As we continue to celebrate “Anger Month” here at the Madame Tootsie Bagel blog, with all its attendant (non-existent) festivities, rites, rituals, honors, and privileges, let us take a few moments to reflect on just a few of the many petty and trivial things I find irksome:
- Comments about Prince Louis. Prince Louis is a normal five year-old kid. He does not have special needs; he is not “on the spectrum,” and his royal parents do not need to “get him evaluated” as soon as possible. Christ on a Cracker. Would your kindergartner be perfectly behaved and attentive for long ritual ceremonies in public? Would you? Shut up already about this kid yawning or pulling a face. Not special needs, not even close.
- And furthermore: comments about kids who DO have disabilities and special needs. No, Korbin’s humming and finger tapping is not preventing your little darling from getting an education and advancing to the highest echelon of the math class hierarchy. No, the fact that there will be no cake at the class holiday party (because Quinn has diabetes) is not keeping your child from experiencing the true joys of Christmas. Shut. Your. Pie. Hole.
- People who talk on their phones, or talk at all, during a movie theater movie. And long loud previews and ads that take up 20 minutes.
- People who believe that the physical capacity to return their shopping carts to the shopping cart corral in the grocery store parking lot is a sign of innate goodness and righteousness on their part, or that inability/failure to do so is an indication of a lack of a moral compass, like some weird sort of 21st Century morality play at Safeway. I can’t. I just can’t.
- People who express blatant prejudice or absurd fears for their safety, and then tell you to read “The Gift of Fear” and believe that its takeaway is that your “inner voice” is always correct, no matter how neurotic, racist, illogical, or phobic that voice is. People, that’s not the gift of fear, or the meaning of that book. Re-read, if you ever read it at all in the first place.
- The face that it now costs $17.29 for lunch out. I’m talking a quarter white meat Peruvian Chicken at Don Pollo with two sides (rice and beans, and salad) and a Diet Coke. This is unreal.
- And finally: people with strange laughs that dominate the entire back dining room at Copper Canyon Grill when you are just trying to get your Dad the prime rib he has been looking forward to for his entire visit. Oh. My. God.
The First Year Without Sarah 