I almost always do, but on those rare instances when I forget, every single time it’s “holdonholdonholdon.”
Dear Sis,
I think it’s wonderful you’re getting married again. I know it was a surprise kind of thing, since you’ve been engaged, what, three years now? But you won a wedding. Way cool. No way out and little expense.
You keep saying it’s not a big deal. Yet looking back, it is. You first wanted to do Vegas before Dad died. Finances fell through. Then you wanted a garden wedding, but Dad went downhill. I know now that he’s gone it won’t be the same. Believe me, I friggin understand. You’ve had your dress for TWO YEARS. Soon to be BIL has had the wedding bands for that long. You’ve sat on my computer for hours on end researching what you want for your wedding. Now it’s time. Suck it up and enjoy it.
If we don’t make it at least a semi-big deal, you’ll mope about it. You’re NOT the queen of guilt, woman. I laugh in the face of your pathertic attempts. Who is our Mom? C’mon!
So take the bouquet that I made for you, have some of the cake your son and his wife bought, enjoy all the decorations we all will be putting up and STFU. 'Cuz no matter what we’ll never hear the end of it.
Love,
Your baby sis.
So what happened?
Incidentally, it’s too late now, but the right approach here, I think, would have been to leave the book untouched. Just let it sit, ignored. Leave it to collect dust. See if anything about it changes: maybe, after a week, a yellow sticky appears on the front (“For you!”), with handwriting you can track down. If it gets moved, say, to your chair, stick it back in its original position. Pay attention during meetings and while walking down the hall to see if anybody happens to catch your eye weirdly. Basically, play the “I’m not playing your game” game. 
If that guy at the public access computers does not stop clearing his throat and humming this deadly second, I will solve his problem by FORCIBLY REMOVING HIS THROAT WITH MY BARE HANDS.
Dear bicyclist:
Yes, I understand having a car come up behind you on a narrow, winding road through the woods can make you nervous that you’re going to be sideswiped into the poison ivy as the oblivious fuckwit driving it blasts past you. That’s why I’ve chosen to drop my speed to a crawl and stay a dozen plus yards behind you while I wait for a chance to pass you safely. It would be thoughtful of you, of course, after I’ve been meekly tempering my pace to yours for a while, if you would move over onto the shoulder to let me pass safely, especially since the grade is for the most part level or slightly downhill and the shoulder is not, in fact, liberally bestrewn with boulders and broken glass, but I do not demand such courtesy.
No, I don’t have radar vision to tell whether there’s someone driving toward me who will play Head-On Crash with my vehicle should I pull out to pass you when I can’t see around the bend, or through the underbrush, and thus would fail to note my H-OC dance partner’s approach until it was too late. Yes, when after a mile or so of patiently following you – without once leaning on my horn, or glaring at you, or calling curses down upon your helmeted head – I finally can see the way clear and pull out around you, I do indeed swing well wide so as not to take any chance of hitting you.
In return for all that, dear bicyclist, would it kill you to at least smile at me as I pass? Maybe even, I dunno, wave a thank you? Indicate some recognition of my courtesy toward you? At least not glare at me as I pass as if I were the personal representative of every motorist who ever gave you anything approaching a hard time?
To my body: lack of estrogen does NOT mean I’m freezing to death, so stop with the stupid blast furnace imitations. There will be no more estrogen, okay? Just deal with it.
To my husband: could you at least close the doors and drawers when you get something out? Especially on the boat, where you don’t slide the cubby door shut in the head and then when the boat heels everything pitches out on the extremely icky floor. It’s your toothbrush, bub, and I’m going to start just putting it right back in there for you to enjoy the stale urine taste rather than replacing it with a new one. Oh, and while we’re at it, could you PLEASE start closing the goddamn valve on the marine toilet after you pee so the contents of the holding tank don’t back up onto the floor and make it icky?
To my mother-in-law: either stop complaining about your chronic diarrhea or stop eating only crap* and drinking only diet coke, coffee and iced tea. You eat like a fucking 6-year old with a drivers license and a generous allowance. Grow up.
- Note: three donuts and two cinnamon rolls is really not a good breakfast for someone who is already overweight and has your health problems.
Dear research helper,
I know that you have a more advanced degree than I, but I have spent two years working on this project and refining the data collection form. I really, really appreciate your help (absolutely no sarcasm there), but could you please just enter data in the form as it is? I put in little handy pull down menus. You don’t even have to type the full word, just put in the first letter. I really don’t need you to be creative and find a new way to enter data - eventually everything must be put into binary and the form is designed with this in mind.
Dear wacko,
Oddly enough, I cannot see you when you are standing on the other side of a blind corner, blocking the entire sidewalk. Now that I am entering my mid-twenties, I have to had to admit to myself that the chances of me being bitten by some radioactive creature and getting precognitive powers, is pretty slim. As an adult, I would hope that you also recognized this fact and chose places to have lengthly conversations elsewhere. And no, I will not run into traffic to avoid making you move. And no, it’s not my problem that your dog was startled - if your dog is that badly behaved, perhaps you should take that into account when chosing to block the public sidewalk on a blind corner. Walking after me and screaming at me also doesn’t “teach me a lesson” beyond that you are a bloody psycho.
Blue the disgruntled runner.
Oh, heh. I should have posted an update about this earlier. Here’s what happened:
I immediately accused my friend/coworker, Patty, of planting it on my desk. She denied it very plausibly. I sent around an email asking if anyone had left a book on my desk, saying it intrigued me. I then prominently displayed the book in my recycle bin, which is right by the doorway to my cube. I readied many scathing remarks. No one owned up, but many people stopped by to see what the book was and give me advice on what to say to the perpetrator.
The next day, Saturday, I got together with some friends. Over drinks, I decided tell the others about the book, and what do I see to my right? Patty raising her hand and looking sheepish. Yeah. Damn that woman.
She DID plant it on my desk knowing that it would piss me right off. I toasted her devious mind and excellent poker face, and then we all came up with a list of other people we could annoy.
Dear moron-if you want us to return your message, please leave your phone number. We can’t help you book a field trip for your students if we can’t call you back.
Oh, and if you don’t want to leave a message, please hang up BEFORE the beep, and save us some time.
People, please, do not let your kid climb on the concrete wall directly over a one story drop. We don’t want to have to clean up your Darwin-Award-Waiting-To-Happen.
To my fellow dopers:
(1) I’m sick of people ranting about cell phones. Get the fuck over it. They’re here to stay. There are some people who abuse cell phones and do stupid things with them. Rant at those specific people if you like. But cell phones themselves are a tool which can be very useful in many situations, and can be abused, just like basically every other innovation of the past 500 years.
Oh, and if you personally do not own a cell phone, that is a perfectly reasonable lifestyle choice. I will not argue with that choice or criticize you for it. It does NOT, however, make you special or wise or enlightened or superior.
(2) I absolute hate when people post things that are cryptic (ie, jokes with difficult to understand punchlines, clever license plates they saw, etc.), remark on how cryptic and hard to understand they are, subtly pat themselves on the back for being clever and smart and special and awesome enough to understand said cryptic item, wonder out loud how many dopers will be smart or erudite enough to understand said item; and not actually post an explanation for it. Like, in a spoiler box. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
Max, you’ve given me my opening!
Of all the things to take a stand on, tipping has to be one of the most pointless. What skin is it off your nose to give a percentage of the total to the person who served you? Don’t tell me the system is broken. Don’t tell me they should get a better job if they don’t like it. Don’t give me that Five Easy Pieces shit. Waitresses, bartenders, pizza delivery guys, are not The Man. You’re not sticking it to anyone by not tipping, and you’re not correcting a social injustice; you’re making it worse.
My computer just erased all my bookmarks. Every single one of them. Just like it did a few months ago. Look, computer, I put up with your quirks when starting you up and shutting you down. I don’t complain. But I don’t like you messing with my bookmarks. Lay off them or that nice cleaning I gave your innards not long ago will be your last!
cue the Cell Block Tango
No, Mr. Asshole Customer, I do NOT have to listen to you abuse me on the telephone. You get to speak to my manager, who will inform you of what you said when you placed your order. We have you on tape agreeing to the conditions which you said you understood. Eat shit and die.
To my company: stop saying “organic” when you really mean - well, I don’t know what you really mean. So in addition to being really annoying, the term is not facilitating clear communication. Since we’re doing business reporting, I feel clear communication is pretty fucking important.
Stupid cell phone! You haven’t worked right ever since your cheapo antenna broke off a few weeks ago, and I can’t get a new one yet, because we’re moving in a little over a month and we might be changing cell phone providers.
Oh, and on the subject of cell phone providers, why do they have to make it so hard to buy a simple phone? I don’t send text messages, nor am I particularly interested in receiving them. I don’t play games on my cell phone- I have a proper computer for that. I don’t want a camera as part of my phone- I’m anti-photogenic, so I hate having my picture taken, and I extend the same courtesy to others. I have this sinking feeling that, if my cell phone could send or receive pictures, I’d get stupid pictures I’m not interested in from the same people who forward the latest “virus warning” or scare-of-the-day urban legend e-mail to my inbox. I know that, someday, some company is going to use cell phone picture transmission to send obnoxious ads (I’ll be astonished if this hasn’t happened yet somewhere).
Stupid wireless router. You keep dropping my computer from the network, and I found out today that Mr. Neville is having the same problem. We shall see if you will go to our new house with us or not. You should know that I subscribe to the “give it a good whack and see if that helps” school of repairs…
To my employer:
Thank you for employing me these last 6 years.
Thank you for offering to let me take a leave of absence when I desperately needed it.
Remember when I tearfully asked you if my job would still be there when I returned, and you telling me that it would be?
Remember that my LOA was for my mental health due to overwhelming depression and anxiety?
Good, now that you remember all that, please tell me how on earth you think it might make me feel to return to work and notice that you’ve essentially REPLACED me?!
What did you think my reaction to being told that you “don’t know which location” I’ll be working at permanently, and won’t know(or tell me) for another few weeks would be?
Maybe, oh, I dunno? DEPRESSION AND OVERWHELMING ANXIETY???!!!
FUCK YOU for making me feel this way!
Dear patrons:
This is how my dream world works:
If you mark up a library book with pencil, we get to cut your dominant hand off. If you use pen, we get to cut both hands off. If you happen to check out a book that’s been previously marked up with ink, and decide to add your own notes, we get to cut off both of your arms at the shoulder and beat you about the head with them.
Dear fellow employees:
STOP STEALING MY TAPE, DAMMIT! I need that tape to send Interlibrary Loans. You do not. If you need tape for whatever purpose, I know for a fact that there’s a roll behind the circulation desk, and at least four pristine, new rolls in the supply closet. There are three signs on or around my tape explaining that it belongs in the ILL office and nowhere else, so FUCKING LEAVE IT THERE.
Dear people at other libraries:
Update your fucking ILL records. This prevents two libraries from filling the same request, which screws up my filing system. It takes thirty seconds to find the record online and say ‘yes, we are sending you this book’. Do your fucking job, please.
My husband is potentially being hospitalized in another country.
Fuck.
Yes, you still have to pay admission, even if all you’re going to do is watch your kids play. No, we really don’t care if you don’t want to come back. If you go to Kennywood, do you expect to get in for free if you’re not going to ride anything?
Oh, and yes, I saw you riding the energy cycle. Since I want to keep my job, I refrained from going over and asking you, “I thought you weren’t going to do anything?”
Finally, if you don’t want to see Bodies, and you find it offensive, THEN DON’T FUCKING GO, DUMBASS!
ETA: jsgoddess, please know that I’ll be thinking of you and your’s.