Eric Hates You

While not directly affecting me in any way, I hate these people because I don’t have the balls to do it myself. I don’t know if it’s because I’d feel guilty or if I’d feel disgusted to be lowering myself to basement level laziness. If you’ve ever parked next to someone who is selfish enough to knowingly park in a handicap parking space you’ll see one of many things:

1) If the person spots you eyeing them they may act like they are searching for their non-existent handicapped parking placard and proceed with an exaggerated look of realization that they left it at home. This is usually followed by the following:

2) The person may pretend to be handicapped while getting out of their car. Limping or faking pain while crossing the parking lot is to be expected. This of course subsides once the person is inside their destination. If the person has kids, they may have informed them of the ruse beforehand. You may see a small child fetching a shopping cart for their “handicapped” parent. This is similar to training a small dog.

3) Upon exiting the building, their eyes will be fixed on the windshield of their car. They could be shopping at a Walmart in downtown Baghdad but nothing can pull their gaze away from that windshield. As soon as they are sure there is no parking ticket on said windshield, you will see:

4) An undeserved sense of accomplishment usually in the form of a smug smile or floaty walk. I’ve seen less emotion on OJ’s face when he was declared not guilty. At this point, they will climb into their mid-80’s compact car or minivan.

Of course it is futile to call someone out on their parking faux pas. They will either ignore you or give you the finger. In both cases, your hatred for them will increase tenfold and burn further into your mind the fact that they have more balls than you do.

Like the majority of my male counterparts, I do not like to dawdle when I go shopping.  Recently I had been shopping at Target for a new Blu-Ray movie to watch.  I entered the store, walked immediately to the electronics section, scanned the selection of movies and saw The Rock on sale for 15 bucks.  I won’t bother writing a post about people who say they hate Michael Bay movies because deep down, they secretly enjoyed them.  This process took me all of 30 seconds.

I walked to the cash registers to find one person ringing people up.  This also infuriates me but that is a post for another day.  I parked myself behind an elderly woman who had apparently found the deal of a lifetime as she was buying roughly 20 sweaters in the beginning of June.  I waited patiently as she argued clearance prices with the cashier and once the dust settled, he read her the total price.  It was at this point that she unzipped her purse and my patience ran out.

Instead of an Amex or a Visa, she pulled out her checkbook.  I turned to the man buying socks behind me and he returned the same sunken expression I was wearing.  This was not just any checkbook.  This was the checkbook of a woman who refused to believe that you can actually pay for things with something other than a sequentially numbered piece of paper with a picture of a teddy bear holding balloons.  She even held up the matching checkbook holder with said teddy bear on it, hoping that the cashier would take part in the sheer exhilaration she was displaying at writing a check.  Instead, the cashier handed her a pen to speed up this process which this woman promptly refused.

Apparently, women of this caliber can’t write a check using any other pen but the special check writing one they have buried in their purse.  At one point I could have sworn she had put her entire head into her purse trying to find this special pen.  Once the treasure hunt was over, she began writing the check, verifying the total price which at this point she, along with myself, the cashier, and the 20 people behind me had forgotten.  Of course she couldn’t have filled the check out beforehand, at home or in the car, because when I walk into a store with a Target sign, I expect to end up in a Home Depot, or a Bed Bath & Beyond.  She must have expected the same.

Finally the check had been fully completed, triple checked, and handed to the cashier.  Of course the story doesn’t end there.  The receipt is printed and handed to the woman who at this point has realized that her check writing journey has angered the 20 people waiting behind her.  At this point the cashier has already scanned my movie and I am ready to run my debit card through the credit card machine which this woman is blocking with her purse.  She has decided that instead of parting ways with all of the angry people behind her, she is going to balance her checkbook before leaving the store.  The cashier shoots me a look which says, “I’m sorry, if I was allowed to punch her in the throat, I would.”  Only after she reburies her checkbook in her purse like a dog burying a bone does she look up and smile as if she’s done nothing wrong.

I understand that if you’ve been using checks for the last 80 years, you may have a hard time transitioning to using plastic but I assure you, if you aren’t able to understand how to use a debit card, you have bigger issues on your hands such as remembering how to feed yourself or making sure you don’t poop in your own pants.  Basically what I’m saying is that if you can’t understand how to use a credit card, you need to stay in your house and start sending out for your groceries.  Checks should only be used once a month, to pay off your credit cards.  You know that credit card commercial where everyone in the store is using their credit cards and then the one idiot pulls out his checkbook and everyone looks shocked?  That is pretty much the way it is in real life except that you don’t realize everyone is making fun of you and instead of looking shocked, they want to take the pique polo you are buying and asphyxiate you with it.  So for those of you still using checks, stop it.

I went to fill up my full size, late 90’s sedan today and the person next to me had the gall to strike up a conversation about how high gas prices were reaching. Instead of punching this man in the throat to teach him a lesson about having conversations with strangers, I decided to let him continue. He went on to say that at this rate, we’d be paying $6 for a gallon of gas by the end of the year. Apparently this man has never taken a high school math course. Just for kicks, I told him that I lived in Denmark for a year and gas prices were already $6 a gallon and that I was happy gas was so cheap here in America. Like most people who rub me the wrong way, he gave me a dirty look, got back into his SUV, and went along his merry way.

Are you really going to gripe about a 5 cent increase in the price of gas? By the time you are done reading this article, you could have made enough money working to cover that 5 cent increase for a full tank of gas. Unless you are filling up a motorhome, you are complaining about an increase of between 60 cents and a dollar per fill up. I’m pretty sure I’d swallowed that much change by the time I turned 10 years old. I’ll also ignore the fact that if you are filling up a motorhome, a 5 cent increase in gas prices should be fairly low on your budgetary concerns. America is finally catching up to what the rest of the world has been paying for years and you are going to complain about it? You better hope that the next time you decide to talk to a stranger about high gas prices you don’t get a punch in your throat because it might just be me.

You people have some nerve. Flagrantly disobeying the numbers on the side of the road you choose to drive at your own casual pace. People don’t get into their cars and hit the road to kill time. This isn’t the 50’s. People no longer take the family out in the Oldsmobile for a Sunday drive. If you want to drive at your own pace instead of the standard set by the State and Federal governments, you can move to Montana, or Wyoming.

Have you never heard of living life in the fast lane? You can’t live life in the fast lane while simultaneously driving 45 in a 65. Now I understand that you believe driving more slowly with your kids in the car somehow makes you more of a responsible parent but it does not. What it does do is make me want to put a tire iron through your back windshield.

Do you not have places to be? Obviously you do otherwise you wouldn’t be wasting your $4 a gallon gasoline. Are you somehow unique from everyone else in that the laws of time don’t apply to you? Do you have that much extra time on your hands that you leave 10 minutes early so you can drive 20 miles under the speed limit? Somehow I think you get joy from seeing 10 cars lined up behind you; seeing the drivers throwing their hands up in anger; hearing the car horns blaring which can only mean one thing: If you don’t go the speed limit or higher, I’m going to ram your car off the road. The government determines the speed limit because that is a safe speed to drive. If you can’t drive the speed limit because you don’t feel safe doing so, you don’t deserve a drivers license. Get someone to drive you around that is willing to read the speed limit signs properly and not make people want to light your gas tank on fire.

In reality, I hate when anyone uses chat acronyms.  To me, acronyms equate to laziness.  I would much rather have someone type, “You are so funny Eric.  You are so funny in fact that I love to hate you.  I came this close –><–  to having a heart attack because I love MySpace and wear a fanny pack while I’m driving my minivan” instead of “lmao”.  What I hate more than kids using acronyms to talk to each other is when adults do it.  No grandpa, you are not “ROFL” because if you were, you would break your hip.  And mom, stop using “lol” when you forward those annoying chain letters to me.  It makes me want to “pmitt (punch myself in the throat)”.  Adults should have learned by now that it looks extremely uncouth to abbreviate your conversations.  But hey, if your intent is to have the appearance of an 11 year old girl while you talk to others on the internet, ignore my advice.

Have you no shame? Where is your sense of masculinity? You must have lost it in your 167.9 cubic feet of cargo space. I suppose you can equate owning a minivan to being the effeminate friend of all of the girls in high school; you fit in so well with the female crowd that you figure you might get some action. Trust me, the only crowd you’ll be fitting in with is the soccer moms and those weird women who drive minivans though they don’t have any kids and even then, they’ll discriminate against you because you don’t have a uterus. Grow a pair and buy a real car. And for those of you who think you’re finding a loophole by buying a crossover vehicle, you aren’t. You are still less of a man for buying one.

I don’t give a crap if you TiVo Anderson Cooper 360 on a daily basis; I hate Anderson Cooper. No self respecting journalist would be caught dead wearing a polo shirt, jeans and a pair of Doc Martens but Anderson Cooper is apparently sponsored by Ralph Lauren. People used to watch the news for the news. Now they turn on AC360 to see a self righteous farce that barely categorizes as journalism.

I’m always hearing, “How can you hate Anderson Cooper? He’s such a handsome man.” Personally, I don’t see the attraction. You are 40 Anderson Cooper. Dye your hair like every other 40 year old who goes gray at an early age. I don’t give a damn if they call you CNN’s Silver Fox; it doesn’t make you look edgy, it makes you look like a fool. Those who report the news shouldn’t be attractive. Since when did news become entertaining instead of informative? People who report the news should look like this:

and not this:

Yes, I hate you dear reader. Why do I hate you? If you are depraved enough to be reading the rantings of a person you’ve never met, you qualify as a person I love to hate. Stop it. Close your browser now and save yourself from being offended.