Going to Town Sucks.

I seem to have woken up in a different dimension this morning…one where everything is blanketed in several shades of “blah”. Dull gray, dull brown, dull green. If the weather report is correct, we are soon to be covered in several shades of white, but the temperature isn’t cooperating, and so we’re stuck under a thick, heavy, dark rain cloud until such time as God sees fit to turn the ugliness into a gigantic snow globe.

Yesterday, I ventured out of my cozy little corner of the world and went into town with my husband and son, to see a friend who was helping a friend at a local craft show (also to deliver to said friend a birthday present that is two months late, but I digress). Aside from the few minutes of socializing, and apart from the fact that I (hopefully) brightened the day of two family members with the delivery of some home-made butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies, I think the day away from home was a total flop.

I could have been here, not wearing uncomfortable shoes, not crammed into uncomfortable jeans (the very same recently purchased jeans that I spoke of earlier…when, oh when will I learn to try clothes on BEFORE I buy them?). I could have been washing dishes…or doing laundry….

Hmm. From that point of view, maybe I was better off going to town after all.

Although, every time I take a trip into the Outside World (the one not just beyond my own front door, but beyond the limits of the itty bitty ‘village’ I live in), I find dozens of things to be dissatisfied with. I’m not sure if I do this on purpose or not…however, I’m open to the possibility that when I go out, I actually do LOOK for things to irritate me about Humanity at large, thereby giving myself rock-solid excuses to NOT go out ever again.

People drive like crap. Not only do they not know how to handle a four-way stop or use their turn-signals when they are turning (rather than the wonderful Chronic Turners who never seem to BE turning anywhere), they also have to add Technology into the already disastrous mix of them being behind the wheel of a car in the first place, by talking on their phone whilst cutting other people off and making left-hand turns from the furthest right-hand lane and ignoring the fact that the light turned red a good 30 seconds before they even got to the intersection.

Death and destruction and mayhem everywhere, I’m telling you.

And it’s all made more interesting and exciting when my husband is driving, although I refuse to repeat 99% of the things he feels compelled to yell at the other people on the road. What I CAN tell you is that yesterday’s excursion only served to remind him of the organization that he would very much like to start- M.A.B.O.P. (Men Against Bitches On the Phone (I’d like to point out the possibility that my husband did not, in fact, think of this first…possibly it had already been thought of, and I only heard of it for the first time through my husband’s road-rage)). He thought of this years ago, back when we lived in a bigger city full of college kids and highschoolers who had free reign of the streets and too many people to talk to while cruising aimlessly around. At first I was offended; just because a woman was talking on the phone while driving didn’t make her a ‘bitch’, and anyway, only crappy rappers should ever refer to women in general as ‘bitches’.

So there.

But, as it turns out, my husband has reserved that term for ONLY the women who talk on the phone while driving and therefore drive like idiots. He has no problems with the ones who can talk and drive decently. Or the ones who can talk and drive and smoke and eat without causing a ten-car pile-up. Or me, because while I may drive like the woman that I am, I don’t pull out in front of speeding cars (except that one time when I merged into the lane directly in front of a semi) or slam on the brakes for no apparent reason when there are twenty cars behind me.

Probably I should take this as a compliment.

At any rate, it suddenly occurs to me that due to living in such a quiet little place, my husband and I have pretty much turned into hermits, having zero desire to take place in the madness of anywhere with traffic, shopping centers, or more than ten people gathering in any one place. We both get overly wound-up and frazzled with each trip into town, and when we return to the peace and quiet of here, it’s hard to imagine that anywhere else in the world is worth visiting.

And it is on that anti-social note that I shall now leave you, so that I can finish decorating the Christmas tree that YES, I have already put up. I couldn’t help it.

The Stupid(er), The Awesome(r)

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man (or worse, my mother), I absolutely cannot seem to wrap my mind around the way the world works today; there are so many horrifically idiotic things that people do now days in order to seem like they’re really “with it”…things that are now considered not just acceptable in society, but trendy, cool,or fashionable.

As a teenager, I occasionally tried to keep up with the latest trends, all the different fashions, but when morals and reason started to be compromised for the sake of being “cool” or “popular”, I usually ran for the hills (I say usually because I admit I did my fair share of idiotic things in my teen years- however, I refuse to own up to any idiocy as an adult). I’m happy to be able to say, at the ripe old age of 26, I at least never did anything to fit in or be “cool” that caused permanent damage.

Apparently, it makes you cool if you drive like a jerk. At least, if you’re a guy it does; if you’re a woman and you drive like an idiot, you’re just an idiot, but if a dude does it…instant awesome points with his buddies. And that makes perfect sense; if you can drive 100 miles an hour everywhere you go, cut off dozens of other drivers, run red lights and squeal your tires (all while the bass is booming loud enough for people to hear it in China), then you’ve EARNED the title of “Bad Ass”. And I say, “Well done!” People could learn a few things from you; for instance, how much a hospital bill comes to after you’ve been stitched back up, or what it costs to have the wreckage towed away after you’ve wrapped a pick-up truck around a tree.

If you’re a teenage girl, you are now considered “cool” if you manage to stay in school all through a pregnancy (or two…or three…). So don’t worry, little girls- go ahead and get knocked up in your sophomore year of high school, because as long as you still turn in your homework on time, nobody will think any less of you. Oh, and go ahead and continue to wear itty bitty tank tops while you’re at it, so you can show off your ‘baby belly’ like the accessory that it is…because the bigger the baby belly, the more ‘hip’ you look.

As for all the under-age drinkers out there, I think it would be really fantastic if you could keep up with posting the photos of you and your friends partying- make sure you get them onto facebook, that way the whole world can see just how awesome you are. Those group pictures where ten or twenty of your 16 year old friends are all holding half-finished beers? I love those. But even better than that are the photos of 15 year old girls with their eyes half closed, their clothes half off, striking a drunken pose for the camera, while in the back ground, a couple of guys are drooling over her. Those are my favorites, because they really set the standard on ‘coolness’ that I think we should all aspire to.

Reach for the stars, and all that.

People who strech your earlobes out big enough to fit a golf ball into the hole- you rock! And if I think you look pretty awesome like that while you’re in your twenties, I can just imagine how much cooler you’re going to look when you’re 60, and your ear lobes are so saggy that you have to tuck them into your shirt collar to keep them from swinging around and smacking you in the face on a windy day.

To those of you who run up huge credit card debts just so you can have the latest this, the fanciest that- truly, you are super cool. And you can prove it, because you are in possession of an enormous television and three different gaming systems and your clothes are the best name brands and you live in a huge house. And even though you have to be on food stamps in order to eat, and you can’t afford to go to the doctor if you get sick, that doesn’t lower your level of awesomeness, because hey, you’re surrounded by state-of-the-art everything.

I salute all of the parents out there who are less like PARENTS and more like over-grown teenagers, who do little about teaching their kids anything (especially discipline and values); but who cares about that, as long as your kids’ friends think you’re so much cooler than their own parents? I mean, let’s face it- the youth of today need less of that obnoxious parenting and more friends to shop with, hang out with, and get drunk with.

I honestly can’t figure out how these things work…how behaving like a moron not only DOESN’T get you banished to some remote island where you can’t hurt anyone but yourself, but it also earns you popularity points. The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that one of two things is happening- either I’m misunderstanding what it is that really makes a person ‘cool’, or they are.