When All the Weirdos Turn Crazy

Can anyone tell me what the hell, exactly, is wrong with people?

So yesterday I’m driving home, complete with a raging caffeine-withdrawal headache. Traffic was heavier than usual on the highway, and at one point we slowed down to a crawl. Gah. Sucks. But whatever.

Then I see some asshat barreling down the right shoulder, going at least 70. On the shoulder. The shoulder. Where you really aren’t supposed to drive. Where there could be someone broken down around the next bend. Or a cop, but of course that’s way wishful thinking on my part.

This shoulder was an especially stupid place to be speeding, because it ends quite suddenly when the highway we were on merges with another bigger, crappier and more congested highway. Oh, and did I mention there’s been random construction on this highway for the past bajillion years?

But the weird thing is, I didn’t really think about all this stuff until later. At the time, I just watched him fly by me, shook my head and thought, “Damn, and it’s only Tuesday.”

Because usually the road ragers wait until Thursday or Friday to go really and truly beserk. Case in point: Driving home on a Friday sometime last summer. On Massachusetts Avenue just inside the District line. I’m in the left lane because the right lane is blocked by parked cars, like it always is. Some Jeep 4x4 is in the right lane and tries to speed up and get in front of me. Sigh. So sick of that. I don’t slow down for him, in fact I downshift and speed up a bit, just to let him know I don’t appreciate being cut off from the right.

Oh noooo I did-ent! Guy floors it, cuts me off and continues to drive off at easily double the speed limit. He flies through the next light just as someone was trying to turn left. Very very very nearly slams into them. Whoa. Crazy.

“Hope getting around me was worth it, jackass,” I said, kind of laughing, because the lights are timed so no matter how fast you go, you ain’t making them all. I catch up to Mr. Crazy Jeep at the very next red light. He obviously learned his lesson, which was that it was all MY FAULT he nearly killed someone. Window goes down, out comes the middle finger. Dude, whatever.

Next red light. He’s still pissed. My windows were down already so I can hear him screaming at me. I look over and he’s right there, yelling stuff like, “I saw what you did, I saw what you did! I saw how you tried to speed up so I couldn’t get around!”

Me: Um, yeah. You nearly killed someone and it’s my fault for not letting you cut me off on the right.

Mr. Crazy Jeep: Bwa! Blibbity blah fuck! Mee hoo bitching gub!

Me: Fuck you, idiot.

Mr. Crazy Jeep: You sped up! Craw dee ba! Fuck shit bitch yibby!

Me: Way to drive 80 in a 30 zone. Do you enjoy running over small children too?

Mr. Crazy Jeep: Blah! Yip figgity fug! (gets out of car, starts waving arms over head) Boooo, fucking foo fah!

Me: (rolls windows up, gets out cell phone) Green light, have a nice life, fuckhead!

Mr. Crazy Jeep: Your car’s slow as shit!

Whoa, man, seriously! Say what you want about me and my mother, but please, leave the poor car out of this!

So that’s a Friday road rager. And this morning…a Wednesday road rager! Seriously, what. The. Hell. The entire D.C. metro area needs major anger management therapy.

Left lane on two-lane road. Stuck behind a slowpoke, need to get in the right lane soon to get on the highway. I see an opening, check my blind spot, put my signal on and pull over.

Hooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkk. (pause) Hooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. Honk! HonkHonk!

The car that less than a millisecond before had been a car’s length behind me is now right on my ass and making a big show of pulling over to the right because he needed to swerve to get out of the way of the crazy driver who cut him off with no indication other than her TURN SIGNAL. He’d obviously floored it the second he saw I wanted over and was now pounding the horn for all it was worth.

Big old whatever. Like what, I was going to pull back over? Get on the highway ramp. He’s tailing me. I get over on the highway and move all the way over to the left lane before the highway divides ahead. He’s trying to tail me, but Taurus vs. Subaru WRX isn’t much of a competition. But he’s determined. He catches up with me, comes up on the right side and…well, I don’t really know. I wasn’t going to look at him; I just kept on driving. Then he sped by me and crossed back over to the right side of the highway to go the opposite direction at the split.

So to recap: I get in front of him. I am in front of him for a span of about 45 seconds before we go our separate ways on the highway. This asshat spent time and energy trying to tailgate and pass me, for what? So I’d know I’d pissed him off? Noted. Sorry. A thousand apologies. So he could “beat me?” Um, ok. Hope you got to your destination a lot faster than me. So he could scare me? Sorry Mr. Angry Taurus, you’ll always be a distant second to Mr. Crazy Jeep in my life.

But seriously, you looked way too fat to be getting so worked up over driving. You could have a heart attack or something. Maybe you should try riding a bike to work.

And Subaru WRX vs. bike? Mwa ha ha!

Assistant to the Amalah

Eve3, my new assistant and gopher, started today. She's been here 23 minutes and already offered to carry stuff for me so I wouldn't spill my tea.

I love her immensely.

My Thumbs Hurt

Ow. Seriously, they do hurt.

Saturday night we went out to dinner (which is the grown-up version of going out and getting smashed, only now it comes with an appetizer and costs over $100) with another couple; 1/2 of which is an amalah.com regular reader, which means I love her dearly. I gave her blogcards, we dicussed how this photo was seriously and honest-to-godly not staged, we discussed what one should do when a coworker reads your blog and then has the nerve to steal a joke from it, word for word, during a meeting, in front of you. And we talked Simpsons.

Now people, I have seen every episode of the Simpsons at least a dozen times. I TiVo three episodes a day and watch each and every one. I can recite long strings of dialogue and have a scary gift of recall...that is, I can come up with a Simpsons reference for absolutely anything.

"Ooh look, they have homemade eclairs for dessert here."

"Hee, hee."

"What?"

"Oh, I'm just thinking of the time Homer became a food critic for the Springfield Shopper and gave all the restaurants bad reviews so the owners decided to kill him with the Giant Poison Eclair at the Taste of Springfield Festival."

"Was that the one where Homer went on the acid trip after eating too much?"

"Oh no, that was the Springfield Chili Cook-off when Homer ate the Guatamalan Insanity Peppers after coating his mouth with candle wax. And Johnny Cash did the voice of the fox in his vision quest. He died you know. Very sad."

(Silence.)

So where was I going with this? Oh yes. So first, it's amazing that I have any friends at all. And second, why in the deep blazes of hell didn't any of them buy me the Simpsons Hit & Run Playstation game for Christmas?

Because they all suck, except for the people we had dinner with on Saturday, because they lent me their copy.

And this is why my thumbs hurt today. I played that #*$(@ game all day yesterday and it is hilarious. This game is like crack to the Simpsons addict. I am rewarded for my unhealthy obsession at every turn (seriously, turn right out of the "Secret Stonecutters Tunnel" and you'll pass Chester J. Lampwick's solid gold house. Hee!). When leaving on a mission with Apu, he says, "The last time I left the store hoodlums put pornography in all the bridal magazines." And when you ring Flanders' doorbell he says, "Is that you, Lord?" And Marge yells, "Canyonero!" when you do something reckless, like run over Chief Wiggum.

Anyway, it's fun. But I'd let my PS2 calluses go away after getting hopelessly stuck on level two in Grand Theft Auto 3 and exhausting all the amusing cheat codes and eventually getting bored of all the mayhem.

So ow, my thumbs hurt. Did I say that already? Like, more than once? Sheesh, I'm so determined to end this post in a circular-"reference the subject line at the last minute"-sort-of-way that I've totally lost my train of thought. That game has warped my fragile little mind! My pockets hurt! Run Marge! Pump those crazy legs!

And now I'm mixing South Park and Simpsons quotes. I've got nothing. It's time to go home people, it is just time to go home.

Amalah's Vices, In Box Form

Fake-Out Thursday

I thought yesterday was Thursday. For like, hours. I was writing today's date and happily humming the It's Almost Friday Song all morning. (It's my own composition -- imagine if the ba-ba-bump-ba part of I Wanna Be Sedated segued into 99 Luft Balloons and the lyrics were stuff like "It's almost Friday and I'm so glad, Friday's tomorrow and ba-ba-ba-bump-de-ba, etc.")

So you can imagine my horror when I learned, at approximately 11:45 a.m. yesterday, that it was not Thursday at all, but Wednesday. I very nearly wept.

So even though today is Thursday, there is no joy. There is no It's Almost Friday song. Because I've already been here, done that this week. Today should be Friday and it's not. It's Thursday. Big freaking whoo.

And all this trauma is because I haven't done laundry in ages and did not have my Care Bears days-of-the-week underwear as a point of reference.

8 Things About My Day

1) I'm currently editing what may very well go down in history as the Worst 8 Pages of Text Ever Written Since the Dawn of Mankind (and No, I Did Not Write It, Thank You Very Much). I have to send it to print on Friday. At this point, the only solution I see is to correct all the spelling and grammar mistakes, send it print, then burn all copies and never speak of it again.

2) It's been three days since I've had any caffeine, except for a couple sips (ok, gulps) of Jason's soda last night. I'm downright homicidal. Can it, bitches.

3) I'm wearing kickass new boots. That I practically got for free. No, seriously! I almost bought these Charles David boots at Filene's before Christmas for $189 but didn't. But then this weekend I went back to the store and the boots were still there and 50% off so of course I had to get them. But then I saw these awesome Cole Haan pumps for $109. Was I really prepared to spend almost $200 on shoes that day? No, but I was going to anyway. But then the cashier was just all kinds of special and accidently applied the 50% discount to the entire transaction instead of just the boots. At least I think that's what she did. I'm still not sure of the math and her register ate my receipt. And she forgot to take a security tag off the shoes and I set the alarm off and thought that they knew I was trying to leave the store with $195 worth of shoes for only $100 and got all nervous but the guard only wanted to get the cashier number off my mangled receipt so she could get yelled at. Not having a good day, that one. Also: the guard had looooong acrylic fingernails. Also: the guard was a guy.

4) No one has noticed my kickass new boots.

5) I got an email from my mom saying she got another cat. This is cat number three. Mazie, Mollie and Maggie. My sister has two cats: Misty and Maddy. I have one cat: Max. This is not confusing in the slightest.

6) I feel a zit coming on.

7) I made a peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch, which was yummy but small. So I decided to make another, which was a Really Bad Idea. Also: peanut butter and honey are both very very sticky and bad for keyboards.

8) The best out-of-context IM ever: "you got your tampon in my cheez whiz!"

Superbowl Sell-Out Spectacular!

Jason and Amy watch the Superbowl Halftime Show. An only vaguely embellished transcript.

Jason: Why isn’t anyone else doing a halftime show? Like MTV usually does something.

Amy: Who knows. Who cares. They all suck.

Jason: We could watch the Lingerie Bowl on pay-per-view.

Amy: (silence)

Jason: Oh. The regular halftime show is MTV. Sellouts.

Amy: Jessica Simpson! Aaaaeeeiiiiii!!!

Jason: Nice majorette costume.

Amy: She’s stupid dumb.

Jason: Look, here’s the least embarrassing member of the Jackson family!

Amy: And she’s gone goth! Or gladiator.

Jason: She is so not dancing.

Amy: You mean singing?

Jason: Yeah, that too.

Amy: P. Diddy! Aaaeeeeeeeiiiiii!!

Amy: P. Diddly Iddly, as Flanders would say.

TV: Oh Diddy you’re so fine you’re so fine you blow my mind...

Jason: Those are words no one should ever have to hear.

Amy: Uh oh, Nelly’s coming! The cheerleaders are switching teams! I sense a tussle!

Jason: This is a good song.

Amy: Yeah, like over a year ago.

Jason: Too bad when Nelly was on SNL he was practically tone deaf.

Amy: Yeah, the acoustics must be much better in Atlanta.

Jason: (snort)

Amy: BA WID DA BA DE BANG DE BANG DIDDY

Jason: And next in the parade o’ corporate mofo sellouts…

Amy: BA WID DA BA DE BANG DE BANG DIDDY

Jason: Stop with the head banging. You’re freaking Max out.

Amy: I don’t think you’re supposed to wear the American flag like a poncho.

Jason: It’s nice that the halftime show is featuring the big hits of two years ago tonight.

TV: (unspeakable acts of censorship and editing of Kid Rock’s “Cowboy.”)

Jason: This song used to be…edgier, I thought.

Amy: I’M GONNA PAINT THE TOWN RED, AND PAINT HIS WIFE WHITE

Jason: I think he said something like “Yay, go football, woo!” instead.

Amy: He took off his flag poncho.

Jason: The cheerleaders all have flags now.

Amy: Yay, go America! I’m a cowboy, baby!

Jason: What are those things where the names are being shown?

Amy: Who’s Jane? Oh, Janet’s back. Where’d Jessica Simpson go?

Jason: They look like big banners of tumors.

Amy: They do. Or vials of pills. I’m not seeing what they were going for with the scenery here.

Jason: Hey! This is just as good as the Lingerie Bowl!

Amy: It’s the goth gladiators from Cabaret.

Jason: This song is such a rip-off from Parliament Funkadelic.

Amy: (silence)

Amy: You’re old, man.

Jason: Shut up! It is!

TV: We are a part of the Rhythm Nation...

Amy: My bro-ther is a ped-o-phile! Hey, that fits!

Jason: She’s saying stuff that we’re supposed to be opposed to, but I can’t hear her.

Amy: The big tumor billboards are saying NO!

Jason: I think she just said illiteracy.

Amy: Funny how her mike worked so much better during the song.

Jason: Just say no to halftime shows!

Amy: Justin! He's dreamy.

Jason: He’s probably the most talented person we’ve seen yet.

Amy: I believe he is actually singing.

Jason: I believe he actually smacked Janet’s ass.

Amy: The marching band looks a bit out of place at this point.

TV: Gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song...

Amy: Oh my god!

Jason: What, what?

Amy: Justin just ripped off part of Janet’s top!

Jason: Ok.

Amy: No, but her boob was there! And she had a little silver pasty thing on her nipple.

Jason: No way.

Amy: Way. It was way risqué and downright un-American. I’m writing CBS a letter.

Jason: Whatever.

Amy: No, seriously! And through the miracle of TiVo, you can rewind and still see Janet’s boob!

Jason: That’s right! Where’s the remote?

(At this point we spent a few minutes playing with the TiVo remote and watched the Janet Boob Unveiling of 2004 several times and at several speeds. Yes, we are sad, sad people. Go Patriots! Or go whoever and just finish and show Survivor All-Stars already.)