Another Pleasant Valley Spastic Topic Monkey Friday

Some of you may wonder about the nature of Spastic Topic Monkey Fridays. Why on many occasions, your humble author feels the need to dump a big load of half-formed concepts unworthy of full column stature on an audience that just wanted a little diversion, a little comedy. All I can tell you is, to paraphrase the late, lionized-despite-beating-and-torturing-women Rick James, "Caffeine's a hell of a drug." I have a sort of Ike-Tina relationship with caffeine, one in which caffeine and I alternately play both roles, and that frequently results in physiological payback by Friday morning. Welcome to my braindump.

Memo to the dudes in the back of the bus: DUMB. AND LUCKY. Lucky I wasn't feeling particularly Socially Darwinian yesterday afternoon. Because if I had, I might have decided to pass along the epic quantities of information you provided on your drug-buying and dealing activities to the authorities. Just to punish you for being so indiscreet about it. I don't care what you do. I'm borderline libertarian when it comes to drugs. But at least act like it's a LITTLE illegal. Loudly discussing where you live, how to contact you, what you can hook people up with, is just DUMB. And bumming an Oxycontin off the white-trash mother of two who very obviously had already taken a couple was just fuckin' tacky.

I love public transit, really I do. But I just want to ride home, play some Game Boy, and sit in peace. I do not need to spend half an hour listening to the Blue Collar Comics re-enactment of "Traffic". Thank you.

Memo to John O'Neill: DUMBASS. First, you say that John Kerry was never in Cambodia because you were never in Cambodia, which is specious reasoning to begin with. Then, confronted with a tape of you telling Nixon "I was in Cambodia", you supposedly address the contradiction. By explaining that when you said "in Cambodia", you actually meant NOT IN CAMBODIA. Brilliant! I suppose it would be a bit crass to suggest that this whole mess depends on what your definition of "in" is? It's a good thing you're not President. And a Democrat. Not to defend Clinton, but his definition of "sexual relations" is almost exactly the same degree of prevarication that "served with John Kerry" is.

Memo to Dubya: FUCKHEAD. "I understand how Sen. Kerry feels - I've been attacked by 527s too." Take your rattlesnake sympathy and shove it up your ass. Has anyone actually bothered to ask Bush which 527 ads attacking him contain demonstrably false statements? Here's a hint. Being called a shitty President doesn't count. They're not naming specific advertisements they object to for reasons that should be blatantly obvious even to people stoned off their ass on Oxycontin, be they bus riders or talk radio hosts. If Bush were any more transparent, he could strap on a set of clear plastic boobs and play Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four movie.

And on a related note, let me just bitch, briefly, one more time, about the fucking media. Given everything we know now, historically, about the behavior of poiticians, especially Presidents, how in the hell could it POSSIBLY seem like a good idea to start taking them at their word? With the possible exception of Carter, every single President from Kennedy on up has been shown to have been lying out of their asses for nearly their entire terms. Both parties. Just a constant stream of truth-shading, manipulation of selective facts, out-and-out falsehoods, hiding information... it hasn't changed. It's still going on. It'll still go on after November no matter who we pick. That is the reason you are there.

You do not exist so that I can find out what George W. Bush said at 2:42 p.m. instead of waiting until 6:30. You do not exist to sit between two lying assholes and point from one to the other. You are here because if there are hundreds and thousands of people poking at stuff trying to find out as best as they can what is actually going on, the people in charge have to WORK HARDER AT LYING TO US. You're like copy protection on software. You'll never stop the lying. You're just there to make us hunt for cracks and serials on porn-laden pop-up sites if we want to steal the software. And right now, you can't even be bothered to do THAT much, because you suck so incredibly hard. Adobe knows better than to just put a question at the beginning of the install asking "Did you buy this software? Yes/No?", and computers haven't been around nearly as long as lying politicians. What's YOUR fucking excuse?

"Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2" opens today. Authorities have set up elaborate haz-mat "safe zones" around area theaters to prevent vulnerable individuals from coming within 200 feet of the movies. Vulnerable individuals are defined as anyone who has read a book 50 pages or longer in the past two years, anybody who remembers that PBS is on Channel 2, and anybody who can count to eight without taking off their shoes. Anyone wishing to enter the movie's area effect can bypass security checks with proof of purchase of any "Larry The Cable Guy" DVD.

One Small Donkey, One Big Ass

Memo to Knob Ahead Of Me At Chipotle: YOU ARE DUMB.

I guess this is Have My Worst Sterotypical Assumptions Confirmed week or something, because there I am, downtown Minneapolis, in line at Chipotle just before the lunch rush kicks into high. And in front of me, in line, are three individuals who I immediately, in a very un-liberal way, culturally profile as dicks.

They all had that mid-thirties Power Dude thing going, the dress shirt, the power tie, the short-cropped hair, the slightly... thick build of the middle-aged suburban ex-jock. Bland, midwestern, straight-white-male America in three distinct subgroup packages - The Balding Older Guy, The Always Talking With His Hands Guy, and the Blond Wheeler-Dealer. The odds of at least two Van Halen albums being owned by any one or more of these three people approached 87%, with an 85% probability that one of them is the first Sammy Hagar one.

I know this makes me open to charges of being no better than Anne "Bat-Shit Crazy" Jacobsen, but at least I didn't try to shut down the Chipotle in order to prevent these three men from some unspecified assholic action. I simply waited to see if it would occur. And lo and behold, it did. First, all three of the fuckers ordered burrito bowls.

And here we must digress for a second to denounce the perfidy that is the Burrito Bowl. It is like unto a burrito, except that instead of all the ingredients being wrapped up into a convenient (if massive) cylindrical shape via a very large flour tortilla, the same exact contents are placed into... a bowl. This is, with one exception I'll get to in the next paragraph, a completely retarded idea. It solves nothing, it helps nobody. It's not even an Atkins thing, because there's a fucking pound of rice at the bottom of these things.

Unless you have an allergy to wheat gluten, you should not be allowed to order a burrito bowl. Period. If you think you have a good reason to replace an edible, convenient, one-hand-use wrapper with a large, styrofoam disposable, two-hand-minimum container, feel free to use the FORUM link in the upper left and run it past me. I'll dispense individual indulgences as I see fit. But again, in general, this shit shouldn't even be on the menu. You should just be able to ask for it quietly if a flour tortilla will send you into anaphylactic shock.

So anyway, the three tie-tools ordered burrito bowls, automatically raising their asshole threat level from Yellow to Orange. And then the third guy, Mr. Wheeler Dealer, shot straight up past Red into "What Was That Boom Sound". He proceeded to attempt to exploit the Chipotle system for maximum advantage.

This, frankly, goes for anyone who feels it's their God-given right to min-max* any customer service situation. Fuck all y'all. There's a vast gray area between "sucker" and "man-handle". I'll let you guess where asking the Chipotle guy for two scoops of chicken lies on that spectrum.

"Could I have two scoops of chicken?" FUCK YOU. This is not Kellogg's. Chicken is not raisins. Take your two scoops straight to hell with the rest of you. The whole Chipotle economic structure is built around you getting a certain amount of expensive marinated meat in proportion to your heaping pile of dirt-cheap rice. You know what you get when you ask for two scoops of chicken? Two half-scoops of chicken. You may, if you're lucky, end up with two more cubes of chicken that you would have gotten originally. You sure as hell won't get double. And even if you did, you would not be sticking it to the man. You would not be some master negotiator. You would not have won any kind of personal victory over the forces of minimum wage fast food line staff. You would, at best, have had a bit more chicken.

That wasn't enough, of course. Dude had to tweak every fucking aspect of his order. "A little more green sauce". I'm sure your highly-refined palate can tell the difference between one spoon of green chile salsa and one point two spoons of green chile salsa. You are the very picture of the counter-service gourmand. You're lucky they make the food in front of you at Chipotle, or "green sauce" isn't all you'd have gotten a little bit extra of.

Extra chicken, extra green sauce.... and TOO MUCH LETTUCE! Aigh! It's like there was some kind of Lettuce Apocalypse on your burrito bowl! Your bonus chicken was smothering under the crushing weight of all that lettuce! The lettuce load MUST BE LIGHTENED! But not that much. Just by a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit less lettuce. That's it. That's perfect. You have created the ultimate burrito bowl! You are Iron Chef Ordering Crap! You have mastered balance and harmony, and can head back to your bank with your buddies safe in the knowledge that the Chipotle company did not put one over on you this day. I salute you with not one, but two of my fingers, then buy a plane ticket to England, fly over, and salute you with four.

* "Min-Max": A term used by gaming geeks to describe technically legal but questionably ethical loopholes in the rules of role-playing games exploited by players to provide their characters with a borderline-unfair advantage.

Bragging Rights and Assholes

Memo to the asshole on Highway 169 North: YOU ARE DUMB.

In fact, let's expand the mandate a bit to any asshole who permanently affixes something to the back of their car without actually thinking about what it says. Like getting a tattoo when you're drunk, it's a bad idea. Case in point. People who spend their money on personalized license plates that say something that was already on the back of their car for free. I've seen a Lexus with the license plate "LEXUS", a four by four with the plate "4 X 4", etc. I can only assume they got hung up on the idea of a personalized license plate, only to discover, to their horror, that there was nothing at all interesting about them, so they panicked.

Similarly, bumper stickers. If you must express a viewpoint using your car's ass as a medium, put some thought into it. Take some care. Try to show us something we haven't seen before. And try to show us something that makes sense.

Which brings us to the asshole on 169. Driving there on Monday afternoon, we saw a bumper sticker that said: "NO ONE CAN KILL AMERICANS AND BRAG ABOUT IT. NO ONE."

Which is an incredibly odd sentiment to put on your car if you take it literally. I mean, no one can play ping-pong with their own spleen, either, but you don't see people with "DOWN WITH SPLEEN-PONG" bumper stickers. If it's so impossible that you have to state not once, but TWICE, that "no one" can do it, then what's there to be concerned about? Obviously, for it to be enough of a problem to warrant a bumper sticker, SOMEONE must be killing Americans and bragging about it.

Maybe he means Dubya? After all, as Governor of Texas, our president presided over 134 executions, including children and the mentally disabled. And in an infamous Talk magazine interview, openly mocked one of them (Karla Faye Tucker). Perhaps he's still incensed at the President's callous attitude toward life and death?

Of course, Americans kill Americans all the time. Maybe he means the perpetrators of the thousands of murders in the US every year. I bet some of them brag. Corporate polluters? The NRA? Those guys at Enron who had the parties and the cheering during the California wildfires? Hm.

That's the problem with unclear bumper stickers. We simply don't know. Oh, of course we could play the ODDS, and assume that since he 's so hung up on Americans being killed and bragged about that it must be non-Americans that are doing the killing and the bragging. Heck, we could even play the odds further, and assume that he means filthy brown Ay-Rabs that are doing the killing and the bragging and must be stopped.

Which brings with it its own set of problems, doesn't it? Because for that to work, for the 169 asshole to be able to take a moral high ground so absolute that it can be printed on vinyl and adhered, permanently, to a steel bumper, then Americans would have to be so noble that none of us would ever even consider bragging about killing foreigners...

Oops.

But this is my point. Ten minutes of sober reflection would have revealed to the 169 asshole that the entire point of his bumper sticker is demolished by the mere existence of Ann Coulter. He'd have reached the conclusion that putting this bumper sticker on his car would make him an asshole, and, ideally, not done it, thus simultaneously saving hundreds of drivers from having to read assholery and depriving me of fodder for the column.

Today's article has been brought to you by yee-haw jingoism and the numbers one, six, and nine.

Short Takes

Memo to the US Army, Guantanamo Bay Division: YOU ARE DUMB.

According to the Herald Sun in some city I forgot to type (which, by the way, is one of Rupert Murdoch's babies), an inmate at Guantanamo Bay who was recently freed has reported that one of the techniques used against him during sleep deprivation was the non-stop playing of Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA". 

I can only assume that the same brilliant intelligence that led to the whole mess in the first place was also responsible for analyzing the lyrics to the Springsteen song and determining, just like Ronald Reagan did, that Springsteen wrote the song out of pure, unbridled love for his country, his bandana overflowing with rah-rah patriotism. And we wonder why they haven't found the weapons yet.

I mean, shit, if I had to listen to "Born" non-stop, I'd consider it torture, too, but let's face it, "Dancin' In The Dark" would be three times as effective and barely one tenth as ironic.

Memo to Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer: DON'T BE DUMB.

Variety is reporting that Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer are negotiating for the film rights to the game "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time", widely believed by everyone who is not wrong as the single best game released in 2003.

They should consider themselves hereby warned: fuck this up, and I will be much crankier than usual. Which should tell you something. Remember Pac-Man? Remember how we all waited for the home version, so we could finally play Pac-Man on our Atari 2600's? And then it came out? Remember that sinking disappointment in the pit of your stomach after you played it for the first time, with the square "vitamin" instead of the fruit and the weird dashes and the ghosts not turning blue and that PANK PANK PAPANK sound? If you're in the target audience for this website, you're probably weeping openly at the memory. I know I am.

A shitty Prince of Persia movie, to me, would be MORE DISAPPOINTING. Hiring Brendan Fraser as the Prince, for example. Hiring Jennifer Garner as Farah. Letting Akiva Goldsman come within five miles of anything remotely related to the movie. These would all be mistakes. Don't make them. Don't be DUMB.

Memo to the guy in front of me at the gas station: YOU ARE DUMB.

You spent FIFTY ONE DOLLARS in one sitting on scratch and win instant lottery tickets. Learn math, or forever forfeit your right to complain about taxes. Your choice.

Memo to everyone:

It's been a couple of long weeks full of rage and anger. And at the end of it all, I think we need a break. Take a deep breath, think of something calming. Like a cloud. Yeah, a nice fluffy cloud.

See what they've done! People are so dumb, they've PISSED OFF THE CLOUDS. My work must continue. See you Monday.

Completely Hypothetical People

Memo to an entirely hypothetical subset of humanity: YOU ARE DUMB.

We here at You Are Dumb Dot Net like to think of what we do as educational outreach. Of a sort. And most of that educational outreach comes in the form of How To Spot The Dumb (From Quite A Long Way Away). So today, let us examine in more detail the Poking The Nest technique for spotting the dumb.

Poking The Nest is a good way to ferret out the dumbest members of a particular large group of people. It's kind of an informal survey, in which you give a large group of people an identical simple task to perform. Ideally, that simple task should not seem in any way to be a competency test, but should instead be disguised in some way to make it seem like part of the test subjects' normal routine. Then, all you do is sit back and watch the results pour in.

These results traditionally break down into some identifiable subgroups:

The Correct Response: Subject performs the task correctly, reading and following all directions and responding with the correct information. This is, unsurprisingly, rare.

The Nearly Correct Response: The subject has gotten the general gist of the task, and has responded with mostly correct information, however, some portion of the response is incorrect due to a typographical error or other understandable cause.

Individuals in the above two groups are classified as Potentially Not Dumb. 

The Conceptually Flawed Response: These people read and follow the directions, but misinterpret one crucial portion of them and respond broadly with incorrect information as a result. For example, if you were to request an alphabetical list of all fifty state capitals, and you received an alphabetical list of all fifty states, this person would qualify as Conceptually Flawed.

Individuals in the Conceptually Flawed Response group are classified as Potentially Dumb, and should be watched closely.

The Ignorant Response: These are the people who omit one crucial part of the instructions. In the example above, the Ignorant Response group would send you a non-alphabetized list of all fifty state capitals.

The Willfully Ignorant Response: Same as above, except the person clearly did it on purpose, because they couldn't be bothered. This is not always easy to distinguish from the Ignorant Response, but that's OK, as both groups should be regarded as Dumb anyway, because for all practical intents and purposes, the difference between "dumb" and "perfectly willing to appear dumb to avoid effort" are equivalent.

The Stupid Fucks: These are individuals who completely fail to grasp the simple task. If you ask these people to provide you with an alphabetized list of 50 states, they will send you a list of 20 cities in a completely random order.

The Belligerent Stupid Fucks: These are people who completely fail to grasp the simple task, interpret it as a completely different task, take offense at being asked to perform this misinterpretation, and respond aggressively with queries as to why you need a list of the top thousand metropolitan areas in the country sorted by population, and why you are bothering them when you could go buy an almanac or something.

The Self-Aware Stupid Fucks: These are people who are able to grasp that they are NOT able to grasp what you have sent them, and send you questions that require you to repeat the directions you already gave them. Upon receiving your answers, these people will generally climb between three and five spaces on the list, but will never ever achieve a Correct Response.

The Hopelessly Stupid Fucks: HSF's are individuals whose first, second, and possibly third attempt to complete the simple task fall into any of the other Stupid Fuck categories. For example, if they ask for clarification, and respond belligerently; or if they get everything wrong, then ask you for clarification, they are Hopelessly Stupid Fucks.

Anyone in the Stupid Fuck category should be treated with as much scorn and derision as is permitted by your social/professional situation. HSF's, by their nature, are also subject to semi-public ridicule by having their stupidity exposed and shared with your peer group.

We hope you've enjoyed this purely theoretical treatise on how to identify and weed out the dumb people in your medium-to-large organizational structure.

Everyone In The Intersection

Memo to drivers and pedestrians: YOU ARE DUMB.

The urban four-way intersection is, in many ways, a metaphor for our society. Any given individual in society has a number of choices before them, and these choices cause them to cross paths with other members of society. And most of the individuals making those choices do so without looking, listening, or thinking, and as a result, make things difficult for everyone else around them.

There's even an analogy with the current political situation. As a frequent pedestrian, I would love to blame all the woes on those rich drivers, tooling around in their SUV's, talking on their cell phones about venture opportunities, not even noticing the common man in the crosswalk that they crush under their relentless, ever-churning tires.

But as a frequent driver, I would also like to blame all those ignorant, lazy, laconic hippies who stroll idly across the road as if it were a country meadow, pretending that hundreds of years of progress never happened and ignoring the RULE OF LAW.

I am torn, caught in the riptides of a Zoroastrian dichotomy of dumb. Luckily, I am quickly able to remember that, no matter what our differences, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, walker or driver, we are all, deep down, just human beings. And, as a result, mostly comprised of fucking idiots. And that makes me feel... well, not exactly "better", but at least more comfortable. On firmer ground. The moral quicksand and quagmire replaced by the hard, unyielding asphalt of rage. Rage at the asses whose phalt it all is.

So to all you behind the wheel. We, as a species, have been walking for hundreds of thousands of years. We have been rolling things around on wheels for tens of thousands of years. We have been living in cities for thousands of years. We have had cars for about a hundred years. You have had plenty of time to gradually work your way up to an understanding of how these four things intersect. So you may understand why I feel a bit upset at your surprise and astonishment that a person might be using the legs Darwin gave him to perambulate from one corner to another.

Shock! Horror! Even worse, INCONVENIENCE that you cannot turn your vehicle and proceed on your way! These damn walkies are taking advantage of the system. And these CROSSWALKS. Valuable street real estate being taken up just so people have room to walk! I understand your frustration; the obvious injustice of it all that causes you to protest in indignance by making sure you stick your vehicle eight inches into the crosswalk at every opportunity. Don't mind me. I'll go around. The head start those eight inches give you will be invaluable once the light turns green.

It's enough to make a pedestrian decide to ignore the traffic laws in turn, since the other side is gaining an unfair advantage by ignoring them. Which is fine. As a pedestrian, I break the law on a regular basis for reasons ranging from getting in from the cold quicker all the way through ensuring my personal safety by knowing precisely what the cars I'll be amongst are doing. But for fuck's sake, people, recognize that you're breaking the law and act appropriately.

First, stop sauntering. When crossing oncoming traffic that could CRUSH YOU at speeds between ten and fifty miles an hour, this is not a lingering situation. Do not treat crossing against the light, or crossing away from the light, as if you had just finished a meal in a fine restaurant and have just been served coffee and pie. It's simply bad manners to smugly take advantage of people's desire not to be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Not to mention risking your life based on the attentiveness, intelligence, and kindness of a random driver.

Somewhere there exists a perfect intersection, where pedestrians realize that a green arrow and a don't walk sign combine to form the message "KEEP YOUR ASS ON THE CURB", and where "Right On Red" does not mean "Honk at the guy on foot that's keeping you from your God-Given Right On Red", and people of all races, religions, and modes of transportation live together in peace and harmony. And maybe, someday, we'll get there. You know, once all you dumbfucks have run over and crashed into each other.

Memo to drivers and pedestrians: YOU ARE DUMB.

The urban four-way intersection is, in many ways, a metaphor for our society. Any given individual in society has a number of choices before them, and these choices cause them to cross paths with other members of society. And most of the individuals making those choices do so without looking, listening, or thinking, and as a result, make things difficult for everyone else around them.

There's even an analogy with the current political situation. As a frequent pedestrian, I would love to blame all the woes on those rich drivers, tooling around in their SUV's, talking on their cell phones about venture opportunities, not even noticing the common man in the crosswalk that they crush under their relentless, ever-churning tires.

But as a frequent driver, I would also like to blame all those ignorant, lazy, laconic hippies who stroll idly across the road as if it were a country meadow, pretending that hundreds of years of progress never happened and ignoring the RULE OF LAW.

I am torn, caught in the riptides of a Zoroastrian dichotomy of dumb. Luckily, I am quickly able to remember that, no matter what our differences, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, walker or driver, we are all, deep down, just human beings. And, as a result, mostly comprised of fucking idiots. And that makes me feel... well, not exactly "better", but at least more comfortable. On firmer ground. The moral quicksand and quagmire replaced by the hard, unyielding asphalt of rage. Rage at the asses whose phalt it all is.

So to all you behind the wheel. We, as a species, have been walking for hundreds of thousands of years. We have been rolling things around on wheels for tens of thousands of years. We have been living in cities for thousands of years. We have had cars for about a hundred years. You have had plenty of time to gradually work your way up to an understanding of how these four things intersect. So you may understand why I feel a bit upset at your surprise and astonishment that a person might be using the legs Darwin gave him to perambulate from one corner to another.

Shock! Horror! Even worse, INCONVENIENCE that you cannot turn your vehicle and proceed on your way! These damn walkies are taking advantage of the system. And these CROSSWALKS. Valuable street real estate being taken up just so people have room to walk! I understand your frustration; the obvious injustice of it all that causes you to protest in indignance by making sure you stick your vehicle eight inches into the crosswalk at every opportunity. Don't mind me. I'll go around. The head start those eight inches give you will be invaluable once the light turns green.

It's enough to make a pedestrian decide to ignore the traffic laws in turn, since the other side is gaining an unfair advantage by ignoring them. Which is fine. As a pedestrian, I break the law on a regular basis for reasons ranging from getting in from the cold quicker all the way through ensuring my personal safety by knowing precisely what the cars I'll be amongst are doing. But for fuck's sake, people, recognize that you're breaking the law and act appropriately.

First, stop sauntering. When crossing oncoming traffic that could CRUSH YOU at speeds between ten and fifty miles an hour, this is not a lingering situation. Do not treat crossing against the light, or crossing away from the light, as if you had just finished a meal in a fine restaurant and have just been served coffee and pie. It's simply bad manners to smugly take advantage of people's desire not to be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Not to mention risking your life based on the attentiveness, intelligence, and kindness of a random driver.

Somewhere there exists a perfect intersection, where pedestrians realize that a green arrow and a don't walk sign combine to form the message "KEEP YOUR ASS ON THE CURB", and where "Right On Red" does not mean "Honk at the guy on foot that's keeping you from your God-Given Right On Red", and people of all races, religions, and modes of transportation live together in peace and harmony. And maybe, someday, we'll get there. You know, once all you dumbfucks have run over and crashed into each other.

Office Partiers

Memo to the organizers, participants, and attendees of work-related wacky fun parties: YOU ARE DUMB.

Before I get to the meat of this, I think I should probably address the burning question of whether Terri Carlin still qualifies as VERY DUMB despite having dropped her lawsuit, claiming to have 'made her point'. The answer is, unsurprisingly, YES.

So anyway, these fuckheads in the workplace really need to get over their apparent disappointment at not being picked for the school play. Onstage OR backstage.

I mean, that's the nicest possible motivation I can think of for people wanting to spend time and energy turning a conference room into a "tropical paradice", which traditionally means one potted palm in the corner, one pineapple ring in the Hawaiian Punch, three managers you've never met before in grass skirts and leis, and someone's battered Don Ho gag gift CD playing wanly on an underpowered, tinny boom box.

I guess, somehow, I'd wrongly assumed that after two decades of cable TV and one decade of the Internet, that the rest of you would have also come to the conclusion that seeing a coworker in a cowboy hat or a supervisor in a sombrero is actually very fucking annoying.

But you all just eat that up, don't you. The themed raffles, the singalongs, the costumes, the dreaded interpretations of ethnic food by middle class, middle aged midwesterners. Can't get enough of it. Love it so much you make sure to take pictures and cover bulletin boards with 'em.

You love them so much, in fact, that like some kind of head-shaving, purple-sneaker-wearing castration cult, you cannot imagine that people would not want to join in. That someone might look at the soul-destroying potential of the whole sordid affair and decide that maybe, just maybe, a free plate full of Triscuits, celery sticks, and cocktail weiners in a sea of KC Masterpiece ain't worth the trouble.

But, you know. At least I'm not bitter.

It is not my fault that your work and home life is so lacking that you need to prance around in a hat to feel like you're "cutting loose". But since you all universally refuse to back the fuck off, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you out as DUMB.

You Are Dumb: Patient Zero

Memo to That Ass In Byerly's: YOU ARE DUMB.

Yes, you. The guy who answered the "paper or plastic" question with a tossed, over-the-shoulder "plastic" while arguing with yourdaughter about putting on her coat.

That doesn't make you dumb, though. What makes you dumb is making an issue over having wanted plastic when you saw the bagger with allyour stuff already in a paper bag. Then saying "plaaaastic" slowly at him a second time. Then giving a little eye-roll shoulder-shrug lookto the cashier, as if to commisserate with her nonverbally as two people who must, somehow, endure the never-ending mendacity of the Baggerrace.

Here's a hint. The very act of shopping at Byerly's more than once every three months automatically, by definition, prevents you fromdeveloping any kind of empathic link with anybody who works there.

Editor's Note: "Byerly's" is a Minneapolis chain of high-end grocery stores frequented by two groups of people. A group who stops in onoccasion because they're in a hurry and/or need a gourmet ingredient, and people who don't mind paying 30% more for their everyday stuff,wear fur-collared jackets, have big hair (females) or thinning combovers (males), and abuse the help in the guise of demanding customerservice. Me, I needed garlic, and their garlic was crap, too.

And then, as the topper, as the ultimate verification of your doofushood, he shot ME a look of simpatico. A kind of "Sorry, dude, I guesswe got a bum deal in the bagger department today. Boy, life sure is hard, isn't it? But what are you gonna do? You can't let these minimumwage slaves walk all over you. You ask for plastic, you damn well better get plastic, even though the paper bags have handles too and mylife is really a horrible lie.

I may have extrapolated a bit in that last paragraph, I'll admit. But even with such mitigating circumstances taken into account, I'mafraid the verdict stands, because I got to enjoy the bagger and cashier mocking your sorry ass the instant you were out of earshot. HappyNew Year, Byerly's Ass. Pity you'll have to spend it BEING DUMB.