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.