Sometimes it just burns with the fire of the cheese on a slice of leftover pizza you microwaved for too long, and you hurt the roof of your mouth. Either way, my rage burns at one time or another. (That pizza thing is pretty darned hot, too, if you haven’t done it before.)
It burns for a different reason every day. I stew in my anger, letting my half-digested lunch bubble in my bowels of hate. I compile a list of every sin against all that is good and holy in my life, and I gnash my teeth and reread the list every night, reminding myself of why I foster all of this anger. It’d suck if I forget why I’m angry, after all.
To the so-called coworkers (a.k.a. brain-dead monkeys) who forgot to tell me it was Friday.
In fact, this applies to every twit out there who didn’t tell me it was Friday. I want to know that it’s Friday, for multiple reasons. I get free beer at work on Friday afternoons, but if I sneak out of work early, I don’t get the free beer, now, do I? Noooooooooo. This is everyone’s fault but mine. All of my coworkers (er, brain-dead monkeys) know that I am placated by employer-provided free beer. Do they stop me from taking a late lunch and not returning to my desk? NO! They’re secretly trying to hoard the free beer for themselves. They can all rot in hell.
To all of the lying, boggling, caviling, dodging, equivocating, hedging, quibbling, shifting, and sidestepping goons of the world who told me that I could MAKE MONEY FAST stuffing envelopes at home.
… the less said, the better.
To Papa Murphy’s, and your take-and-bake pizza.
You’re worse than a Colombian drug lord, or a vacant-faced dope pusher with his ‘the first one’s free’ schtick. No, no, much worse. You’ve got your little ‘buy twelve get one free’ deal. You have a little business card that you stamp each time I buy a pizza. And as part of your vile conspiracy, you make GOOD pizzas. Chris Carter and the X-Files have NOTHING on you. You’ve planned this. You’ve got me coming back there twice a week, if not more, and getting your large combination pizza for $8.99, and making me live off of it for two days. You heartless, cruel, vindictive, evil bastards. You go to hell, too. I hope that Satan’s blazing pits of fire overcook your pizzas and burn your crusts.
To Caroline Walker Bynum.
Yeah, you too. You succubus. Temptress. Seductress. There is no justification for you. You instilled a love for medieval history in me, and I ended up going to college, getting a degree, and winding up in ten years of student loan debt. If it weren’t for you, I would be a night manager at Burger King. I wouldn’t have any student loan debt. I’d be brainless and uneducated and wondering why my hand hurts when I reach into the deep-fat fryer. God damn you to hell. And Maeglin, by extension, since he had a chance to end your horrific reign of terror at Columbia, but decided instead to become your feared lieutenant at the SDMB.
To Mike, the guy who restocks the Wheel of Death at work.
You. I’m calling you out, Mike. You, with your bagels, ramen noodles, banana breads, Hot Pockets, microwaveable burritos, and twinkies. You, with a vast assortment of goodies priced from $.80 to $2.00. You, who keep the rotating vending machine known as the Wheel of Death filled with the addictive goodies. If it weren’t for you, I’d save money. I’d eat a good breakfast, and a healthy lunch. Do you care? No. Are you sympathetic? No. Your diabolic plan is reaching fruition by preventing me from reaching nutrition. The steak-n-cheese Hot Pocket, only $1.25 – cheaper than I’d pay at the grocery store! And six other kinds, if I don’t feel like steak-n-cheese. This iniquity will not go unpunished, oh, no. From now on, whenever I succumb to my weakness and purchase breakfast or lunch from the Wheel of Death, I’ll repay you. I’m putting a little packet of non-dairy creamer into the vacant spot left. If you want to continue your abhorrent practice, you’ll need to remove the packet first. It may not stop you, but it will slow you down. This is the modern equivalent of French resistance fighters in the second World War. Soon, I’ll have to start buying everything with nickels, just to fill up the change box, so you’ll have a hassle emptying it. Vengeance is mine, I shall repay.
To Best Buy and Western Digital.
You couldn’t be satisfied, could you. You couldn’t just stop at providing a great selection of electronics, and couldn’t just stop at selling good hard drives, could you. No, you had to conspire against me. You had to offer a 40G hard drive, and 128M of ram, for only $150 after rebate. You KNEW I wouldn’t be able to pass that by. You KNEW that I’d even take advantage of it twice. You, with your coupons and flyers and special bargains. You did that just to get me in the door so I’d then look at the 72" high definition projection TV, and convince myself that no money down, no interest, no payments for six months is a good deal. But I’m too smart for you, indeed, I am. Your maleficence and conniving ways have no effect on me. No, I merely racked up $500 of computer components I don’t really need, and you get to keep $200 of that until you send me the rebates in six to eight weeks. No, I’m too canny for you.
To Penguin Mints.
You, you, you. There are no words for the depths of your depravity, and your outrageous mendacity. You, with your innocent http://www.peppermints.com/ website. You, with your caffeinated mints, and your caffeinated cinnamon mints, and your decaffeinated peppermints. You, with your bulk discount for ordering dozens of tins. You’re in league with Papa Murphy. You’re in cahoots with Mike. You’re part of the Bynum conspiracy. It seems so innocent, doesn’t it. Peppermints to freshen my breath, and caffeine to wake me up. Seventy-five mints per tin. If you were really so innocent, and these mints were really only what you said they were, how come I’ve gone through over forty tins in three months, huh? Huh? You’re deliberately trying to coat my arteries with sorbitol, gum arabic, corn starch, and natural peppermint extract. But I’m too smart for you, yes, I am. My tinfoil hat will keep me safe.
To the Tampa Bay Buccanneers.
You picked up Ryan Leaf? You think you have a quarterback problem with Shaun King, and you think you can fix it with Ryan Leaf? Nothing more needs to be said.
And finally, to Jerry Lewis, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
You two both deserve to rot in the umpteeth circle of hell. Not because you directly affected my life in any way, but because * for the love of God I lived twenty-four years without knowing you were two separate people.* I went through life thinking that “Goodness gracious great balls of HEY LAAAAAAADY!” came from the same person. I thought that the performer whom the French strangely love was the same performer who married his underage cousin in Kentucky. You have no RIGHT to do this to me. You have no IDEA how aghast I was when this was explained to me. No, this was not explained to me in the privacy of my own home. No, this was not explained to me in the company of a few close friends, who would snicker momentarily and then forget about this. No, this was not even explained to me while giving a presentation to a board of directors. YOU TWO KEPT UP THIS CHARADE UNTIL MY GIRLFRIEND WONDERED WHAT THE HELL I WAS TALKING ABOUT. She’ll never let me forget about this. She now has the nuclear weapon of relationships. She can merely whisper “Jerry Lewis!” into my ear and I’ll curl into a mortified fetal position. She can win any argument, no matter how many cites I provide, or how many links to authoritative sources.
Jerry Lewis, you go to hell. Jerry Lee Lewis, you lead the way.
