Channel that hate productively
Reading different entries, it's obvious to me that there are haters out there. People have their targets and their own individual reasons for hating. Everyone has a right to their opinions. I also have a list of people I absolutely hate. People who absolutely are quite capable of making my life miserable. I'll bet I'm not the only one who hates these people. Here is a small listing of some of them:
SINGERS: We've all run into them, and never by choice. At work, school, city streets, standing in long lines, on buses, trains or even planes. You're trying to focus on something serious and some clueless dork nearby in a black baseball cap, a black t-shirt with the logo of some heavy metal band on it, and black pants & shoes suddenly starts playing air guitar, and starts serenading everyone with his tone deaf rendition of some Black Sabbath or Led Zepplin opus. It goes without saying that they have no singing talent. Ditto for their voice tone. Usually too high, tinny, and headache inducing. Or, it might be some knucklehead dressed like he's fresh out of a 1930s minstrel show, and just destroys one Motown classic after another. Of course, you're forced to listen to this crap. If you try to say anything to these musical Einsteins, they either get bent out of shape, or they just ignore you and keep right on singing. They usually stop only if large numbers of people give them simultaneous dirty looks or they all say STFU at the same time, or if an authority figure starts approaching them. Please, if I want to hear somebody sing, I'll start listening to my iPod.
YAKKERS: We've all heard them before. No choice. Coped with them is more like it. There have been times when I'm trying to concentrate on something at work, and someone comes up to me, and starts off with "Hello, how you doing?" and evolves into golf, Paris Hilton, upper New York state, Nostradamus, party hats, Nabisco Shredded Wheat, potatoes, different breeds of cows, spiders, favorite coffees, women who once looked at him, Oldsmobiles, and Betty Hutton movies. All in one sitting. Non-stop. Not a care in the world about the pile of work in front of who he's talking to. Someone I need to talk to about a work-related matter walks by, and as I'm raising my arm to signal them over, the yakker will suddenly say "Hi, good to see you." at that person, and they move on, and the yakker picks up where he left off. I never had a chance. They trained for this life back in high school by barging in on guys trying to talk to a girl during lunch, bringing up such "appropriate" topics like baseball, or some stupid stunt some classmate did, or what they're going to do hanging out together this weekend at the very time the guy is trying to get a date with the girl, and the girl suddenly says "I better go, you got things to talk about with your friend." Thanks a lot, pal. When I run into one of these types lately, I say to them "Can we move this along, get to the point, please? I'm over 50, and I don't have that much time left."
GEOGRAPHITES: for lack of a better term. From the time we were in school thru adult life, we've had to encounter these morons and their nonsense. I'm talking about the people who always mention one place somewhere over and over and over again, but never go there, perhaps have never even been there, and even worse, have absolutely no intention of going to where they keep praising. Examples:
"Virginia has better schools than here." "In Virginia, this never would have happened." "The restaurants in Virginia are so much better."
"Italy is so much more cultured." "They drive safer in Italy." "Men speak so much better in Italy." "Italy has such higher quality material."
I want to mark these people as a warning for others by sticking a globe over their heads and permanently welding it to their shoulders. Beats a scarlett letter anytime, anywhere.
WANNA-BE SNOBS: Far worse than actual snobs. At least actual snobs have the decency not to talk to you in the first place. They don't want to be bothered, so, in the interests of not being hypocrites, they don't bother anybody. The wanna-be has some kind of psychological hang up where they have to show people "something", perhaps because they fear that if people saw the real them, they'd see that there's nothing there. Examples:
Some skanky-looking woman: "I've traveled Europe many times, and I speak six languages." First, no one asked her about any of that. She just volunteers the information out of the blue. Second, I have a response to that: "You must be lost then, because someone over there must have told you to get lost, like I want to do now." And, "Great. That means that there's five more languages I can't understand you in."
Then there's always the Ivy Leaguer-type. He has to tell you where he went to college and what year he graduated as soon as he meets you and shakes hands with you: "Hi, Charlton Henry, Yale, '77." After years of hearing this garbage, I finally came up with a good response: "Rico Gregg. 33-7. 16 knockouts." They don't know or care anything about me anyway, so why not? And, it always kills their desire to play the "Can You Top This?" head games.
If anyone is worthy of hate, contempt, and people's wrath, it is these people. Please hate wisely.