February 20, 2013

The Demise of Free-Thinking Sane People: Part 2

Once you have finally gathered the strength and courage to go out into the world after hearing about all of the scary things that may happen to you while you are dropping your daughter off at school, or crossing an intersection, you relax.

After all, you successfully got BOTH of your kids to their destinations without your 86 year old neighbor with the child-molestor van kidnapping them, you made it the two miles to your office without a meteorite falling from the sky and crushing you, and you have researched the symptoms of a pulmonary embolism for half an hour and are pleased to announce that  you are not suffering from any of them (yet).

You arrive at work feeling pretty accomplished, right? You are early, and you had time to get your coffee and some breakfast on the way in. You then walk into your office and sit down at your desk where you more or less are sedentary for the next 8 hours.

A lot of things can happen while you are sitting down for 1/3 of a day. For instance, your metabolism slows to a stand still and you eat half of a sheet cake that was baked by a co-worker all by yourself. I don't have any solid scientific or medical evidence on this, but it is my personal opinion that sitting in an office for 8 hours while consuming pure sugar out of boredom can make a person completely and totally bat-shit crazy. Also, office work can sometimes get monotonous. This can lead to your mind wandering while you are going about your usual business. I have found that this monotony and boredom can result in certain people making up shit to be offended about.

I have based my findings on newspaper articles detailing a litany of baseless lawsuits and editorials, as well as the comment section of any politically-charged online news article. Also, corroborating evidence was found in the newsfeed on my Facebook page. Due to the INSANE amount of information available to the public at large, and the boredom suffered by mammals who no longer have to hunt for food or chop their own firewood, or use their brain to do hardly anything to survive these days, you can't go a day without hearing someone throwing a fit about what the president had for breakfast, or someone going toddler-tantrum-style about the pay of some big wig CEO. Americans can start a petition or protest about occurrences half way around the world, even if they don't understand them or have a very limited understanding based on their own egocentric view of the universe.

And sometimes, as I sit in my tiny office and stuff myself full of strawberry cake with strawberry icing, I fall into the trap myself. When all you can find to read are stories about how pissed off you should be about every single thing that you don't agree with, you start to have an over-inflated sense of entitlement. Some people never snap out of it. They go on believing that everything in the universe should fit into their own tiny boxes, never offending the schematic they have set in their own minds. They become assholes incapable of recognizing the worth of other cultures and refusing to see things from a different point of view. Which is why, I have decided to give up sugar while I am at work.

Just kidding. I had three cinnamon rolls today.

February 15, 2013

The Demise of Free-Thinking Sane People: Part 1

The sanity of Americans, collectively speaking, seems to be sinking to an all-time low. All Americans. Not Republican Americans, or Democratic Americans, or Libertarian Americans, or Green Americans... All of us.

And why shouldn't it be sinking? We have a media whose only job is to make sure we are too scared to go outside, make new friends, take a vacation, or discipline our children. They keep us abreast of which new phobia is all the rage. And with technological advances, they can scare us with news from every single continent in real time! The media lets you know who you should like, who you should hate, who you should fear, what you should eat, and where you should live!

Every. Single. Damn. Day. If you are like me, your morning goes a little something like this:

You turn on the news in the morning while you are getting ready for work. You are just curious as to what the weather will be like so you know whether to wear a light jacket or a ski suit to the office. Also, it is just kind of nice to have white noise in the background as you complete your morning routine. As you are in the bathroom applying mascara you hear a perky, over-caffeinated voice coming from the next room, "Are you too fat to live? You might think so, BUT new research shows that if you are skinny, you might DIE earlier than if you are fat. Of course, if your BMI is over this certain threshold, you could ALSO be at an increased chance of dying sooner than those other people who are just the right amount of skinny. Find out where YOU fall after these messages from our sponsors." You look down at yourself and think, Ohmigosh. Am I the right amount of skinny? I don't even know what my BMI is anymore. Holy hell, when is the last time I went to the doctor--

Then the pharmaceutical commercials start and interrupt your inner dialogue about the BMI dilemma with the following: "Do you have frequent outbursts of laughter and or sadness? Millions of other Americans also laugh and cry. Some suffer from this everyday. You are not alone. BUT you are  ALL inferior and need this pill to make you better people."

Are they SPYING ON ME??? I laugh and cry ALL THE TIME. It is CONSTANT. Do I need that pill? Maybe if I were a better person, people would quit flipping me off on the freeway...

"Back to your news for the morning! But before we tell you how fat you should be for optimal health, we first take you to Mike in the newsroom. He is going to tell you some very critical information on how to know if your sweet, elderly neighbor is really a terrorist who is secretly plotting to kill you and your family. That might look like a regular old van in his driveway, but we have experts from a tiny island in the middle of the ocean who have had experience with one man who possessed a van much like the one your neighbor has-and they know better. And they are here to scare the absolute shit out of you purely for a network ratings boost. Mike?"

Holy hell. My 86 year old neighbor DOES have an old van. I better listen to what these experts say. It could save my life for heaven's sake! I KNEW he wasn't just taking his wheelchair-bound daughter to the grocery store in that thing. How stupid could I have been??? You just can't trust anyone these days. Man, you learn so much when you are just trying to see the windchill factor for the next 24 hours!

"Have you ever taken a birth control pill? If so, you are most likely going to die from a pulmonary embolism very soon. Please call us so we can sue your doctor BEFORE YOU DIE!"

Ok, fuck this. I'm going back to bed.




February 14, 2013

Wake Up

Sometimes you wake up and you just know

there are people in your life that you keep there for no reason.

Or, more accurately, people you keep there because they have always been there.

And if you remove them, there will be a nasty little clean spot around which the dust settled.

And that spot will remind you of how long it has been since an inventory of your well-being has been taken.

Sometimes, you wake  up and you just know

there are people in your life you have taken for granted.

They have always been there, despite your neglect and nonchalance.

And you can move them to the places where you have just been dusting.

And even if they do not quite fit, their spot will remind you of how far you have come since the last time you awakened.