The Time Thieves

Here's a view you don't hear often. The slow, useless, incompetent people that are seemingly everywhere these days -- and by "these days" I mean probably "always" but I can only speak for the time I've personally seen -- they steal your time, my time, and we're not getting it back. And it's not right. Society isn't structured with the view that time is a commodity with value, which is crazy because time is the only thing that there is a natural limit to. Benjamin Franklin said the only sure things were death and taxes. Except taxes are a human innovation, while death is an integral part of life. You can skip out on your taxes if you're clever or really rich. You can't skip out on death. Not yet. Maybe never. You've got a finite amount of time. You don't get it back. It's not like taxes. When I die, I don't get some time refund check in the mail. It's not like there's St. Peter up in the Pearly Gates with an adding machine.

"Yes... I see here you spent fifteen minutes in line at the gas station behind some 90-year-old woman spending her entire pension check on various types of Lotto tickets, when you were only there to pay for gas. And here, here you missed a green light because some local Wappingers meth-head was having a conversation with his fat wife in the car and he couldn't talk and drive faster than 15 MPH at the same time. That's another three minutes we're refunding you."

No. This dumb old bitch never figured out that Lotto's a scam despite having easily lived three times as long as me, and now that's time I'm never getting back. This dumb hillbilly has to turn to his wife every time he talks, instead of keeping his eyes on the road like a normal goddamn human being, and now that's more time lost. Never getting it back.

You say, sure Noel, but that's on you. Sure, you're only given a certain quantity of time, and who knows when it will be up -- so why would you want to spend your time angry and frustrated, full of hate and scorn for what are after all probably decent human beings who mean well. Just because you're stuck in traffic or on a line doesn't mean you have to be stuck in hate and anger. You can take that time to be mindful of your surroundings and find inner peace.

To which, all of which, I say: Eat a dick. That's like telling a rape victim they should just lie back and enjoy it.

Deitymology

The same people that took Týr out of Tuesday, Wōden out of Wednesday, Thor out of Thursday, Frigg out of Friday, Saturn out of Saturday -- run around today asking everyone else to "keep Christ in Christmas."

Do Not Enter (or, "It's A Marshmallow World")

So there I was, happily leaving Walmart with marshmallows for the hot chocolate. All in all it had been a painless visit to one of the most awful places on Earth, which in retrospect must have been divine foreshadowing.

And as I walked through the exit door through to the vestibule, approaching through the other side was the Rude family. Mr. Rude, Mrs. Rude and little Rudy Jr. The Rude family was attempting to ENTER through the same door I was trying to exit from. Or egress, if you prefer a fancy and slightly archaic vocabulary. Now the Rude family weren't merely trying to enter through the wrong door; a crime of mere social convention I commit frequently myself. No, they were determined to walk through the door side by side, BLOCKING the door from honest hard working citizens like myself who take it on good faith that they will be able to leave the building through the door marked "EXIT."

So of course I did what I always do when rude and inconsiderate people are in my way, I walked right up on them till I was about three inches outside their personal space and snarled, "excuse me." Shake your head and disapprove, but it is a surprisingly effective method of shaking the cattle from their stupor usually. In this situation a regular rude person would realize, "oh shit, we're blocking the entire door that this nice if somewhat intimidating man is trying to leave through," and step aside. Maybe even say "sorry."  A regular rude person would, perhaps. Mrs. Rude was having none of it. She stood her ground and said "excuse YOU," forcing me to dodge running directly into her at the last minute like a game of chicken and continue on.

Now, I'm not the most confident person out there, and Mrs. R's clear disgust at my behavior forced me to second guess myself. Maybe, I thought, it WASN'T the exit door? Maybe on THEIR side it said "enter" and I was the rude one. Why a door would say enter on one side and exit on the other, I don't know. But retail logic is an oxymoron and this was Walmart so... maybe? Why not? I second guessed myself, which I do all the time, and I stopped and I turned around and I saw how, from this side, the door had a big red sign that says "DO NOT ENTER." And again, not that I'm a big stickler for that convention, but in this case the woman and her Rude brood were clearly in the wrong. So I said, out loud, not even for them but just because I am an out loud motherfucker, "It says Do Not Enter," and kept walking.

"Hey big guy!" I heard from behind me, but kept walking. I exited the building proper for the bitter cold of the outdoors, and I was living in some Jack London novel in my head when Mr. Rude caught up with me. "Do you have a problem?" He asked, trying to sound intimidating and rough while keeping up with my pace. Based on his ridiculous little gray mustache I was easily 20 years younger than this guy. He must have wanted to impress his wife with what a man he was.

"No, no problem now," I said, tactfully not adding that I HAD had a problem with his cunty rude wife 45 seconds prior, and that they might have a problem with first grade level reading comprehension, but that now my only problem was getting the marshmallows into some hot chocolate stat.

"Do you want me to knock your head off?" Mr. Rude kindly offered.

I replied, without missing a beat or pausing my stride, "What would I do without it?" People never know how to take it when I react flippantly to their anger and threats. Truth told, I was ready to be hit. I wasn't worried. There were like fifteen cops at the entrance to Walmart and they would break up the fight before the guy fell and broke his hip. Worse thing that would happen is I would get hit in the head, and hell if he hit me in the right spot he might loosen up this one tense knot I have on my temples. But it didn't come to that. Cooler heads prevailed. The guy was out of the line of sight of his wife, so there would be no impressing her. Actually if he got the cops involved she would probably be pissed. And it was very cold out and windy. So they guy made this really frustrated sound like "ughn!" and went back inside.

Another tense situation I entered, and exited, because of my wit.

I left Walmart and had some delicious hot chocolate. Marshmallows included. Mr. Rude went home and had to spend the rest of his days sleeping in the same bed as some idiot illiterate middle aged hag. Pretty sure I took the win on this one.