Things That Just Piss Me Off...Part #3 Of Who Knows How Many

Forgive me if I'm even more of a surly fucker than normal today.  You see, today was not just the regular old run of the mill day featuring the general shit that chaps my ass.  It was much worse.  I am of course speaking of a day where I was forced to frequent a big box store to buy a case of discounted Red Bull.  I'm not 100% sure what happens to my body when I enter a Costco, Walmart, Home Depot or any other gigantic shopping orgy, but there is most certainly a physiological reaction that can only be described as "the big box store sweats".  Within 4 minutes of passing through the front door, my blood begins to boil causing sweat to burst through my pores like diarrhea through the eye of a needle.  This coupled with severe anxiety and shortness of breath makes for a tough experience.  I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the store itself as much as the cold cut combo of people on welfare, long lineups and multiple items produced in China that smell of cheap plastic and hookers.  To keep myself sane, I typically play a game of Walmart Bingo in my head (applied to any big box store) where each letter represents a big box store customer stereotype.  For example,  B could equal a teenage girl with a baby, I could equal an entire new Canadian family (all 45 of them that are crammed into some townhouse in the burbs), N could equal an old white guy that shouldn't be trusted with children, G could equal an old lady with a "gunt" (sorry grandma), and O could equal anyone from a trailer park, like Joe Dirt here... 


I gotta get me some of them french fried potaters

 Anyway... aside from big box store sweating like Chunk from the Goonies, here are some other things that just piss me off...

• Office Food Prep - frankly I encourage more people to bring their own lunch to work - why throw away $10 a day on a sammy that you can make by yourself (although, I do that routinely)?  Where I draw the line is on food that has a strong odour or requires microwave or toaster oven preparation (ie anything with fish, microwave meals, leftovers, reheated eggs, warmed up broccoli, etc).  Don't be the asshole who makes your office smell like low rental housing...
• Contrived Reality TV - what is worse, the shows or the people that watch them?  I can only hypothesize that most of the viewership comes from people that either a) don't have cable, satellite or anything other than an antenna, or b) have extremely limited intelligence.  If the show is truly "reality", then OK with me.  But how many actually fall into that category?  Big Brother, The Biggest Loser, Survivor, The Bachelor, etc - ridiculous and so clearly "directed".
• Passive Aggressive e-communications (email, facebook, text, etc) - These are reserved for people who are assholes at heart, but lack the balls to go through the front door...  Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about:
• Use of phrases like "as you know", "as I have already told you", "effective immediately", etc
• Replies that answer only one of several questions posed in the original email
• Reply that includes multiple additions of individuals to the string via "cc" or "bcc". 
• Communications that include the use of emoticons (smiley faces, etc)
• The sender of the email requests a "read receipt".  Are you kidding me?  I automatically delete and refuse to read anything with a read receipt.
• The use of capital letters - stop yelling at me... I'm sensitive god damn it...
• People that ask "how are you" but don't wait for the answer - Why are we all so obsessed with this question?  When did it become the socially acceptable thing to do?  Do me a favour and start counting how many people actually wait for a response or even care what it is if they do.  I've taken a tip from Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act and started just fucking with people with responses like "Good thanks, as long as good equals recently being raped by a camel"... Guaranteed, that prick won't ask me "how I'm doing" again...
• Fishing for Sympathy or Compliments with Facebook Status Updates - I actually do feel sympathy for the jackass that uses facebook as a vehicle to hook people into their web of self loathing and misery.  You know exactly how these go, but here are a few recent examples from "my so called friends":
• XXXX - is tired...sleep was a no show last night!
• a status post like this is typically followed by multiple comments from similar d-bags  (like - awww babes that sucks, or, me too, I think it was a full moon!).  Of course, those who reply to the status post then expect reciprocal love when they post something pathetic later in the day
• XXXX - effing ignore me c@#t when your the one who effing invited me over!!!!
• Woah... ummm... are we supposed to reply to this status update?  Keep you dirty laundry where it belongs honey.

Alright... enough for now.  As you were.