For a Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic

I woke up today to a gray dismal sky and a damp chill in the air, but in my mind it might as well have been bright and sunny. I was more than pleased with the results of last night’s election and practically nothing would bring my day down - not even the bought of rainy weather that New York is being subjected to this week.

As I walked to the train amongst groups of suits chattering in a volume that should be banned anytime before 9am, I did my usual morning eavesdropping on the two people walking in front of me.

“Did you see the tears in McCain’s eyes as he gave his concession speech?” one suit asked the lady walking with him.

“I was almost afraid of what I would find when I looked outside my window this morning,” his buddy responded, her heels clacking down the platform.

I nearly snorted a laugh when I heard that. Seriously what did she expect – that the fires of Mordor would come bursting through the floor of the Capitol building after Obama gave his speech?

During the train ride the still too loud chatter continued. A girl seated in a group of six behind me asked one of her companions, “Who’d you vote for?”

The guy whom the question was directed to grumbled. “Why should I tell you? Are you going to tell me who you voted for?”

“If you’d like I will,” she responded. “I voted for Obama,” she said proudly.

“So did I,” the other four in the group chimed in without being prompted.

“Well I’m not saying anything,” said the gentleman, while snapping his newspaper open. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway…the country’s going to hell in a hand basket now.” Well that was as good as an answer as any!

I couldn’t help, but be amused at that. Why so reluctant, sir? Is it that you’re just a sore loser? Or are you just ashamed to admit you were backing the wrong candidate? Eh, it’s probably the former. There are some McCain supporters who are crazed and will gladly throw themselves into a Hydra’s mouth before admitting any fault.

After arriving at the office, I watched as my boss walked in frantic.

“I have to check my stocks today and make sure nothing happened to them!” she said, practically barreling through the doors.

“Umm.” I responded casually. I learned months ago never to ask too many questions because more often than not, I ended up regretting it. I deserve a freaking sainthood from actually being able to hold my tongue while listening to her nonsense for 40 hours a week.

“Even though I voted for McCain, that Obama still won. Now all my money is going to be gone.”

Oh dear lord. “Why would it be gone?” I carefully ventured.

She looked at me as if I suddenly grew an extra head. “Because everyone knows that the Democrats will lose all the money. Whose fault do you think it is that the economy is so bad? It’s not Bush’s and certainly not McCain’s.”

I simply stared at her in shock as she continued. “People only voted for that Obama because they’re set on giving McCain a hard time about wanting to send troops to Iraq. It’s ridiculous; the US needs to protect their investment. And now with Russia and all that…I highly doubt that Obama would even try to put them back in their place. The country won’t survive with a wuss in the office”

That was more than enough. “You do know that if WW3 were to occur – and it sounds like you’d be all for that – your stocks would be worthless after the country is destroyed,” I snapped and walked to the back room so I could bang my head into the wall repeatedly.

Guess I’ll have to wait a couple more months for that sainthood to kick in.

I recently came across the site Dear You, another blog here at Today.com that’s basically a collection of funny open letters to groups or individuals. I’ve cracked up at many a letter on the site and today I started thinking: what if I were, even for just one day, to do the same? There are so many people I encounter during my day and sometimes their oddness or stupidity is wondrous -

Dear Guy Who Got Upset When I Tripped Over His Laptop,      

Okay, I understand how carrying a laptop can be a pain, but you seemed to have been doing just fine going up the stairs. Yet when you extend the handle and rolled the bag behind you (leaving two people’s worth of space between you and the bag) in Penn Station at rush hour, you shouldn’t be annoyed at me that it tripped me up. Maybe the floor isn’t the best place to drag your expensive machinery around on?

Dear Lady with Stroller,

Do you really think it’s such a smart idea when crossing the street to push the stroller ahead of you and then look to see if there’s any oncoming traffic? The worst part is that you’re not the only person who does this! I am completely baffled as to your logic.

Dear Girl Who Keeps Crashing into Me When I Go on Break,

Why are you always so surprised when the elevator door opens and I attempt to go out? Do you think it’s just some magical floating metal box that’s there only for your disposal?

Dear Guy Pushing Around an Empty Dolly,

Get back to work! (Inside joke at my husband’s expense)

Dear Group of Delivery Guys Who Stand in the Same Spot for Hours and Catcall,

Get back to work as well! And do you have to be so obvious? Did you ever think that maybe instead of calling me “Hey Mami!” and getting a glare from me, you could instead say “Hey you look very pretty,” and get a gorgeous smile in response?

Dear UPS Guy Changing His Pants in the Back of his Truck with the Doors Open,

We can see you!

Dear Lady Holding Everyone up on the Stairwell,

If your shoes prevent you from going down the stairs then maybe you shouldn’t wear them.

Dear Large Group of Tourists,

Must all 8 of you hold hands…are you trying to clothesline everyone else?

Is there anyone who doesn’t love a good rant? While those of you who are regulars to FAPIPO know that I have a tendency to bitch about something and anything, my rants always end up turning into ramble. I lack the focus to provide golden rants like Ettarose over at Edge of Sanity (check out her recent one Crosses on the Shoulder)

But even Ettarose can’t be as ridiculously random as this guy who posted in the forum section of the Long Island Subaru Club. Since you need a log-in to view his original post, I’m copy/pasting it here so his awesome randomness can be fully appreciated:

Originally Posted by kevinh211 www.longislandsubaruclub.com

“I understand how scissors can beat paper, and I get how a rock can beat scissors, but there’s no fucking way paper can beat rock. Is paper supposed to magically wrap around the rock and leave it immobile? Why the hell can’t paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can’t paper do this to people? Why aren’t sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they take notes in class? I’ll tell you why, because paper can’t beat anybody. A rock would tear that shit up in 2 seconds. When I play rock paper scissors, I always choose rock. then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, oh shit I’m sorry, I thought paper would protect you.”

My house has been attacked by another swarm of ants (one of the many reasons why I’m glad we’re moving at the end of the month). At least they’re not the horrible giant carpenter ants – these are just the small brown ones. Even so, who the hell wants a lot of any type of insect, small or not, in their house? If only our landlord wasn’t so cheap at times; she hired the laziest exterminator ever. He sprays in maybe 2 spots around the house and then leaves saying “I’ll probably have to come back.”

The sneaky bastards have tried every way of getting into the place: through the back door, the front door, the windows in one bedroom, then the windows in the other, through the bathtub (maybe they crawled up the pipes?) and even through the linen closet. Today they tried the back door again. Fighting the urge to scream as they circled around a piece of invisible food, I grabbed a bottle of 409 kitchen spray (the first thing I saw) and sprayed them down.

I cleaned everything up, but the fuckers kept coming back. After repeating the above steps three times, I became frustrated, sprayed another swarm of them, and left the dead bodies to float in the chemical pool. I figured it would serve as a warning and maybe the lemon smell would confuse the other ant’s radar or whatever. But it didn’t matter; they kept coming anyway, some of them crawling right into the puddle, which I found perplexing.

I assumed all insects had some sort of survival instinct. After all, when you go to step on an ant they immediately crawl away the minute your foot’s shadow covers them. So then why when faced with a pool of dead ants would they just charge right on through? Other than the fact that I thought ants didn’t like water, what is it about the lifeless bodies of the members of your colony that translates as “Go ahead”? Are ants the new lemmings?

Well let me tell you, if I were walking down the street and saw rows of dead people in front of the local drug store, I sure as hell would turn right around. And run.

Whenever I’m typing and on a roll, I usually scramble all my letters together. My theory for this is that my mind is always five sentences ahead of my fingers. Or it could just be that I think I have sausages for fingers.

Either way, I am very reliant on dictionaries and spellcheckers. My homepage is www.merriam-webster.com, I have a dictionary/thesaurus widget on the upper right corner of my desktop, and I don’t know what I’d do without MS Word’s red squiggly lines.

But I hate, HATE, doing spell check in my email. The stupid thing either doesn’t recognize a correctly spelled word, or it gives you a million other spellings that you have to scroll through before you get to the right one, or it doesn’t give you the correct spelling at all! Maybe it’s a Yahoo thing…does anyone have this trouble with Gmail?

Here are some of the more recent common misspellings I made and Yahoo’s ridiculous suggestions:

otehr (other) – otter, outer, uteri, OTOH, Oder, Terr, terr, Otes, outré, Torr, Petr, order, otters, outers

mustve (must’ve) – muster, must, musette, mustier, Gustave, musty, musts, mustache, mutative, Mister, mister

motehr (mother) – mote hr, mote-hr, miter, mooter, motet, mote, mater, meter, moder, motor, muter

hahaha (no appropriate spelling) – hardhat, Chihuahua, brouhaha, chihuahua, heehaws, HHS, Hohhot

theres (there’s) – threes, Theresa, Therese, the res, the-res

It’ sdifferent (It’s different) – stiffened, stiffener, stiffeners, stiffen, stiffens, stiffest, sediment, softened, Steffan

ungluing (correct spelling) – angling, uncling, inkling, bungling, ankling, uncoiling, untiling, including, uncurling, engulfing, Angelina

While I have never really considered my writing to be controversial, I definitely do not shy away from certain topics such as porn, racism, and abortion. Since these do tend to be touchy topics for some people, I always expect backlash whether it is warranted or not.

Some of the things I’ve been accused of:

-          Being a bitch (My Husband, the Cheapskate)

-          Being a child abuser (I Almost Punched the Bastard in the Face…I don’t care that he was only 9 years old)

-          Being a whiner (Lies Our Parents Told Us)

-          Being a gay man (Do People Change After High School – Short Answer: No)

-          Being a fat cow who doesn’t realize it (Thank God I’m Pretty?)

-          Being a racist (“All Black People Have Syphilis??!!”)

-          Being a feminist who physically abuses men (He Should Have Ducked)

-          Being a selfish bitch who deserves to become barren (The Greatest Lie I Ever Told)

-          Being a whore (I Like to Watch Porn, Once Twice Three Times a Porn Star, Ambien Antics, A Day in the Life of an Agoraphobic, and basically any other post where I show that I am an opinionated female)

So when I posted “No Shit, Cosmo!” I expected some grumblings. I assumed the facts that I talked about sex tips that I used a “naughty” word in the title would be where most of it would come from.  But I didn’t expect that Cosmopolitan had brainwashed so many people to the extent that I would receive hate mail for being critical of a magazine filled with ads for clothing that costs more than it does to rent an apartment.

Somehow, complaining about a magazine where it’s ideals of womanhood are horribly degrading makes me the one who is “demoralizing women.” I am also a “disgrace to the female gender” and  “probably an angry dyke”. The best part? All of these critiques were sent from women!

The only male who responsed said “There’s hope for this female unit.” Um, thanks, I guess?

I don’t know why it disturbed me to get these emails, usually I complain about a critique to a friend and then move on. But then I received a comment where a woman accused me of endorsing rape upon males based on the sentence “After all, Cosmo said most girls should just go ahead and stick a finger in to see if he likes it”.

Really, lady? Are you telling me that you’re smart enough to copy/paste the first half of the sentence, but your brain wasn’t able to comprehend the rest (which was “yet if a guy were to do this sneak attack to a girl, she’d balk”)? You mean to tell me that after reading the entire article, you believed I was condoning Cosmo’s sex tips?! It’s frustrating to know how ridiculous some people can be and I’m more disappointed to know the level women are willing to stoop in order to defend a trashy magazine.

I love to watch America’s Next Top Model marathons. Yes I know, nothing to be proud of, but I have my reasons. Yet, if someone were to say to me “Top Model is just the usual piece of trash reality show,” there’s no way in hell you’d ever hear me reply “How dare you say that! Tyra is a strong and independent woman who has created a show only so she can offer help to aspiring models everywhere…shame on you!”

So let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we? Yes, for some Cosmo provides a guilty pleasure and lets women ogle at celebrities lives, super expensive merchandise, and various quizzes that reminds us of when we were young and used to do these religiously in Seventeen magazine. But please, please, please do not put so much stalk in a magazine whose rape prevention article says that women can easily identify a rapist from 3 simple hand gestures!

I’m watching as once again my fat cat has his nose shoved up the rear of my poor older cat.

I started to notice these attacks on my two other cats just a few months ago. The cats will be sitting or sleeping, just minding their own business. Suddenly the pudgester will run up behind them and shove his nose under their tail. The poor victim will freeze in shock for a moment and then try to run away, all the while with the butt sniffer still attached to them.

At first I chalked it up to him being a weird animal that likes the smell of poo. But that’s not the case with this fluff ball. In fact, he’s constantly crying for us to clean the litter boxes, even after they’ve just been cleaned.

To make this all weirder, after he gets a nice deep whiff he’ll spend the next half hour with his mouth hanging open!

Sometimes I find him just sniffing the floor. One of the cats would have just walked away after sleeping in one spot for hours. Nutso will have his nose glued to the now vacated spot on my hardwood floor. This time he’ll spend a while sniffing around, always with his mouth hanging open afterwards.

I know that dogs are constantly sniffing each others butts; it’s like a greeting and a dominance thing to them. But I’ve never heard of cats doing that. All my cats have been neutered so they don’t secrete any of the hormones or whatever that cats use to spray and stain your furniture. So just what is it that attracts him to their behinds so?

I hate shopping at my local Pathmark. It’s always ridiculously cold, over crowded and noisy. Not to mention it’s full of people who are stupid enough to tap on watermelons just because they’ve seen someone do that somewhere (do they even know what they think they’re listening for?) But the worst part is the checkout line. Besides the fact that they never have enough cashiers, while you’re waiting you’re forced to look at magazines with titles such as “Behold the 5 headed baby!” and “Britney on another drug hazed binge!”.

Let’s face it, when you’re bored and the line is moving at a snails pace, you sometimes find yourself flipping through these magazines to pass the time and check out just how bad those four extra heads are photo shopped. For me, I can’t resist picking up the latest Cosmopolitan to see what nonsense they’re spewing out that month. Whenever I do, I‘m just as baffled as to why any woman would actually pay for this five dollar collection of crap.

Seriously, every issue they advertise as the Sex issue (usually every other month) is loaded with the same regurgitated “tips”.  This month’s [The Hot Issue] was just as stupid as the rest. Not only did they do they’re usual we-can’t-think-of-any-material-so-we’re-g oing-to-just-run-polls bull, but they’re “Wild. Steamy. Shocking.” results were anything but.

Did you know that guys are more turned on by a woman who says she’s willing to try anything in bed? How about the fact that guys fantasize about threesomes even if they don’t tell their girlfriend they do? Or even that more men prefer to have the girl on top than missionary? That’s when I thought to myself “No shit, Cosmo!’ and closed the magazine irritated.

But what was I really expecting from a magazine where in June their biggest article was titled “HIS G Spot” and said that the male equivalent to the G Spot is his prostate. Well thanks Cosmo - I’m sure my guy will let me shove my fingers up his ass just because you said so. At least I can chuckle over how many squeamish men freaked out when their girl read the article and sprung this on them in the bedroom! After all, Cosmo said most girls should just go ahead and stick a finger in to see if he likes it (yet if a guy were to do this sneak attack to a girl, she’d balk).

These asinine articles are nothing compared to their “steamy advice” (the word advice belongs in quotes because they never actually answer  the questions). Cosmo boasted that its May Sex Q&A was their naughtiest, even adding the phrase “Yeah, we went there!” After checking out the table of contents so I wouldn’t be subjected to the rest of the crap, I came across the first “shocking” question: My guy wants me to tie him up. Exactly what do I do once he’s bound to the bed? If someone really can’t figure out what happens next then I think that girl has other problems to deal with, mostly related to the fact that she must be as dumb as a rock.

Ladies, if you really need to get your sex advice from a magazine, try writing to Maxim of Stuff. At least when you ask them “What should I do to get my guy in the mood?” they’ll respond with a more realistic “Blow him,” than Cosmo’s “Light some candles to set an atmosphere.”