant Search. Bromides! What they DON'T tell you, of course, is that you have to do it EVERY SINGLE, FUCKING TIME YOU USE THE BROWSER. Once you close out Google for the day, it conveniently "forgets" your preference request. "Ooooops!" Google Instant Search says, "Sorry but my AI tells me I'm sure you didn't mean to turn off my 'helpful to humans' Instant Search so I'm going to 'helpfully' turn it back on for you. You can thank me later when I'm picking out your mate and calculating the number of offspring you can afford." Can we say: "The Matrix"?

Not me, kids, not by a long shot. I am by no means some curmudgeon Luddite, but I'm going to find a way to outsmart that fiendish "helpful" application before it starts deciding what I'm going to have for dinner and what I should plan to wear tomorrow. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.

The Dumb-ering Down of America

As if that's possible...our little experiment in democracy is already pretty fucking dumbed-down, but that's another post. Today's tirade, kiddies, has all to do with the notion that vanilla do-gooders can just decide one day to muck around in someone else's authorship for whatever wrong-headed PC reason occurs to them. I'm talking, of course, of the publisher who is planning to issue a new edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and expunge every use of the word 'nigger'. Oh, for the LOVE OF...REALLY PEOPLE? REALLY? This from today's New York Times:

A new effort to sanitize “Huckleberry Finn” comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twain’s novel that replaces the word “nigger” with “slave.” Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.

I am so offended by this on SO many levels that I hardly know where to begin. First of all..motherfuckers, it's NOT YOUR LITERARY WORK! It was written by perhaps the most deservedly beloved of American authors, Mark Twain, a man who, in his writing turned the society of his day on it's head and ironically made them look into the face of their own dirty little prejudices. Mark Twain used the word 'nigger' to illustrate the absolute banality of the word and the absolute banality of those who in his time used it. He clearly was onto something that today's cranially challenged "educators" can't begin to grasp. Namely if you call something by its name, if you turn a brightly lighted mirror onto the absurdities of societal prejudices masquerading as "norms", you serve to effectively drain them of any power.

Mark Twain is dead; he can't stand up to this pea-brained little band of sadly mistaken do-gooders and say: "Hey! Keep your grubby little mitts off of my words! I am the author of that book and I chose each and every word in it with deliberation and purpose!" How cowardly, now that he's no longer able to defend his creation, to begin picking it apart in the name of some lame-brained ideal of creative revisionism.

More from The NYT:

Mr. Gribben has said he worried that the N-word had resulted in the novel falling off reading lists, and that he thought his edition would be welcomed by schoolteachers and university instructors who wanted to spare “the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol.” Never mind that today nigger is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.

Isn't Huckleberry Finn a better tool as written, for teachers to open an honest dialogue in the classroom about how people use words to subjugate others and how words can offer a direct light into the societal norms of a bygone era? My goodness, books like Huck Finn are historical documents! Should we go back and rewrite history so that nobody will be offended or feel diminished or otherwise disenfranchised? Sheesh.

The larger comment, of course, embedded in this wrong-headed move is that we have become so afraid of looking at truth that even words as written by those long dead are not immune from being hacked at in order to get them to conform to our current appetite for "niceness". MOTHERFUCKING YUCK I say!!

Clearly all of this politesse is absolute anathema to The ABIB, whose very existence is rooted almost entirely in political UN-correctness. So go ahead, whack away at classic literature to your hearts' content, reform everything in the boring, bland image of "Everyone's Happy Valley", but I'm here to tell you it's not right and if we're not careful we'll all be drinking the Koolaid in the name of "what's appropriate". Gives a bitch the shivers...

I Can't Stand It Anymore?

Here's an idea that can't lose: create a chemical that can be aerosolized and dispersed across the entire nation and once it hits people renders them unable to phrase EACH AND EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE in the form of an interrogative. Something as simple as giving directions becomes an adventure in the misplaced question mark.

Now: So, you head north on Main Street?
Post Chemical Dispersal: You head north on Main Street.

Now: And then you make a right on Elm?
Post Chemical Dispersal: And then you make a right on Elm.

Now: It should take about 10 minutes on foot?
Post Chemical Dispersal: It should take about 10 minutes on foot.

When and fucking where was it decided that every moron in the country needed to sound like a retarded Valley Girl 24 hours a day? I hear it everywhere! At work, on the radio, on the TV and its driving me INSANE!! There is no verbal communication immune from this idiotic affectation. To wit:

I'm trying to take a shit? It's looking like I'm going to run out of toilet paper? I'll head over to the linen closet and take out a new roll? That way when I sit down to take that shit I mentioned I'll have sufficient toilet paper to clean up after said shit? Cause it's a drag? To run out? Of toilet paper? When you really need it?

Haven't we suffered enough? (That's an actual question, by the way.) Isn't it about time we regained our national, minimal IQ and stopped insisting that we all have to sound like high school mean girls? To these valid questions I say: YES! Not, Yes? So, ladies and gentlemen. Put down the question marks and slowly back away. It's for your own good, trust me on this. But of far greater importance: it's for MY OWN good! Break the insidious habit of the question mark, I beg you.

You'll be glad you did. I guarantee it?

Phaedra Parks: Woman on the Verge...of Overacting

Aaaight, Imma make this one brief: Phaedra Parks is now officially the WORST ho that's ever been on any Real Housewives series and that includes Danielle Staub. I mean, I LOVE me some Real Housewives of Atlanta, I actually want to hang out with Nene like 24/7, but this year's dumbass award has got to go, hands-down, to Phaedra "I AM A Lawyer" Parks. This week Phaedra's in the hospital having her gigantic baby, being induced at 7 months because it's just too big already. Huh? Well, finally tonight the doc weighs in (see how I did that?) and calls it true: this baby is TERM, motherfucker! We're talking 40 weeks! So Phaedra is, as Kim Zolciak would say: "a lying sack of shit." Apparently Mommy Parks who is some kind of...uh...clergyperson...doesn't approve of pregnancy out of wedlock. Uh...OK. Yo! Ma! Welcome to 2010, babe! Guess Phaedra was too busy eating her Lady Fingers with "Barbarian" Cream to clue you in to her...condition. Whatevs.

Anyway to get to the point, this week Ms. Thang had her baby taken out of her by way of tasteful (low incision, you'll still be able to wear a bikini) C-section. Now I've had an actual C-section and I'm here to tell you that you are numb brothers and sisters, numb as in, DO I STILL HAVE ANYTHING BELOW MY ELBOWS THAT IS ATTACHED TO MY BODY? But Ms. Phaedra, once drugged and on the table, commences to whining and crying and gets all: "Ow...Ow! Ooooch! Gasp!"

Phaedra, can we tawk? Time to focus girl. You got the chiseled ex-con husband. You got the borderline "celebrity" law practice (if you count Bobbie Brown and some chick who got kicked out of Destiny's Child before they became Destiny's Child), you've even had the Twilight Zone baby shower replete with ballerinas and...a bizzaro-world courtly dance with Dwight "The Man With No Face" and your gigantic pregnant belly. Time to invest in some acting classes. Heck, hook up with Sheree; she's all about the "work" this year, all about the "craft". Do whatever you have to do bitch, because when you start whining in "pain" during a C-fucking-section, you're poised to become the most ridiculous joke in a veritable SEA of ridiculous jokes. Shit, you're making Kim look normal. And BTW, who knew that Kim was a NURSE? Working a pole in a nurse's costume, by all means, YES, but a real, actual nurse!? Wow....OK, then, nuff said. I'll leave it at that, but stay tuned to this channel which may very well become a weekly comment on the wacky, wonderful, jiggly world that is The Real Housewives of Atlanta!

Does The ABIB Have to Go There?

Yes, The ABIB has to go there. And frankly it's probably overdue. So I'm reading about this whole "don't ask don't tell" issue that's got everyone's shorts up their crack and I gotta say: Ya'll are FUCKED UP!! Jeez O Man what is wrong with people? Isn't it enough that gay folks can't marry the person that they love in a ceremony of their choosing, in a place of their choosing and have that sanctified union recognized in EVERY FUCKING STATE IN OUR NATION?! And, oh, by the way? Have the same civil rights AS EVERY OTHER TAX PAYING CITIZEN WHO JUST HAPPENS TO FUCK A MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX! What is wrong with us? As a people? As a culture? Are we really that frightened and narrow and just plain bigoted? Really? Makes a bitch sad I gotta tell you.

So back to the military thingie. I think that every fucking asshole who thinks that gay people should have to serve in silence regarding their true selves, in, oh I don't know....Afghanistan, Iraq, anywhere our military serves on the whole globe, I think that those bigoted, messed-up and just plain confused assholes should have to personally take the fucking place of a hidden gay person serving in the sand of wherever those brave folks are serving. Just to shut them the fuck up. For real.

I keep waiting for us as a culture to do the minimally right thing and recognize folks' rights to live their lives as they choose. Within the law. ALL THE LAWS. To marry openly and be afforded ALL OF THE SAME RIGHTS as tax paying citizens that their heterosexual neighbors are afforded. To not have to hide who they are and who they love for fear of being passed over for a promotion or not being able to adopt a child who needs two loving parents. Regardless of their genders. LOVE IS LOVE, PEOPLE! This is the irony that the haters never seem to grasp: its all about being able to love and love openly and make choices that are right for you. No matter what.

The current rash of suicides among young gay people is the part of this awful story that is the worst. Our cultural inability to reign in bigoted hatred is poisoning the structure of our society at such an elemental level that young gay people are choosing death rather than going forward into a world that should be open to their bright youth, their hopeful enthusiasm and the fresh vibrancy that their souls are ready to bring into our world. This is the most painful outcome of all and I'll leave it at that.

Enough is enough.

I know The ABIB is normally all about the crazy shit but this stuff is serious and it is heartbreaking to me. So, please, do a bitch a favor and STOP IT. Open your hearts and open your minds and I promise you...if you do...you'll see that its right and that it makes you feel better. More connected. More human. And isn't that what's going to make or break us? Give a bitch a break and try acceptance for a change. I promise you it'll be bitchin'.

Who's Got Parking Issues? The ABIB, That's Who!

What up? ABIB here with today's Gripe Du Jour: people who employ handicapped parking hang tags when their fat asses are more than capable of walking from a regular parking space. I mean, first of all, where the fuck are all of these handicapped hang tags coming from? Is there some vendor stand somewhere in Baltimore that sells these suckers to anyone with cash to spend? Don't you think that the whatever-the-fuck-agency that oversees such things would wonder: "hmmmm....there is an alarming increase in handicapped people in Baltimore based on the number of parking hang tags we're unloading here. Perhaps a study of the air and/or water is in order." Oh, but wait, I'm talking about your average John or Jane Q. Municipal Worker. No such analysis going on there, probably barely the basics of cognition are going on there. Or worse, they're printing the fucking things in their basement.

Anyway, it never fails, there I am at work, shopping, anywhere there's a parking lot and invariably some gigantic-ass SUV (they seem to especially proliferate among SUV drivers, another SUPER PET PEEVE of the ABIB as regular readers know) rolls into the right-next-to-the-fucking-door handicapped parking space and BINGO! there's the little blue and white hang tag. The door opens and out steps some gigantic-assed PERSON, however, and don't wring me out here over this its strictly observational: NORMALLY A FAT ASSED WOMAN or womyn, or woomin or whatever the newest gender-normative spelling is. Yes, I'm here to say it out loud: mostly I see big, fat women lumbering out of their giant, gas guzzling SUVs and parking a mere few steps from the door of whatever retail or office emporium they have chosen to visit. A MERE FEW STEPS. Shit, most of these big berthas could REALLY use the fucking exercise it takes to WALK the normally relatively short distance from any other parking space to the front door.

They lumber their big asses out the door and shuffle on in to...wherever. I'm seething, of course, because, let's face it, I AM the ABIB, after all and just about anything makes me seethe. And when I seethe I seem to amost always imagine...imagine...imagine what could happen...

"Ma'am! Excuse me: MA'AM?!"
"Huh?"
"Ma'am I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the vehicle."
"Wha?"
"Step your ass away from your vehicle, is what I'm asking."
"Who are you?"
"I'm someone who has been appointed to verify the validity of your handicapped parking hang tag and, if deemed invalid, to CONFISCATE IT AND MAKE YOU PARK OUT IN THE LOT WITH THE REST OF US NON-SCOFFLAWS and...oh, I don't know...WALK?!"

I can see her startled, slightly annoyed expression and of course, being The ABIB, it fills me with unbridled glee, but I press on with the bust making her prove WHO she has to haul around that is ACTUALLY HANDICAPPED. Is it your Grandmother, your Mother, your Father, your Auntie Ruth? Who is the actually crippled person whose inabilty to WALK has afforded you that golden parking pass?
Of course I would expect that answer to be in the negatory and then I would get to CONFISCATE IT! Bwhaahahahahahahahahahaha!

Plus I could offer some healthy eating suggestions (lay off the Doritos and lace up the sneaks, sister) to go with her newfound WALKING REGIMEN! HAH! Now, don't get all whackjob on me here, I know that there have to be SOME GIANT GAS GUZZLING SUVs that haul handicapped Gramma to the mall but I'm guessing that that number is somewhere right around three...out of the whole lot of them. But ABIB you ask, how can you just pull a random number like that out of your ass? To that I say, and it's strictly anecdotal observation here, I admit it, but of all the GIANT SUVs sporting handicapped hang tags I've seen in how many cases have I watched an actual handicapped person emerge from the vehicle? Um....exactly ZERO! So my estimation of three is pretty darned generous.

So there you have it, ABIB's Gripe Du Jour and tiny little revenge fantasy all in one post. Can it be that this will be the new format? That I bitch about some asshole doing something moronic and then I get to picture the inevitable ABIB-delivered course correction? Me likey the sound of that! Stay tuned, folks, I'm already mentally plotting the denouement of hapless suckers everywhere.

This Just In...

Rolling Stone reports that singer Phil Collins said in an interview that he has contemplated suicide. Hmmmmm...well Phil, I'm pretty sure many others did too after having to listen to your shitty music.

Asshole told his wife he wanted a divorce via fax. What a wanker.

Guys, (and Frighteningly, Some Gals) Can We Tawk?

OK, I've begun this post by specifically CHOOSING to be gender biased. This blog post is almost exclusively aimed at da mens among us. Although I reference gals in the title of this post, I have to say here and now that if you are indeed a female and you suffer from the topic of this post it may be time to just go ahead and have that X/Y matchup done. Fer real, yo.

So, guys, can we tawk (as the title inquires) about a scourge to humanity that is almost (I say ALMOST for a reason) as repulsive as the dreaded skidmark? I'm talking here about...GAG....fucking EAR HAIR!! Yes, you know what I mean...those sickening tufts of...is it really hair?...that are poking out of your ear canal? For the love of everything that is sacred can you...PLEASE...JUST...DEAL...WITH...IT?!?!

I mean, what's up with this mess? You get up in the AM, you shower (prayerfully), you brush your teeth (beseeching you all to do this AT LEAST daily, if not for your own oral hygiene then for those that have to deal with the resulting death breath of not brushing) AND FLOSSING WHILE WE'RE AT IT, and you...oh, I don't know...SHAVE? Comb your hair? What I'm getting at here guys, the common thread that's uniting the beginning of this tirade, is that you have ample MIRROR TIME EVERY FUCKING DAY!!

As in, you're gazing at your own reflection and not recoiling in horror once you get a good, solid look. So, you're in front of a mirror and in spite of every decent opportunity you fucking don't notice the incipient thatch of wheat emerging from your ear canal. WHEAT MOTHERFUCKERS!! And sometimes that wheat is holding onto some absolutely terrifying...I can't say it...earwax? So, um, it's the equivalent of ignoring a giant zit or a coldsore or a WEN in the middle of your fucking mug. All together now: eeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!

I mean, what's the deal with ear hair anyway? Is this some long lost holdover from the pleistocene era when gnats the size of tissue boxes were divebombing our heads? Was the purpose of those ear tufts to keep those fuckers out? Or was it to keep the ol' ear canal warm during those long, cold winters spent inventing fire and the wheel? If so, CLUE UP BITCHES! Them days is long gone! We've had Mr. Schick and Mr. Gillette and Mr. Ronson around for fucking DECADES! They have been creating products to take care of this problem since who knows when? I mean, really, exactly how long has human civilization had the razor? A long, long, loooooooooooooong time, my friends. A long ass time.

So come on, guys...help a bitch out wouldja? Trim that unsightly troll-ass looking forest from your ears and spare all of us the indignity of having to openly avert our eyes whenever we're stuck having to look at your sorry ass. Those tissue box gnats have been gone for millions of years but your ears are still stuck in that earwax-laden, follicularly challenged past. Really? Grab a set of shears and DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE! The ABIB has spoken; don't make me come at you with a hedgetrimmer!