I may be on tilt as I was recently burglarized, but sadly I am not wrong. It is undeniable; at an individual level, at a community level and at a national level, all I see is failure and things that don’t make sense.
Crime: Last week some bum tried to steal our patio furniture at 5 AM. I slept through it, but my wife caught the tail end. Luckily / pathetically we have chain locked our furniture together precisely for this reason. The only thing he was able to steal was the Adidas slides I keep on my patio. You may recall that a few months ago we had our window shot out by some other Rhodes scholar. You may also recall that my car was burglarized a year ago. All this would be fine and dandy if I was paying some absurdly low rent, but I pay $3700 dollars a month to deal with this shit. For some cop to come by after my window is shot out and tell me that I shouldn’t live next to the park. WTF!? How about we put some of these wastes of oxygen behind bars?
Technology: About a year ago our HOA “modernized” the doors and the vehicle entry gate. We now use an app to get in and out of everywhere. It has PIN codes for keypad entry and you can open the door from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet. Wow! How 21st century of us! However, as with most IT systems, there are constant outages and unexplained failures. For starters, the door alarm system in the lobby is constantly going off and nobody knows how to fix it. I have to MANUALLY override it by pushing a series of buttons and that only works for a few hours. I scurry out there like a chump multiple times a day to deal with it. Worse yet, once a week the system shuts down entirely and nobody can get into the building. Throngs of agitated neighbors gather outside the building strategizing how to break into their own home. Pitiful, modern-day crusaders trying to reclaim their holy land of overpriced condominiums. If only we had stuck to locks and keys.
Corporate America: Much more on that in June.
People: Oh man, so much material just in the last few days.
1) Have you been to the zoo lately? The sightseeing ain’t behind the fences and plexiglass.
Exhibit A: Why is your 9-year-old 140lbs? How did that happen? The boy had a C-Cup. Listen, mom and dad, this is on you. This is lazy parenting, plain and simple. You put this boy in front of the TV all day so that he doesn’t bug you. Then when you have to forklift him somewhere you shove a bag of junk food in his face so that he remains silent. No joke when I encountered this manatee he was harassing his dad for Cheetos.
Exhibit B: The boy’s dad. 5’6”, probably around 240lbs, sporting a UFC hat, Anthrax shirt, and long biker-style beard. Bro. You’re middle-aged, grossly out of shape and your son has tits. Nobody here thinks you’re hard. And that’s ok. Drop the act.
Exhibit C: Young, pasty woman with jet black greasy hair. Draped in tramp stamps from head to toe. Pushing around a stroller with a scowl on her face. An oopsie from a floozy. That child wasn’t bestowed to you by a stork though, honey, so drop the frown and step up to the plate.
Exhibit D: 7-Year-old Asian kid wearing a Wu-Tang shirt. I liked this kid, right away. But it doesn’t add up. No way this kid has been listening to the 36 chambers or Reunited – Double LP world excited. Perhaps it was a family reunion shirt? Side note to the PC Police: No, I am not just stereotyping. There was a kid in my middle school named Tong Wu. Whenever the teachers would do roll call (last name then first name) all the JNCO-clad wanna-bes went bananas. For all I know this kid could have been my classmate’s nephew
2) Airplane Passengers
I was sitting in seat 19C when I heard it: The unmistakable, primal sound of someone about to vomit. Half a second later a heavy dose of puke hit the carpet in the aisle between seat 20C and 20D. More shocking than the surprise barf was the little twat’s reaction (or lack thereof). Some brat got up and just stared at it like he was surprised but also quite relieved.
“Jaun Carlo, Juan Carlo, my baby, are you o.k?”
Baby? Baby!? The kid was probably 14 years old. His face belonged in a dictionary next to the term “Mama’s boy”. This little wiener had clearly been coddled since birth. Never lifted a finger, never done a chore, never had a single hardship. And he just stood there, staring at his sick, while his aunts and abuelas scrambled to clean it up. Meanwhile his mom rubbed his back.
WTF is going on. This soyboy just barfed in the middle of the plane. Pick that shit up! Where is the father!? Rub his spoiled visage in his pile like a fucking dog who just shat on your floor. Next time you need to puke find a bag or run to the bathroom. Nope, not our boy Juan Carlo. He simply skipped away gayly to ask the stewardess for a Coca Cola.
Cost of Living: Two burrito bowls and a kid’s quesadilla at Chipotle costs $50! McDonalds is losing money because people cannot afford their sandwiches. Let that sink in for a second. A few happy meals and two quarter pounders is beyond most American’s financial reach. I took my wife and kid to a nice (but not fancy) restaurant for Mother’s Day: $310 before tip! Nobody was sabering rare champagne or buying Tomahawks of Kobe Beef. This is absurd.
Red Lobster: Announced earlier this week, this franchise’s demise and descent into bankruptcy is symbolic of this nation’s current identity crisis and overall state of despair. The elitists and sophisticates may smirk at Red Lobster, but they err in their parochial worldview.
I will never forget my first Red Lobster experience in Dale City, VA. We first got 99 cent gas, then we bought some furniture, then some back to school items, then someone bought khakis. Famished from a full day of shopping (i.e. spending money) we treated ourselves to an early dinner at Red Lobster. I do not remember the food, but I do remember the decadence. A working-class, immigrant family eating lobster as a reward for a full day of spending money. Only in America!
But now….. now…. We’re all out of sorts and we’re getting abused. Like Pavlov’s dog we just keep getting zapped and doing nothing about it: Technology that makes us dumber, obscenely high prices, uncouth assholes doing what they want whenever they want, unpunished crime, lobster-less malls. I have had it with this learned helplessness! Tomorrow, I regain my swagger. Tomorrow, I fight back against indignity starting with sweet revenge against the motherfucker who stole my slides.
I will leverage a contraption commonly referred to in sub-Saharan Africa as “Idiot Glue”. I will place my one remaining pair of Adidas slides (my red pair) out on the center of my patio. I will encircle this masterpiece of German engineering with several feet of hay approximately 5” deep. Below the hay, I will deploy the Idiot Glue: A series of plywood planks with an abundance of nails sticking out, resting just below the surface of the hay.
You clearly missed many life lessons which is why you’re trying to steal patio furniture at 5 AM, but there is one missed lesson in particular that will haunt you very soon. You never, EVER mess with a Slav’s Adidas slides. They are the crown jewel of my track suit!
Enjoy your new footwear.
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