So there I was, standing in line at World Market yesterday evening, with my cute little basket hanging off my arm and adorable plaid oven mitts twirling off my fingers. Ahead of me were the Two Fat Ladies © who were bitching/moaning about the price of the sale items and their 5 dollar bottles of champagne. I was not in a hurry and I did not have any particular place to go. The line behind me seemed to be getting long however, so the clerk called for backup and when the second cashier showed up and asked for next in line, Ken and Barbie jumped at the chance and cut in front of me and several other folks. They were not apologetic about jumping the line, they just did. Other people quickly followed suit and i went from being second in line to the last.
I’ve been hearing for awhile now about how ever since 9/11 people have been getting nicer and nicer. We’ve become a more polite society and a more reasonable one. We are gracious and kind and considerate. Am I the only one who feels like this is a bunch of bullshit and that we are just deluding ourselves? What ever happened to spending 20 seconds to say thank you or even write a nice note for a job well done. Why or how have we become so jaded that we simply do not care any more?
I do not know.
I realised the other day that this was was the reason why I was so angry recently. I am truly sick and tired of people being rude and inconsiderate. From everything from saying please and thank you to not using turn signals when driving. I’m tired of women like the two fat bitches who rather shove products they didn’t want to the side and hide them from the cashier than to give them to the cashier so that he can restock them. I’m tired of people getting short with me when I ask a question because they are being inconsiderate and won’t pay attention to me. I’m sick of being just being mean for no other reason other than to be mean. Not everything is my fault and hence it shouldn’t be treated that way. I’m sorry that the mere thought of spending more than 5 bucks on champagne gives you the willies but that gives you no right to to be rude to the clerk. He just works there. Ken and Barbie could have hold off a few extra minutes to let others through.
I mean, think about it. Stand in line somewhere and watch how people will shove and push to get to the front. Very rarely since 9/11 have I been anywhere where people were not being totally inconsiderate. Take Baltimore Aquarium for instance. Mark and I had stood in line getting tickets and this woman a few paces back lights up and smokes a cigarette WHILE IN LINE. Now you are probably saying to yourself ‘lisa, you used to smoke’ and yah that’s true, but I never was inconsiderate to those around me and i certainly would never smoke in a public place, in line that was packed tighter than sardines. I started coughing from the smoke and Mark swapped places with me because I was seriously thinking about bitchslapping this woman in the face.
Tag: 9/11
infuriatingly stupid
it’s 5:50am and I’m up — and I’ve been up since 3:30am. For some STUPID reason I volunteered to do an after hours turnup for another engineer which was to happen last night — and failed. Because I had been up till 7am yesterday (today? ugh, I’m confused), I opted to work from home only to find the cutover was rescheduled for tonight (last night?) and I had HAPPILY agreed to take it I had one cutover at midnight which did not go through, took a cat nap for 1.5 hours and woke back up. I just emailed work and told them I would be in by noon but even know that seems like I’m pushing it.
I’m in a mood.
I’ve been in such a ‘mood’ lately, on my white board at work I have made a checkbox of what type of mood I’ve been in. It just seems lately (and prior to the attack at WTC)
JESUS EFFING CHRIST
Work just called me. What the hell. Turns out that the company has so many access lists on their damn router they blocked themselves out.
hah.
So like I was saying, I’m in mood.
Prior to the terrorist attacks, I’ve noticed an influx of people who refuse to listen. This is not a simple coincidence of one or two people and where by I could say to myself “hey, maybe I’m saying something wrong or something indifferent” but this is a like everywhere I go — people I talk to on a daily basis face to face, email lists, irc, im, perfect strangers in shopping stores — it’s like the whole world is angry. And again, I thought it was me — but upon bringing this up to a mailing list I wasn’t the only one who saw it and I certainly wasn’t the only one feeling it. But there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. It scares me.
I like to think I’m a good person. A long time ago I stared doing things simply to be nice, whether it was lending a friend 10 bucks with no return expected or paying for someone’s dinner or paying for someone else’s toll on the toll way. I like to think that is the image I give out. I’d also like to think that I am tolerant of other people’s views. That I can sit down and be presented an argument on why I would be wrong and can i not get hot headed over something and say ‘yeah they are right’. I like to think that someday things I do will not only affect my generation, but my future children’s generation and the world beyond that. I like to think, in my own arrogant naiveness, that I will not get robbed, raped again, die unnecessarily, mugged or hated for something I do not stand for. I like to think that my own purposes and beliefs will help me become a better person and to give that a day to day trial against the war on ignorance and stupidity.
I will be the first to admit that sometimes what I think and what is ‘true’ is not only subjective but often it is completely false. I find it hard to sleep sometimes simply because I am worried about so much around me (myself my love life current state of affairs) that it reflects my own attitude on how things really are. I have this such inane need to be insides someone’s head that sometimes it scares me and I get angry when people don’t see the ‘right way’ which is namely the lisa way.
But on the flip side of that argument, some truths are so bright and on fire it hurts me when other people don’t even want to see it. One instance that is coming to mind is on a mailing list (I’ll make this short)I am on, a woman was constantly posting to it in regards to the wearing of the hajib (head covering worn by Islamic women) in the show of solidarity. Many many many women found this to be offensive because of the argument of whether the freedom wearing the garment will show the right support or not. As someone pointed out on the list (who was a Muslim woman) that while the intention would be good, she found it offensive because even she herself does not practice wearing the hijab and that she questioned about why do something if you have no belief in it?
The woman poster (if you haven’t figured out I’m on an all-female list) just would not let up — she seemed to think what she was doing was a good thing, and in her mind, sure, it was. But the issue at hand was that she was force feeding everyone her own view of arm chair patriotism that was becoming nauseating and insufferable. She was told politely, by many women to back off. She would still not stop. So, I of course, driving the point home, basically became blunt and to the point with her and told her to knock it off (in so many words). You would have thought I had driven to these women’s house and held a gun to their head judging by the responses I received after the post. I received many many posts that agreed with me, but the sheer number of posts that in short called me an unsympathetic bitter bitch (none of them used foul language, I’m just driving the point home here.) was simply amazing. The point of this is not ONE of them took the time to sit down and read what I said. I often have a problem where what I say and what I mean are not the same things. I have taken special care in the past and now to make sure that my email is delivering the point home whether it is something simple to say ‘i love you’ or ‘you are a fucking moron’. There was no way of interpreting the email that I sent other than what i said directly.
As one supporter of what i said stated “you could say blue and they see blew” — and it often infuriates me that sometimes people don’t take the time to just sit down and listen whether my argument is rational or if your argument is rational or not, we should listen. These women who were being so callous towards me (not like i was a freaking angel in my private responses to them) is that they were so gung-ho on the whole patriotism thing that to them, anyone who disagreed with both the method and/or the delivery was a downright commie pinko bastard!
That to me, makes me incredibly sad more so than the terrorists attack, that we are fighting among ourselves and instead of taking the time to digest the various views, we are finding that we are simply being stubborn (of which I’m a guilty party of) and refusal to listen.
I like to think that sometimes I’m above that, that I do listen. But in matters of the heart (as Paul AND Danny have both told me) this is not true. There is “lisa way” or the “highway” — but I’m becoming more convinced in my old age that while I preach one thing, i may act another. this is a long argument i could keep going on for days about and frankly, I’m tired.
i took some tests at http://www.selectsmart.com/CONTENT/
And found that i am:
- neo-pagan
- a follower of Kant
- libertarian, republican and THEN democratic.
go figure.
lisa
silence
Honoring those who died today, please take a moment of silence to remember them.
x0x0x0
Lisa