The first item has to be about cops. Now, I know I've written about cops already, but some things need to be mentioned more than once to sink in. This isn't about cops so much as about the way people perceive them. I'll try to spell it out slowly and clearly for the slower students in the class. Cops are NOT perfect or infallible. Quite the opposite. They are regular people just like you and me, and they are just as fucked up in the head as you or me. That badge doesn't make one teeny tiny bit of difference on their psychological profile. They're just like any other group of people in society. A few good ones, and a shitload of criminals and screw-ups. And yes, most of them are just as bad as the element they're supposedly protecting us from. And if you don't want to accept that, fine with me. Just go on living in your naive little fantasy world. Makes no difference to me.
Also, to you people who get all bent out of shape and act so shocked and surprised when a cop is caught doing something wrong but doesn't get busted for it: DUH? Is there ANYONE out there who actually thinks a cop who gets caught doing something illegal is going to be treated the same way as everyone else? How stupid can a society be and still function. If you can call our society functioning, that is. OF COURSE they are gonna let them off easier. They're the "Good Guys" remember? Keeping our streets and donut shops safe for the rest of us. Thanks officer. I know I can scarf down a Bavarian cream in peace and safety because of you. If I get to it before you that is. Unless you just shoot me for it. What do YOU have to worry about, right?
Black History Month. I am so tired of hearing about this shit. Yes, black people were subjected to slavery, and thought of as beneath white people, and generally treated like shit. And yes, it was definitely wrong, and it was a terrible thing to do to an entire race. Especially just because of the color of their skin. But it's over now. It was the past. Let it go. Does this mean there is racial equality? No. Because now if two people are qualified for the same job, and one is white and one is black, the white person better just move along to the next place. He doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell because the company doesn't want to offend the black guy and seem like they don't hire minorities. And yes, if the black guy is MORE qualified he should get the job. But if the white guy is MORE qualified, and the black guy is a LITTLE qualified, he will still get the job. That is NOT equality. That is racism turned around the other way.
But back to Black History Month. It's about time to do away with this shit. Or at least stop shoving down everyone's throat. I'm not black, and I don't really care too much about black history. If I were, I would study it. But don't take that personally, because there are a lot of other subjects that I don't care about. They just don't get a whole month devoted to them. Likewise, I don't expect all black people to care enough about my Italian history for them to devote an entire month to it. But while we're exploring that, when IS Italian history month? Or how about German history month? Scandinavian history month anyone? I don't see why we should be devoting an entire month to one group of people while ignoring all the rest. And since it really is impossible to devote a month to all the different groups, then we should just abolish it. Seems only fair to me.
Another thing is telephone manners. There is definitely a proper way to begin and end a telephone conversation. When someone calls, and I pick up the phone, I say "hello". This is the first thing I say. Now it's time for the person on the other end to say "hello", and THEN ask for the person they are looking for if it's not me. This is the way civilized, polite people behave. And this also means saying "goodbye" at the end of the conversation. Or at least some other form of goodbye, not just hanging up the phone. Manners people, manners.
And speaking of phones, I'm tired of the damn Phone Company screwing me every month. Any time my service is interrupted, it has to be off for 24 hours straight before the Phone Company will credit my account. So last week when it was out for like 14 hours and I couldn't use my phone or my internet, they thought that was just fine. They didn't seem to understand why I was upset. It seemed easy enough to me: I was paying for a service that I was not receiving. You can bet if one of those nimrods from the phone company came to me to paint something for them, and gave me money for it, but I only painted half and charged them full price that they would be pissed. I see NO difference here. And the same goes for the fuckin' cable company. In theory these assholes could turn your phone off for 23 hours every day and you would still have to pay for a whole month. Does this seem fair to anyone?
People in the mall or in a store who just stand there in the middle of the aisle talking also piss me off. C'mon asshole! I don't wanna be there all day. I wanna do my shopping and get the hell out. If you wanna stand around and talk, then GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY! And these maggots get mad at you if you jostle them when you are trying to squeeze through the three-inch opening they have left for traffic to go around them. I say it should be a law that we are allowed to run these fuckers down with the shopping cart, and they can't say or do anything about it. Old ladies and kids too. Let's not discriminate here. I betcha then these morons would move pretty damn quickly out of the way.
Something else is all these people making a big fuss over telemarketers. They all complain when these people call and now they have gone so far as to make a new LAW concerning it. Am I the only person who realizes we have too many useless, pointless laws as it is? Every little thing that happens now and people have to go whining to the government to do something about it. Why can no one do anything for themselves anymore? If you want to enact new laws, how about some useful laws like the shopping cart idea I mentioned above? Listen people, telemarketers are easy to deal with. Listen very carefully to my plan here. Are you paying attention? Cuz this could get tricky. When the telemarketer calls you, HANG UP!!!! What's the big fuckin' dilemma here? Hang the fucking phone up. See how often the simple solution eludes us.
And speaking of the law, has anyone else noticed there is NO justice in this country anymore? Our legal system is so fucked up and backwards that it actually now protects the criminals and convicts the victims! Everybody complains, but nobody wants to change it. Instead we just write up a couple dozen new laws. More laws are NOT the answer here people. We need to get rid of a lot of the useless ones we already have. (Along with most of the lawyers, of course. Another drain on society.) If you want a good example of how fucked our system is, take a look back several years to that whole Rodney King debacle. Now don't get me wrong, Mr. King was NOT innocent by any stretch of the imagination. But when I was watching the video tape footage of the incident on CNN, (over and over for weeks. Give it a rest guys.) There were about 15 officers surrounding Mr. King, hitting him with batons and tazers over and over. I remember one night they had some "expert" on giving commentary as we all watched. And at one point when one of the officers was hitting King with the tazer, and another one was clubbing him, this "expert" actually said, "Now see there? He moved, so the officer was justified to hit him again to subdue him." HE TWITCHED! He had 20,000 volts of electricity flowing through his body and he fucking twitched! Mr. Expert would be twitching too, the goddamn idiot. Every single one of those cops should have been arrested, convicted and imprisoned for some time, along with the not-so-innocent Mr. King. But no. They get a slap on the wrist and an invite to Sunday dinner from the Judge. We have no justice in this country. Instead we have law. They should remove the word justice from the seal that is found in every courtroom in this country, because by leaving it there, they are hypocrites. They expect us to be honest and tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but they aren't gonna do the same.
This next one is a personal thing, but it still irritates me so it's going in here. As I mentioned on the page about me, I collect toys. And I am getting sick and tired of going to the store whenever I find the time, only to see some bozo who owns a second hand shop has been there and cleaned them out of certain toys. Part of the blame goes to the toymakers themselves, for introducing the "short-packed" or "limited run" toys in the first place. Now these motherfuckers who don't have real jobs hang out by the shipping dock of the toy stores and wait for the new shipments. Then they buy up all the "rare" toys, and sell them in their own stores for 12 times what they paid. Now some people are gonna say, "Well, that's the way capitalism works." Yeah, up to a point it is. But what these mental midgets are failing to realize is that all they are doing is killing the hobby, and that's a shame for all of us who only want ONE of the things we are looking for, because our collections bring us joy. We're the ones who are getting fucked here, and a lot of people are getting out of the hobby because of this shit. There was one time several years ago when I was in a Wal-Mart, and they had just gotten in a shipment of the newest Star Wars action figures. It was the second series, and the only figure I was missing was Yoda. Lo and behold, there on the pegs at Wal-Mart were about 20 Yodas. So I grabbed one, my buddy grabbed one, and we started walking away happy. Then we see some 50 year old guy come literally running down the aisle and grab up all the rest of them and head directly to the register. I actually had to be held back because all I wanted to do was wait until this guy got out to the parking lot, beat him senseless, and take all his action figures and drop them off at a children's hospital or something like that. People like that are lower than dogshit, and if you happen to be one of those people, FUCK YOU! I'm glad you got stuck with a million Darth Mauls. I hope you lost all your money, your house, went bankrupt and your family left you because you're a loser. I can dream, can't I? And if I somehow do get lucky enough to be in the store when they put the new stuff out, if you toy-vultures are in there at the same time and try to push me out of the way so you can scarf up all the rare shit, be prepared. Because I will hurt you. Badly. Count on it. Can you say "Six months in traction?"
There are more little things that piss me off, and as I think if them I will write more columns like this one. Until then, have a nice day.