I Hate People: Part II

Editor's Note: It has pained the author, no DESTROYED the author, internally to NOT tell this story to everyone he knows, particularly the people he sees all the time. He fought every urge not to tell it at Mother's Day Brunch. But he succesfully resisted and we at Three Days Is Kinda Money feel that we are all the better for it, because this may be the author's To Kill A Mockingbird

So last Monday morning, my barista called in sick to work and he was unavailable to make my morning coffee. Because I hit snooze one more time than I should have, I was very late and I could not make the coffee for myself. But because I am massively addicted to caffeine, I knew I needed a coffee or I was in big trouble. I weighed my options and realized that there was definitely not time to go to Diesel in Davis and there is nary a Starbucks on my ride. Lynnfield- because it is one of the three least hip towns in the world- has no Honey Dew, let alone a Starbucks or independent coffee shop. Someone probably wanted to open a cute local shop in Lynnfield some years ago, but they were evicted from the town after they voted democrat, which no one in Lynnfield does.

So, I made the fateful decision to slum it like Robbie did with Penny in Dirty Dancing and hit up the Dunkin Donuts on the Mystic Valley Parkway. I knew this was a terrible decision from the outset but it is A) directly on the way and B) I had a Dunks gift card (given to me by someone who quite obviously doesn't know me that well). Little did I know it would turn into the shit show that it did.

I pulled into this Dunks which, shockingly, was empty (when I was a young, foolish 26year old without the refined pallet I currently have, I used to frequent this Dunks and it was busier than Filene's Basement on wedding dress day). I ordered up my medium (I said grande for spite) French Vanilla and asked for just a "touch of cream" and one sugar. I was handed what appeared to be a vanilla frappe mixed with 140 Pixie Stix. To lessen the pain, I ordered a chocolate frosted doughnut (Dunks still gets these done by the way).

As I walked to my car, I took two sips of the coffee and thought about throwing it out, but the idea of the Hulk Out Headache I'd get stopped me from doing that. Instead, I held the door for the three guys exiting behind me and I noted that I looked like the person in that Sesame Street bit "One of These Things Doesn't Belong Here" as all three are in various painting/carpentry sweatshirts with baseball hats and workboots. The parking lot was now jammed full and I noticed that directly next to my Jetta (wonder which of the four dudes who just left Dunks owns that car?) is a giant silver van.

I note that there are several open spaces farther away from the Dunks (and by farther, I mean fifteen feet), but Sal Silver Van decided that he could fit his Ecoline in the spot between the lamppost and my Jetta. As I move to the car, I'm surprisingly not that irritated as my gym lot is tight and I often have to perform gymnastics moves to get into my car there. But as you can probably guess, my lack of irritation was not going to last.

I placed my sick coffee and sweet doughnut on the roof of my car and opened the door. As I opened the door, I gently tapped the Econoline next to me. I knew this was inevitable and made a point to do so gently. But I think you know where this was going.

I recall hearing a "hey," but assumed it was Pete The Plumber greeting Rick the Roofer and so I continued loading my foodstuffs and myself into my car. That is when I heard a door slam and saw a man standing in the tiny aperture that is the space between my Jetta and his Econoline.

In the back of my mind, I knew the "hey" was for me and so in the nine seconds between the "hey" and the appearance of the man who was dressed exactly like Malcolm MacDowell's Alex in A Clockwork Orange (I'm to assume he was a painter?), I prepared myself for the verbal conversation I knew I was about to have.

You know how you always later think of good things to say to someone? Well, in that nine seconds I somehow managed to game plan like Bill Belichick and so I was confident going into the battle that was looming. The fact that it was Monday and I had an awful coffee in my hand had me foaming at the mouth for a good fight. And so when Alex arrived, I was ready. The exchange went something like this...

"Hey," says Alex.

"Good morning. Can I help you?" (Can you feel my passive/aggressiveness?!?)

"Yeah... You can help me... Ya hit my cah..."

"Oh, you mean with my door?"

"Ya... With you DOOR, whaja think ya hit it wit?"

"Well, since I can't get in it to drive it, I figured I didn't rear end you."

"You being funny?"

"No sir, I'm not. It's just that there was no other alternative to hitting your car with my car door since you parked your car in such close proximity to mine. Despite that fact, I still worked diligently to not slam my door into your van and I only lightly touched it because I was presented with no other choice."

(Long pause from Alex)

"Huh?"

"What I mean sir, is that to get into my car I HAD to make contact with your car door and even then, I could barely get in."

(What I am about to write is 100% true. It is so stunning and caught me so completely by surprise that my response was not the "what?" like I didn't hear you what that I sometimes am a party to, but was in fact a "what?" like a "holy-shit-did-you-just-say-that-what?!?")

"Well, you could have pulled ya' cah up some befaw ya got in it!"

(It is my turn for a lengthy pause).

"What?"

"I said..."

"No sir, I heard what you said, but how was I to pull my car forward if I could not have gotten in it?"

"Well..."

"Should I have climbed through the sunroof? Or should I have used the force to disable the parking break and then push it forward?"

"Listen, don't get wise with me guy..."

I have now grown completely agitated.

"Sir, I'm not getting wise with you, I just didn't cause any damage to your car and if anyone has a right to be upset it is me since you parked like an ass clown by giving me no room to get into my car."

(Yes, I ratcheted things up by firing ass clown out there)

"Don't swear at me pal."

"Well, don't come out here and start yelling at me on a Monday morning for gently tapping your car with my door when I was extremely cautious about it and made extra effort to NOT cause your car any damage."

"Ya know what? I've had enough of this. I'm gonna get your plates and you're gonna hear from my insurance company."

(I contemplated many responses here, but settled on this)

"Well, grab your polaroid and take a picture of all the damage chief and have your insurance company send me a bill."

I proceed to get into my car which is awkward because he parked so close to.

"Hey buddy, you're not leaving just yet. We got stuff to settle."

"I'm late for work boss (trying my best to use every condesceding term in my arsenal) so I'm going to have to run. My name is Gerard. G-E-R-A-R-D. Write it down (that was taken directly from Seven by the way) Copy down my plates- that is if you can read (yup, went there)- and have your people contact my people."

"You're not going anywhere funny guy."

Alex then proceeds to stand in front of my car with his hand up. He must have learned this in crossing guard school. However, he must have skipped the class that taught about the reverse option on a car. So, instead of mowing down Alex, I simply backed up. I heard him yelling after me and then he starts to move to his passenger side door. I see him open it and eight days later, I am still confused what his play was here. Was he checking the "ding?" Reaching for a camera? A pen? A cell phone? A shotgun?

Whatever he was doing, I managed to evaluate a situation like I have never been able to evaluate a situation before. I felt like Tom Brady seeing the field and realized what it meant when an athlete says everything slowed down because suddenly, everything slowed down. And in that moment, I decided to do what I had now determined was the only thing I could possibly do in the enraged state I was in.

Settled on said decision, I evaluated the pass rush and scanned the field for open receivers. I was directly at the plaza exit and saw that not a single car was coming in either direction, so I could fly right out after I did what I was about to do. I saw that Alex was not in the driver's side, so he couldn't pursue me. I saw there were no cars with flashing blue lights in the parking lot. I saw that Alex wasn't looking at me. I saw my disgusting coffee sitting in my cupholder. I saw a giant, silver target... And I also saw something else; something that made me realize that my decision was justified and that this entire morning was fate; for there was really no other way...

And so I yanked my parking break and popped open my door, French Vanilla in hand. I emerged from the car, planted my right foot on the ground, and kept my left foot in the door. I squared my shoulders at the receiver, gripped the coffee cup so that the lid was held tightly with two fingers, as if it were an odd shaped baseball, leaned my right arm back...

And I fired...

I saw the ball (cup) sail perfectly through the air. The spiral was tight (nary a drop spilled out), I saw Moss open his hands (the rear of the van) and...

Touchdown!!!

My shitty french vanilla smacked his back windows square and exploded in a creamy, caffeine filled mess.

I had only a second to admire my handy work as my heart was pounding, so I jumped in my car, dropped the break, slammed the door, and tried my damnest not to stall.

And as I raced out of sight, I turned and saw a raging Alex crossing Mystic Valley Parkway and pursuing me on foot up the center median. Thankfully for me, the line of cars in the left only lane was small and just starting to move because the light had flashed green. I felt like Indiana Jones when he adjusted his cap and smiled after successfully grabbing the idol at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I hit the on ramp and was off an running for work. Chest pounding, music blaring, smile beaming.

And that last thing I saw? It was a license plate. I think you know the state name that was emblazoned on the plate.

New Hampshire.

Poor Alex. How was he to know that by simply choosing to garage his car in that redneck state, he would get himself a coffee car wash?

But what was Alex to know?

It was just fate.

I Hate People: Part I

The answer is 36,000.

The question?

How many people died from the flu last year in the United States.

And I mean the plain, old, vomitting, chills, diarahea, I-Really-Wouldn't-Mind-Dying-Right-Now flu that we get every year.

That's 36,000 or 18,000 times more people who have died from The Swine Flu.

I know that the swine flu hype is dying down right now and I'm a week late on this, but I just really hate people these days.

If you have had a five minute conversation with me in your lifetime, you likely know that I like to rage against the masses, but this isn't what this is about. It's about people being stupid, ignorant, fickle, and having a pathetic inability to think rationally.

I know I'm stealing a bit here from Michael Moore, but do those of you in my middle aged tier remember "The Killer Bees?" I think I first heard about The Killer Bees at my bus stop from one of The Musto Twins in second grade and I must say, I was horrified. But, I hope you can excuse me because I was, after all, 8.

But what ever happened to those Killer Bees that were coming up here from Guatemala or El Salvador or Mexico or whatever? Other than Hollywood making a movie of this (and I remember a group of kids being trapped on a bus, which is pretty much exactly how I envisioned it in y 8 year old imagination), they never showed up? Why? Probably because there was no such thing. But the more likely reason is that if you think about it, THERE IS NO WAY THERE CAN POSSIBLY BE KILLER BEES THAT WILL OVERRUN AMERICA AND KILL EVERYONE THEY COME INTO CONTACT WITH!!!

I mean, do you know anything about bees because I do not. But what I do know is that they do not travel thousand of miles across the world in massive swarms. Usually, they buzz about their nest in a garage and occassionally saunter over to a nearby pool to make sunbathers have a 15 second freak out. But what they do not do is FLY ACROSS CONTINENTS TO ATTACK KIDS WAITING AT BUS STOPS IN BURLINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

And then there's been other stuff that people panic about that make me crack up. Remember Y2K (imagine the US Government being so idiotic that a computer glitch would make planes come crashing to the ground), anthrax (this is still Justin Timberlake's career low... Admitting that he purchased Cipro on the black market because he feared Anthrax... And not because they were brining the noise), or the school wide searches that went on after Columbine (where did those metal detectors go?)? Then there was Mad Cow disease, Glade Plug Ins causing fires, cell phones randomly exploding, and myriad other preposterous myths that never amounted to anything.

Now, we have Swine Flu. Like Jules Winfield, I don't dig on swine. And like Jerry Seinfeld, I hate people.

I just amazes me that people continue to not have the ability to freely think for themselves and they buy into these utterly ridiculous myths, notions, scares, and panics. Is Swine Flu real? Most certainly? Are you going to catch it? Absolutely not. And if my Lowell readers manage to (don that mask Molly, Matt, Julie, and Little Jerry) catch Swine Flu, do you know what will happen to them? They will feel like shit for aa few days, get to miss a bunch of days of work, and get a forced diet that will give them wash board abs because they can't eat anything.

There's a lot to blame for this panic, including The Fifth Estate, which you all know I long to be a part of. But they have a responsibility to report on this, just as the government has a responsibility to protect us from it and warn us about it. I understand both of those pieces.

But can't people take this information and act a bit more rationally? Are more people OCD than I thought? Are tons of people germ-a-phobes and I just can't see it? Are people maybe more concerned about their health than I am? The answer to all of these questions is probably yes and although I'll never be able to enter someones mind and understand what it is like to truly fear being sick, it continues to amaze me that people are unable to just cool out.

It seems like that the "epidemic" is coming to an end and I hear the WHO (do they sing "Baba O'Riley?") are thinking about downgrading the scare, but I want to know more about the people who bought into this scare and wear face masks. Will they later be embarrased that they wore a face mask? Will they think they are losers for skipping a trip to Mexico in the same way that I think I am a loser for wearing pegged Skidz in 1992?

Or do they think they "did the right thing?" Do they think their precautions were just and proper? Like the people who bought duct tape and plastic in 2001, do they think they were just in their fears?

And that's more the fascination with this Swine Flu thing: The people who are scared of it.

I want to like people and respect their opinions. Really, I do. But in times like this, I just can't. But I guess that's what makes people people. We are all different.

Because if there were a world of me, we wouldn't hav made it much past the protizoa stage of development.