Checkhate

This rant is not about what you think, the old lady paying for a dollar purchase with a check at the front of a huge line in the supermarket.

It is about the bravado and pure arrogance some of these check payers have. Its bad enough to have to wait while the customer and clerk do the “pay-with-check dance”. But now you have to watch as they open up their custom Italian leather checkbook case with the gold monogram on the front. Then they search their bag for their ceramic engraved pen case. Soon after that gaudy unnecessary trinket is pulled from their oversized purse you see the case open and reveal their “special” check signing pen. The pen has a myriad of colors about the barrel. It looks like a mini ceramic mosaic. The point clicker is gold as is the pen tip. It writes, no not blue or black, but with red or green ink. The clerk comments on the beauty of the pen which only inflates their ego and confirms the attention getting device has worked. At this point, I puke into the point-of-purchase candy display from pure disgust. When I look up the dance continues with a discussion of where she got the pen and how wonderful it is. Its not for another 5 minutes until the check for $1.12 is written and confirmed to be real. The checkbook and magic pen are then buried back into their pocketbook lair and the customer leaves with a content and absent smile.

Solution: When you see these people insult their pens and their checkbooks and their person in general. Or simply mock them openly. Thank you.

Don’t hesitate.

With the amount of choices given to us, especially as Americans, we have become increasingly bad at making decisions. I constantly find myself in situations being fouled up by an indecisive “second party”.

I know things can get confusing. I know, at the time, things seem like monumental decisions. They’re not. They’re creating more stress in your life by YOU thinking to hard about nothing. Next time go with your gut. If it’s wrong you can always change your mind.

Do me a favor. Don’t answer my call.

We know you are busy. We know you are important. You don’t have to answer your phone just to tell me you can’t talk because you are:
a) in a meeting
b) totally swamped
c) talking to the boss
d) rescuing a kitten
e) flying to LA
f) at a B-List award show/party.

There is nothing worse than anticipating speaking with someone, getting excited when they answer the phone and then being told to “Hey, I can’t talk”. If you don’t have time to talk to me why the hell would you even bother answering the phone. You have voice mail. It’s free. I will leave a message. This way you are completely uninterrupted from your very, very important life.

Todays weather: You're fu#@ed!

The weather forecast has been notorious for being off the mark for years. The Doppler 7000 is a better can opener than a forecaster or the weatherman simply can’t read. The most accurate weatherman I have even watched was Scott Stevens, part of the crew on an Albany New York, NBC affiliate, channel. After about 3 months of great weather forecasting Scott was fired. Apparently he did not complete weatherman school and was therefore not eligible to actually report the weather. So much for that.

We all know the weather forecasts suck so this rant is about a new trend that has been developing over the last few years. Because the weather has increasing become the least tragic thing the news reports, and that’s arguable with this year’s hurricane season, the networks feel it is necessary to drag the weather out across the entire news broadcast.

It begins with some hints of the weather for the upcoming days. They even show the weather person and they speak about the possible conditions coming our way. They are careful not to give away any “real” info, positive or negative. Is this cliffhanger supposed to entice us to stay tuned? After commercial they come back and show a few tragedy stories. Kid falls out the window, 2 men shot in a bar brawl, truck explodes on the I-95, the typical stuff. Then comes the weather.

“OK, Here we go. Do I need an umbrella for tomorrow?”

The weather person then comes on and spends 5 minutes explaining the current conditions and the conditions we experienced during the day. The high, the low, all the records of the past, any we broke and any we almost broke. Then they cut to commercial with a stay tuned for the complete forecast later in the broadcast. That complete forecast usually comes 2 more commercials later after 2 more teases from the weatherperson.

We do not need to know what the past days conditions were. We lived it. We do not need to know the current conditions are. We can look out a window. What we DO need to know is “WHAT WILL TOMORROW BE LIKE?”! That is all that really matters. The day after tomorrow doesn’t really matter. Its nice to know what the rest of the week will be like, but they are probably dead wrong about the forecast anyway. We need to take the weather one day at a time. For all our sakes can they please stop with all the bullshit and just tell us what the temp and sky will be like for the next day. This should take less than 1 minute, but they drag it out to 10 minutes over the coarse of a 30-minute broadcast.

I say F’em. Dress in layers and carry an umbrella in your bag. Done.