JERK TIPS FOR CATS!!

Day One

I don't know your name, but I liked your message. I think it is very funny the way you run out of your person's home and make her chase you down the stairs. I think you and I have a lot to learn from each other. I like to poop on the floor when I don't get the attention I deserve. That makes my person really mad. It makes me laugh. I mean, as much as I can. I don't think the people recognize it as a laugh. That makes it even more fun for me, because those idiots have no idea what's going on. Hahahahahaha.

Love, Peach the Cat

Day Two

Peach,

You can call me Banana. Your idea of pooping on the floor is quite funny. I'll have to try that some time. It was quite clever of you to jump in my person's laptop bag and leave me that message via pheromones. I didn't know that we could communicate such complex, intangible ideas in such a way! One of the things I like to do is scream. I just follow my person around her apartment, screaming. She thinks I'm trying to communicate that I want food, which I do. Food is good. But really, I just like to scream because it's fun. That might be another way we can communicate. When my person calls your person and they do that annoying thing where they both make their talking devices loud and talk at it without picking it up (I think I've heard your person ask if mine is using a "Speaker phone" or something like that), we can talk that way too. Even if we don't communicate that way, I highly recommend screaming at your person. All the time.

AUGH!

Banana Cat

Day Three
Ring
Man: Hello, sweetie!
Woman: Hi, honey.
Peach: MEOW!
Banana: MEOW! MEOW! MEOW!
Peach: MEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!
Banana: MEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! MEOW!
Woman: I swear they're talking to each other....

Public Restroom Decorum

I can think of nothing that tempts to punch strangers in the face harder than encounters in a public restroom. I mean, goddamn, people are disgusting and obnoxious.

First off, I think it should be illegal to not wash your hands after using the restroom. I think this should be regarded an act of bioterrorism. Because seriously, what do you call it when someone rubs biohazardous substances with a thin sheet of paper with their bare hands then walks around touching common surfaces, spreading the biohazard all over? Seriously, Mandy Patinkin, get on this shit.

A lot of people realize that things in the loo are disgusting. The paper towel dispenser is not an exception to this. Different people have different tactics for getting their paper towel without resoiling their freshly washed hands. I, for example, use the lever on the dispenser to roll about two inches of towel out, wash my hands, rip off that short bit of towel, use it to dispense some more towel, throw out the first bit, dry my hands on the second portion of towel, turn off the sink with the towel, use said towel to open the door, then throw the towel in the trash. Sound pedantic? I'm actually skipping steps. I should dispense, wash, dispense, dry, dispense, turn off sink, dispense, open door.

So, here's the silly set up in the ladies room at work. There are two sinks. One sink has these lovely, long handles that you turn on and then, gasp, turn off when you're done. We'll call this Good Sink. The other is one of those monstrosities that you push the handle down on and it pops up whenever it damn well feels like it, so you have to keep turning the water on. And if you're OCD like me, that's fucking horrible, because you can't adequately wash your hands when you have to keep touching a dirty sink handle. Good Sink is on the right. Horrible Bacteria Time Loop Disaster in on the right. Next to the paper towel dispenser. So, here's a common scenario. I pop into the washroom to wash my hands, roll down the two inches of towel, start washing my hands. Some nasty, dirty person comes out of the stall, goes to HBTLD, splashes some cold water on her hands, takes my towel, and leaves without rolling more down for me. Or nasty, dirty person comes out, splashes cold water on her hands, then stands directly in front of the paper towel dispenser, poking at her eye makeup with her unclean hands, essentially just rubbing her ass all over the clean bit of towel I have hanging down. Incorrect Behavior. Correct Behavior: Step out of the stall, see somebody washing her hands, with a bit of paper towel hanging down from the dispenser. Common sense dictates that she's going to use that bit of paper towel to dispense more towel in a quasi-sanitary method. The woman in front of you was already washing her hands, so logic dictates she's probably almost done. Stand the fuck back, wait your goddamn turn, and don't touch her stuff. It's already awkward enough that you and this stranger were likely peeing at the same time, four feet apart. Don't impede her hand washing. Or, say she is particularly obsessive-compulsive and is taking five minutes to wash her hands instead of one. Hop onto HBTLD, wash your hands, use the towel, and ADVANCE MORE FUCKING TOWEL.

If you happen to be the person washing your hands whilst somebody is behind you waiting, leave the water running for them. It saves you having to figure out how to touch that disgusting faucet and acknowledges the other person's welcomeness to join in the fun that is handwashing.

Sometimes, people accidentally get some urine on the seat. There is a quite simple solution to this problem. Take a piece of toilet paper, and wipe the seat! When you piss all over the place and don't bother to clean up, you're basically just screaming "I'm disgusting!" And seriously, fuck you, disgusting people. I would hate to step foot in your home if you're so lazy and gross you can't even wipe up something that came out of your body. How fucking dare you suggest that somebody else clean up your bodily fluids? Pig bitch.

Ladies, your period sucks. I've been there; I get it. However, the situation sucking does not make it okay for you not to dispose of crap covered in your blood in an improper fashion. Yes, I'm not a moron. I do know it's not really blood. But I don't want to repeatedly type "Discharged uterine lining" so fucking deal. So, let's go over a list of gross stuff nobody should ever see in a public restroom:
-A tampon on the floor
- A pad that somebody has attempted to flush down the toilet
-A pad on the floor
-A pad/tampon sitting ON TOP of the trash can in the stall
-Blood. Anywhere. Ever.
-A pad/tampon sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser
-A bloody pad/tampon in the trashcan, but unwrapped and at the top of the trashcan, so there's no possible way to put anything else in it or even change the liner without an extreme likelihood of touching some strange cunt's blood.
The proper response to the unfortunate situation of having to change your feminine hygiene materials in a public restroom are to remove it, wrap it in either toilet paper or a wrapper, and place it in the trashcan. Assuming the trash can has a hinged lid, close the trash can. Then wash your hands.

It's like kindergarten. Pick up after yourself, be considerate of others, and wash your fucking hands.

Stupid Laws are Stupid

I live in a state in which it is against the law to not use a seat belt while in the front seat of the car. Adults are not legally compelled to use a seat belt in the back seat. Does everybody understand this? It's not just that it is highly recommended to wear a seat belt; it is a ticketable offense. Because seat belts save lives. Seat belts hold a person to the seat of their car, which is almost always fully enclosed (silly convertibles) so that they do not become a human projectile and fly through the windshield. As a state, we grew tired of people dying from such a silly act of negligence, and made it a law.

However, the stupid fucking state I live in recently made it legal for motorcyclists to not wear helmets. A person on a big bike driving 70-plus miles per hour, with no encasing to catch them should something happen, with a high likelihood of becoming a human projectile, is not required to wear or utilize any protective equipment.

Driving to work today, I saw one of the men who chooses to ride his motorcycle without a helmet. Zipping down the expressway at 80 miles per hour. No helmet. Shorts and T-shirt. Dude. I mean. C'mon. Let's say your bike just falls over. You're going to burn the shit out of your leg. Let's say your bike falls over and slides a ways. Goodbye, ALL of your skin. And Science forbid, you do go flying off your bike...

I...just...no. Just no.

Some Commercials That Need to Be Punched in the Colon

Fucking commercials. Seriously, fucking commercials.

There's a series of commercials about dental products designed to reduce acid erosion. There's a pretty women with a drinking vessel, usually with a group of people. She's pretty, she's smiling, she's laughing. Then the narrator pops in with something moronic like "Jillian loves soda. But she doesn't know that it contains acid. Blah blah blah. Acid erosion of dentin. Blah blah blah. Protective mouthwash!"

If you don't know that soda contains acid, you don't deserve your fucking teeth. Not saying "Don't drink soda." Soda's awesome. Drink all the soda you want, because I sure as Hell am going to. But seriously. SERIOUSLY. You gotta know that shit contains acid. There's another advert in this series, "Becky loves coffee. But she doesn't know it contains damaging acid." Really?! Really, Captain Obvious Commercial Whore?! Does it contain acid?! Is it slippery? Does it smell like fucking bleach? Hmm, must not be a base! Does it have a neutral PH, no taste, and no smell? Must not be water! Does it produce carbon dioxide when it has MOTHER FUCKING CARBONATION added to it?! BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Acid, bitches!

The other commercial I want to punch in the cunt is a diaper commercial. It's kind of a before and after scenario of a mother with a young child. Part One: First time mother is breast-feeding her new baby in a restaurant. She's hiding in the corner, has a breast-feeding tent, looks all ashamed and nervous. Narrator says something like "You want to do everything right for your baby as a first time parent." Part Two: Same mother has a second baby; the first one is about three. In this scenario, the woman is sitting in the same restaurant, this time at a table in the middle of the dining room. She has her breast pulled out the neck of her shirt and is openly feeding her baby. The waiter comes over, looks surprised by what's going on, but doesn't say anything. Bitch mother snaps her fingers at him, points at her face, and says "Up here." Narrator says, "By the second  one, you have things figured out. Live and learn and get our brand of diapers."

Okay, first off, I have nothing against breast feeding. At all. It's awesome that mothers breast feed. I mean, all the biological coolness of it aside, there are so many studies and so much evidence proving how beneficial breast feeding is to your child, developmentally and emotionally. This is a beautiful, natural thing, and there shouldn't be any shame about it, because it's not a shameful thing. I think it is indeed a damn disgrace that women feel they should have to hide in a corner or under a drape or, worst of all, in the restroom, to feed their child. You don't tell the three year old to sit in the corner in the bathroom and eat his grapes or whatever children eat. Babies deserve to eat in a clean environment, too.

My problem with this horrible fucking commercial is what a rude, nasty bitch this woman is. She shouldn't be ashamed of breast-feeding, but it's not out of line for somebody to have a moment of surprise when seeing a breast out. The waiter in the commercial wasn't going "Ewww! Gross!", "That's inappropriate!", or even "Whooooo! Titties!" Just a brief moment of surprise, and apparent contemplation of "Should I stay and ask for her order or should I leave her alone?" And the woman's response to this moment of surprise is to snap her fucking fingers in his face and snap "Up here." "By the second child, you have things figured out." What do you have figured out? How to be disrespectful to waiters? How to be rude in general? How to teach your children that you don't need to be polite to strangers? "It's okay, Johnny, he's just the waiter. You can always snap your fingers in the waiter's face." Hope that baby bites your nipple off, fictional bitch.

Rene Descartes Walks Into a Bar...

Last night I posted on my private Facebook account that I felt unsafe in my home at that particular moment. Not that anything was seriously going on, just one of those uncomfortable feelings and some weird sounds down the hall. Then somebody I knew if fucking middle school commented on that status, essentially saying "That's stupid and invalid, because I willingly went someplace unsafe and there are actual things to be scared of here."

Okay. You know nothing about what's going on in my life. You know nothing about what has gone on in my life. You don't know if I'm up at 5:00  in the morning freaking out because:

- I have acute intermittent porphyria and am having an attack

- I have a really severe anxiety disorder that goes out of control when it's silent and my mind can wander

- I'm slowly turning into a cricket

- I was sexually assaulted in my bedroom at night as a child

- My dog is barking at a strange orb outside the window

- I consume too much caffeine to live

- I was raped in my own bed in this very apartment

- There are gunshots outside

- Two years ago, I abruptly lost my partner, my family, and my home in the middle of the night and I sometimes panic about the aspect of abruptly losing everything else that is important to me

- Shit's going on at work and I'm terrified I'm going to get fired

- I watched somebody climb up the outside balconies and into my neighbor's apartment the other day

- My neighbor has a history of setting her kitchen on fire

- I can see a demon sitting on top of my bookcase staring at me

- I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve

- I have a history of losing my shirt

- Oops, those last two were Barenaked Ladies lyrics.

You don't know if some of these are true, all of these are true, or none of these are true. You don't know a single damn thing about my situation. Because I haven't had an actual conversation with you in five years because every conversation we had in the five years before that you've been increasingly condescending? And not in a "Haha, that was a dumb thing to do" way, but in an "I don't think your feelings are valid, so watch me belittle you as a person" way. And the stupid thing about this is, I care. I care what you think about me. I mean, if you don't agree with everything I do, whatever, nobody will ever agree with everything anybody does. If you see I've made a mistake and call me on it, okay. Disagree with me on politics or religion? Neat, tell me your thoughts, I want to know why you feel the way you do. You won't sway me, but I care about your point of view. But when you suggest my feelings aren't valid, that's not cool. That's tantamount to you thinking I'm just a worthless excuse for a human being.

I'm now just going to go off in a tangent. If you understand how I've come to this point, I will totally give a cookie.

Rene Descartes walks into a gin bar. Bartender says, "Hey, want a martini?"

Descartes says, "I don't think--" and disappears.

No. Just No. So Very Fucking No.

So, my ex-boyfriend called me last night. He told me he wants me back. I'm going to call this guy Dwight.

Dwight's sweet, he's just a child. No, not literally. He's, like, three months younger than me. He just doesn't have or want adult responsibilities. And he tends to be a little narcissistic. I don't know, read old entries if you want to hear about it. One thing never mentioned is that I paid for something really expensive to help him out of a bad situation, because I'm stupid, and he had no intention of paying me back and made no attempts to pay me back. And yes, that was a major part my decision to end things. So when we broke up, I thought it was really the most mutual break up ever. I went to his house (well, the house his friend owns that he's renting a room in) to end it, and he greeted me with "So, this is hard..."

I cut him off. "Nope. It's not." We hugged, I took my stuff back, the end, yay!

So last night he calls me, saying horrible, stupid shit like "I made a mistake. I changed my mind."

You changed your mind? That's nice. It's so fucking nice to know that I'm a passing fancy for you. "Eh, I thought I wanted you to go away, but I changed my mind. Come back now." Um, no. I'm not a book that you posted for sale on Amazon.com but decided, no, you didn't really want to sell it and have the ability to unlist. I'm a person and so very not your property.

"I made a mistake." Yes. Yes, you did. Several of them. However, darling, our break up was not entirely your decision. I was on my way to break up with you. Remember how I told you the night before I wanted my keys back? Was that your decision? No.

Now that we have the "Here's why you treating me like property is offensive" out of the way, let's move onto why I wouldn't take you back if you paid me.
1) You owe me so much money, Bill Gates couldn't afford to dupe me back in after paying me back.
2) We broke up for a reason. You. You were the reason. Can you provide me an itemized list of the things about you that you have changed about yourself? Can you show me proof? Do you have character references?
3) I want to get married. Not to you. To an adult. Who can function in reality. And isn't a narcissistic asshole.
4) That time you were mean to my dog.
5) That time you were mean to my dog. Yeah, I know I just said that. Really, really not okay.

Please Get Out of the Dating Pool.

I'm not sure what I want more - the be out of the dating pool myself or simply to get rid of the prevalence of assholes.

The following is mostly about an acquaintance of mine, who we'll call Ignar. Now, Ignar has a lot of truly wonderful qualities, but for the sake of this entry, I won't be discussing a single one of those qualities. 

So, Ignar cannot hold a job for shit. He gets hired, keeps a job for about six weeks on average, then gets fired, luxuriates in unemployment for a few weeks before searching, gets another job, keeps the job for six weeks, you get the gist of this cycle. Because of this cycle, and a lack of motivation to be a productive adult, Ignar still lives with his parents and is in his thirties. So on paper, even, Ignar is not a desirable mate. Yet he's out there. He's trying. He's on all of the dating sites and inexplicably, he gets dates. Consistently. And he's totally fucking insane about it. He gets really, really possessive, really, really quickly.

Ignar recently was paired with a friend of mine from college on one of these dating sites. I have no idea why the site would allow this match. My college friend, who I'll call Alex, is a tremendous person. Extremely attractive, going to law school, works three jobs, very nice, great taste in music. All around good person. When Ignar told me they had gone on a date, I had to fight every instinct to not call Alex and scream "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

So, Ignar and Alex talk on whichever site they met on. Ignar adds Alex on Facebook. They go on their date. Then Ignar proceeds to text Alex about a dozen times a day, getting mad when Alex doesn't respond. The texts basically go as follows:

Ignar: Hi, what's up?

Alex: Hey, I'm at work. Can I catch you later?

Ignar: When are we going out again?

Alex: Let me check my schedule and get back to you after work.

Ignar: When's your next day off?

(At this point, Alex doesn't even waste time by responding. After about five minutes, Ignar gets mad and texts again, every five minutes)

Ignar: When's your next day off? 

Ignar: When are we going out again?

Ignar: HELLO?!

So then, Ignar gets mad and goes to Facebook (remember, folks, he has added Alex as a friend on Facebook). After a series of posts about "Dating is dumb", the following pops up (of course, it has been edited to protect Ignar's true identity. It was rife with spelling error, lack of punctuation, and some incoherent words):

Ignar Dingleberry: It's been a week and a half since what I thought was a good first date. I have sent texts and made all attempt to get together for a second time. Am I expecting too much or should I just give up and move on to the next person? 

The following day, Ignar makes another Facebook post.

Ignar Dingleberry: On to the next. Wanted one good partner. Scared little children need not apply.

::facepalm::

Then the following occurred in comments, between Ignar and my friend we'll call Perri.

Perri Socially Acceptable Behavior: You realize by texting him a bajillion times and posting these things for him to see, you pretty much made sure you have zero chance of ever seeing that guy again, right?

Ignar Dingleberry: I'm just being me. If a guy can't handle it, that 's his problem.

Perri Socially Acceptable Behavior: But if you can in a way that doesn't let a guy get to know you, it becomes your problem. There are certain forms of dating etiquette that if you follow, allows your personality to come through so guys can really get to know you. And when that happens, you will find a guy who super likes you because he will get to see who you are.

Ignar Dingleberry: We met on Particular Dating Site where we answered a tong of questions for each other, so much that we weren't sure what to talk about on the first date. I guess I figured if you're on a site like that, you are ready and wanting the real thing. And not to mention you have time for someone.

Okay. I assume that if you're not in a mental institution, you're more sane than to believe it is okay to get that fucking scary and possessive so quickly. Or ever. It's not okay to get that scary and possessive EVER. At now point in your relationship is your partner EVER your property. Your partner is always a person and is always allowed basic freedoms to do shit like go to work. Perri put it about right. When you're that fucking possessive, why would anybody ever call you again? Oh, you're intense so your date is wrong for going to work and actually doing their job? Great. Are you also just intense when you break into their fucking bedroom window at night? This is PPO behavior, not "We've gone on one date" behavior!

So, I met this guy who we'll call Bob. Because that's actually his name. I'd talked to Bob for a bit, stupidly gave him my phone number, he asked when I got out of work yesterday so he could call me. When Bob called me, I was on the other on a rather important call that I wasn't going to terminate. Before I finished said call, I received a text message from Bob, reading "Are you available to talk right now?" Um, obviously not, Douche. If I were, I would have answered the damn phone. I finish my call and check my voicemail. The voicemail irritated me so much that I deleted it, but in retrospect, I wish I had saved it so I could copy it here. It was basically, "Hey, Roz. This is Bob. It's 5:00, and I'm calling you, like we agreed on. So, call me back so we can talk. Like we agreed on. It's Bob." I'm annoyed by this and opt not to call him back right away. I hop online and see an email from Bob, reading (this is not edited. Note the different font? Direct copy and paste): Did you think when I meant "tomorrow" that I meant Saturday? Don't want to bombard you with phone or text messages. Message here, text or phone.

• 
  

Oh, Bob. Guess you will never be hearing back from? I hope you enjoy pursuing your restraining order from some unfortunate woman in the near future.

So, when I venture out a date, I'm left asking myself "Is it safe?"