Ha-ba-ja-ba-ja-ba-ba?!

I have suspected for some time that I've been slowing down. Today I got confirmation.

I think it's about time for me to lay off the five-fingered wiggity-wack. I'm developing that half-second delay that I had all through college. Also, in my spare time, I elect to sit on my couch, slack-jawed, or sit in front of my computer slack-jawed, staring at things.

"And why, pray tell," you ask, "have you had this epiphany this evening in particular?"

I'll tell you. Roll up a barrel to sit on. We'll have a barrel of fun.

Those of you who know me (and those of you who don't, have probably picked up on it through this blog) know that I'm not a patient man. I'm not a patient man, and I don't have a high level of tolerance for bullshit. I'm blunt. Sometimes it's good, "You've got a booger. Right there," and sometimes it's bad, "This movie sucks, wanna mess around?" But, by and large, unless I'm on good behavior, and I'm able to filter what I say, you're going to get what's in my mind, with little to no moderation.

"I'm so sad! My life sucks!" "Yeah, that's because you've been an idiot lately, so, you know, maybe you want to...change."

That's not to say that I charge around pointing out boogers in my friends' noses, and calling them idiots - I do have SOME decorum, but when I've met a new person and I'm feeling them out, I don't tend to have the same level of grace that I have around people I've known. Odd, right? You'd think it would be the opposite...

But I'm rambling. As usual.

I don't let people cut in front of me in lines. Old, young, rich, poor, wheelchair bound, and juggling eight puppies and triplet three-year olds. Fuck 'em. I was there first. If they're out in public, they don't deserve any special treatment, and my time is DOUBTLESS more valuable than most of the other people's in Miami. Everyone down here is retahded.

So, tonight, I decided I was going to stay in and go for a walk, and then make a Spanikopita. (The Spanikopita is a different blog for a different time. Phyllo dough, while manageable, is a fucking pain in the ass, and although it came out just fine, it's a hell of a lot of work for essentially the same effect I could achieve through pre-packaged puff pastry. ESPECIALLY on the bottom...) I was going to stay in so I didn't have a Trademarked Hangover on Saturday Morning. It was going to be a nice night. A nice walk in some nice weather, a nice Greek dish on which I can subsist until I go home for Thanksgiving...

So, I set out, paycheck burning a hole in my pocket, for deposit as I skipped along my merry way to the Bank, then on my walk, and then to my Pube-Licks.

I strolled up to my Bee'Vay and saw a Mercury Mountaineer idling in front of the bank machine with two typical Miami twats sitting inside.

"Oh, good," thinks I, "there's only one guy at the ATM, this'll be fast, and I can continue on to my walk. I really enjoy walking. Because I'm an old man now. Maybe I'll buy myself some prunes while I'm at Publix. Then I can eat them after my lunch of a bowl of tomato soup, and a cup of hot coffee. Then, I'll watch some Murder She Wrote, and take a nap, before sorting my pills, and remembering what it was like during the War..."

So, I sidle up to the Bank Machine. And behind me I hear, "Oh shit."

"HAH," I think to the Cunt in the tank behind me, "You'll be behind me."

Or... so I thought.

A diminutive little GablesMommy pops out of the Mountaineer, and comes up to me and says in her ghastly Miami accent, which, to me, speaks of poor breeding, laziness and almost ensures that whoever it's coming out of, is a complete asshole who would drop jaws with their utter rudeness a mere seventy miles to the North, "Um, I was in line before you, I was just waiting in my car, so I'm going to go ahead of you."

...

...

...

I stare at her, eyebrows raised, in a, "Are you fucking joking me, lady?!" expression. And yet I say nothing. I'm weighing the value of fighting with her and being like, "Tough shit, bitch. You snooze, you lose," versus being a nice person. Ordinarily, I'd go with the confontation. Fuck her. She can't sit in her car and be in line. Either you're in line or you're not. You're not in line in your car. You're in line when you're...

And the seconds are ticking by, and I'm noticing details in her that I could use in some insult to totally ruin her day... like her deeply lined saddle-bag face... I'm guessing she was in her early 30s, but she looked like she had grown up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. Leathery. And I'm thinking about how her thighs look fat in the True Religion Jeans she has stuffed them in. And I'm thinking about how ridiculous she looks in her shirt that has the same pattern as a shirt that I have hanging in my closet, but never wear, because I must have been on crack when I bought it, because it's so fucking ugly, I wouldn't want to be caught dead in it...

And I'm thinking that I'm either going to go with the fat-thighs comment, but probably the lined forehead comment would be a better way to go, because she can't hide it and it'll give her a complex, and hopefully make her cry, and totally ruin the rest of her night, and she'll just think about how I razzed on her wrinkly forehead and sun-damaged skin, and maybe she'll kill herself... and I really couldn't care less if she does, because clearly, she's a dumb cunt for making such a statement, and who the hell does she think she is, and if she had been nice about it, I wouldn't be thinking these things... because it's not in my nature to pick out flaws in a person unless I need it for ammunition...

And at this point, I've basically acquiesced, because I am so shocked at her brazen disregard for, oh, AMERICAN RULES OF BEING IN LINE, that I was struck dumb as a post.

My mind was churning a mile a minute, and yet, I couldn't settle on any one response. A simple, "No, you were in your car, I was here first," would have been firm, and polite, but adequately confrontational. If she had argued with me, I could have pulled out something like, "Okay, you must be late for your desperately needed Botox appointment, and if I were you, I wouldn't want to go another second looking as Clint-Eastwoody as you do, so go ahead, Saddlebags..." (Or something better) Or I could have been like, "Nah, I don't feel like staring at your fat ass stuffed into jeans that you're thirty years too old to wear..."

What did I come up with?! NOTHING. As I write this, there was a similar blog written recently on the same phenomenon... but... it was a, "Yeah, well, the Jerkstore called, and they're runnin' out of YOU!" moment.

And as the guy in front of me finished, she fucking edged up to the machine to make sure that I wasn't going to go ahead of her. ONCE AGAIN, I'm standing there, aghast at the chutzpah this farbisseneh had.

She went, and I stared at her ass, hating it. Hating the way one of the legs of her pants were cuffed too high. Hating most everything about her... but mostly hating myself.

Hating that I have smoked myself apathetic, and unable to snap back with a sharp retort and defend what was rightfully mine. That was MY forty-five seconds she stole. And it's the principle of the thing more than anything else. If she had ASKED, I would have said, "Go right ahead."

Hell, I STILL said "Go right ahead," but only because I was so thunderstruck at her assholism. If I was in sharper condition, she would have been staring at MY fat ass wedged into MY camoflauge shorts, as I deposited my checks... (not that she was wearing camoflauge shorts, but... ... SHUT UP, JERKSTORE.)

So... I need to get back into shape. I need my mind to be running in peak condition. Yes, I've been beating it up lately with the booze, and the pills, and the needles full of drugs (KIDDING!), but I think it's time to get back on my A-Game. What? My time isn't more valuable than her time? My time is infinately more valuable, than some slut's time who's just going to cruise up to Merrick Park and finger Stuart Weitzman shoes (do they still make those?)

And I would have finished my walk forty five seconds sooner, and it would have been a 110% more relaxing walk, if I had stood my ground and told that bitch that I'd fight her for the first position at the ATM.

G.A.M.E. O.N.