Then, thanks to the whole green movement, I found that there is a whole crafty world of women making washable menstrual pads. Yep, use, wash, re-use. Don’t believe me? Google it. Look, if there’s a landfill full of disposable diapers and feminine hygiene products, I’m OK with that. The world won’t end over a pack of Pampers and a tampon, and they certainly aren’t hurting the environment anymore than these handmade Kotex makers are by driving to the store for fabric and supplies. Face it, it’s just 6 of 1 and a half dozen of the other.

As if that weren’t bad enough, cell phone moms are my new enemy. Why bother taking your kid to the park if you aren’t going to pay any attention to them? Since when is playground the new babysitter? It’s not my job to maintain your child on the playground. Then there was this (teenage) mom and her mom sitting in the middle of the play area smoking. I didn’t notice until I decided to leave the young kiddie area to go swing on the big swings with Elise. Really? Who lights up in the middle of a playground?! The more I leave the house, the more I feel like I’m being punk’d by the world. Is this some sort of joke? Get off your cell phone and pay attention to your kid and put that Virginia Slim down!!

Let me start at the beginning…so I left for school on Thursday and I ran into traffic. Now, it was 9:15, there was no reason for there to be morning rush hour traffic, all you people should have already been at work, get off my road! So I made a little detour from Satan’s Lair (a.k.a. I-75) and maneuvered my way to I-71. So here’s the scenario, I had left the house early, so I had no reason to speed until I got to Ridge Rd., where traffic enters the highway on the left. There was a semi-truck entering the highway and he was trying to get out of the fast lane, so he had his turn signal on to let me know he was coming on over. I, however, was in his blind spot, and in order to save my life, I hit the gas. Then I came around the bend and there was Eric Estrada’s twin with a laser. He actually stepped out into the fast lane and pointed at me and then pointed at the shoulder on the fast lane side. I may have actually said to myself, “Chief, I’m driving a mustang, not a 747, I see you,”. I briefly considered pulling over on the slow lane side because I wanted to see him maneuver 4 lanes of traffic on his motorcycle, then I reconsidered and thought perhaps he would give me a warning. HA! I don’t get warnings, ever.

So he walks up to my car and says, “Morning ma’am,” and all I wanted to say was, “‘Sup CHiPs!” even though I’m not in California, I’m still an idiot. He proceeded to tell me, “I clocked you going 70 in a 55. Did you not realize you were going that fast?”, to which I replied, “Well, let me explain..”. I proceeded to tell my story to which he said, “Well, the bad news is I only see you for a little second and I’m still going to have to issue you a citation.” I may have said, “Yeah, I didn’t think you cared why I was speeding.” He then said he was going back to write my ticket and that he would be quick and I said, “Good, I have class at 10″ and pointed at my watch for emphasis. That’s right folks, I am in full idiot mode at all times, I can’t turn that off. Just in case you don’t believe that, when he walked back up to have me sign my ticket I was munching on Cheerios (I take a sandwich bag of Cheerios for breakfast) and dancing to a sweet tune in my car. The trooper actually laughed and said, “Ma’am, I went as quickly as I could, just sign here and you’ll be on your way.” Oh, in case you were wondering, no, I didn’t really speed on the rest of the drive to school and yes I still made it on time.

The rule of the day is: do NOT get caught speeding by the highway patrol! Seriously, $104 for anything less than 25 m.p.h. over the speed limit. My other two speeding tickets (both obtained when I was a young and rebellious) were $50 court fee and $1 fine for each m.p.h. over the speed limit. Again, avoid the highway patrol at all costs, because they don’t have anything else to do but write you a ticket.

I’ve been known to have a little road rage after being stuck by someone on a cell phone. My road rage includes/is not limited to: shaking my fist angrily, riding next to you honking my horn in a lame attempt to interrupt your conversation (I want the person on the phone to ask why there’s a horn blaring and I want them to know you are stupid), or on a nice day when the windows are down I might yell out, “you suck at driving..hang it up already!” or “you are not this important, you’re not even cool, put the phone down.”

I know you’re all thinking, “hmm, go crazy much” and the answer is no. I’m not psycho, I have a very low tolerance for stupid. You know good and well when you are driving stupid and maybe you should hang up. I know this because I know when I need to get off the phone. If you’re stuck in traffic, moving 3 inches an hour, go ahead, call everyone in your phone. If you’re weaving in and out of traffic, in a snow storm, in a 1985 Camaro, hang it up, unless you’re a doctor and it’s an emergency, which prompts me to ask why a doctor is driving a 1985 Camaro.

Along the same lines of cell phone drivers, cell phone pee-ers. What is THAT all about? If you’re in a public restroom, I don’t want to hear your physiologic Niagara Falls along with why your boyfriend hates you this week or how your cat puked in your grandma’s hair or how a pig ate your prom dress. I don’t care. I absolutely couldn’t care less about your cousins ex-boyfriends great aunt! Sometimes people really drive me insane.

What is the deal with snow? Who authorizes this white death? No one asked my permission. Some people think “snow is pretty�?. These people should be committed. Snow is NOT pretty, not at all. It’s white for all of 3 minutes, then out come the cars, plows and peeing dogs and we’re left with brown and yellow slush. It looks like a cloud threw up all over the place, and last time I checked “pretty�? was not a word used to describe vomit. Snow is a nuisance. It makes people drive crazy, it slows the world down, and once you’re out of high school snow days are done.

So today when I look at the 5 inches of snow in my yard I’m not amused, rather annoyed actually. Let’s skip spring, is it summer yet?

ps – i can’t wait for you to all know how utterly ridiculous and neurotic I really am

What irritates me even more about these non-boarding passengers is that not only do they wander about so you can’t find the actual line; they get up near the entrance and then just stop. It’s like those people who walk into the entrance of a building and just stop right in the middle of your way. THEN, in an annoying turn of ironic events, they get mad at you when you run into them because they are completely stupid. Look granny, if you’d have stayed in your seat until zone 5 was called, none of this would’ve ever happened so TAKE A SEAT! Your seat is only 4 and a half feet away from the plane, I promise, they won’t leave you behind (much to my dismay).

Then after we all hurry up to wait, we have to stand in line while waiting for those boobs who are desperately trying to shove their gigantic Louis Vitton “carry on�? bags in the overhead compartment. Anyone within a stones throw can see that these bags don’t have an ice cubes chance of fitting in that compartment. However, every time I get on a plane there’s a plethora of sorority girls (donned in the official college hoodie and UGGS, as if to appear more like the rest of us common folk), business men (who seriously have traveled enough to KNOW that bag isn’t going to fit), and old people (who previously stood in my way and are really starting to irk me) trying to shove half of their household belongings into the overhead bins. Then, the person behind me will sigh loudly, not only blowing one of my ear drums, but moistening my neck with their nasty, hot, coffee breath. CHECK YOUR BAG! Seriously, it takes all of 5 minutes to get your bag, and you’re not going anywhere in those 5 minutes anyways because you’ll probably be spending it in the bathroom. Honestly, traveling is enough to make me want to kick old people or punch children.

I am notorious for not tipping well. My bestest friend has thus dubbed me “tip nazi”. I believe the conversation at dinner went something like this:
Me: “So, what should I give her, like a penny?”
Kristen: “You are the tip nazi!”
However, I don’t tip well because on average I don’t even get average service. My meal gets dropped, comes out wrong, comes out cold, comes out and I don’t even know what it is because I didn’t order vomit in a bowl, I ordered a chicken wrap. These items don’t even come on the same type of dish!

As a waitress, yes you only make a couple of bucks and a free mint on the hour. However, an overview of your job: write down my order and then bring it out. In some cases, you just have to write it down because a runner brings it out. This isn’t rocket science, it’s food service. Key word being SERVICE. I’m paying for a service and if that service is not provided I don’t feel the need to pay extra for it. I might not outright stiff a waitress (although, I wouldn’t put it passed me), but I’m not giving a $10 tip if my food is cold. You can’t blame the cook if my food is cold, because that means the waitress didn’t bring it out.

Cut them some slack? It’s a stressful job? Yeah, I don’t doubt that, which is why I’m not a waitress. I don’t have the patience for that. However, they signed up for that job, not me. Don’t punish ME because you hate your job. It’s your job to serve people, so stop complaining. You want a better tip, give better service! I don’t ask for much, keep my drink refilled, bring the correct food, and hold the tomatoes.

Why am I anal retentive about something that seems so ridiculous? Well, why not! Mainly, I get irritated because this is not a task that requires any great skill. It’s basically a little bit of common sense combines with a mild capacity to pay attention. Here’s the dilly yo, meat doesn’t get put into the same bag with soap, canned goods do not get placed on top of bread or eggs, and you cannot put 67 cans of beans in a plastic bag or it will break.

I realize that I am so particular, so I go the extra mile for my slack-jawed cashier because they always appear to be very busy drooling on themselves when it’s my turn to have my order rung. I actually place my items on the conveyor belt in very distinct groups: cold items, boxed items, canned items, meats, produce etc., you get the picture. The point is, even a drool box should be able to figure out how to appropriately bag my items. However, upon a recent trip to my favorite Meijer, the forecast was an 89% chance of bananas on top of grapes and sour cream ending up in the same bag with Q-Tips and bodywash. These things weren’t even in neighboring piles! How do you mess that up?!

Let me tell you a little ditty about when I first started rocking Meijer’s world. When I was 16, my first official job title was “bagger”. I was a professional grocery bagger and I was pretty darn awesome, I must admit. Trust me, if my mom will let you bag her groceries, you’re pretty good. My mom is not above ripping her own daughter a new one if she bags groceries poorly. So, I know from experience how little brain power it takes to stack boxes of cereal and NOT squash someone’s bread.

So, I go to the store and I knew I was in trouble when I saw my cashier wipe her mouth on the back of her hand. I wasn’t aware that it was neanderthal day at my local grocers, honestly, there should’ve been a sign. Not only did she not care about my grocery bagging needs, she mocked the act of bagging in a way that caused my blood pressure to rise to nearly aneurysm level. First, she SPIKED my mushrooms into the bag, Chad Johnson style and I thought “Unless you just signed a $40 million contract with the Colts, you’d better not spike my produce.” Then steam came from my ears when this idiot put bananas on top of my grapes. HUH?! On what ape-ridden planet is it acceptable to place anything on top of grapes? Then she starts eeny meeny miney mo-ing to chose things at random from my meticulously arranged piles. So there I am in the parking lot, re-bagging my entire order because this girl had the mental capacity of old cornmeal.

Upcoming postings in this series: (a little preview for your palates)
- “independent” married women – there’s an irony here that I simply cannot ignore.
- cell phone drivers – I’ve been raging this hardcore since like 1999, but now it’s a whole new brand of explosion.
- people who post their phone numbers on myspace – are you stupid or something? do you want to get raped? Well, do ya?!