Oh Good, Unsolicited Opinions and Advice

It seems to me that there are a few things that everybody in the world agrees are annoying. For example: every single person in the world thinks rubbernecking is a pain in the ass. We all complain about traffic caused by idiots who gawk at every fender bender. I've yet to hear a single person say, "you know what I like? Car accidents. Everybody slows down, and I get to take a good look." Likewise, everybody seems to hate it when people talk during a movie. These things are universal.

You know what else we all seem to hate? People who push their opinions and beliefs on us. So why do we always tell each other what to think and do?

The other day I was driving home from work, and I had to merge into a lane on a highway. As I was trying to squeeze in, a guy assertively sped up to get ahead of me, rather than let me glide in front of him. It was no big deal. It was definitely because they didn't want to be behind me, and they had to drift into another lane to get around me, but it really wasn't a completely shitty maneuver. It was blah. I didn't give it another thought, until I squared up behind them. Thanks to their swoop-around, I got to check out their bumper sticker, which I managed to find an image of online.

It may be the teeniest tiniest picture in the world. Start squinting........now:

If you can't quite tell, that's a bumper sticker which says, "Abortion: One Dead / One Wounded," and it has a picture of a distraught woman on it.

I'm not about to debate the issue of whether or not abortion is moral or should be legal, so relax, I'm going to talk about how this person is a fucking asshole for not being able to shut their goddamn mouth.

I don't care what you think. About anything. You have your opinions, I have mine. The only time the two of them should be expressed is in some sort of public forum where we are each able to make a case for our beliefs. Even then, I probably don't want to talk to you. 

Most people are insufferable, and if one thing is certain, it's that while I'm in my car, I should be free from your bullshit ideas.

Are we so self righteous and self centered that we think we need to be stating a "fact" or crafting an argument even when we're busy driving? 

This person has this bumper sticker stuck to their stupid car! It's not even a matter of caring about the issue of abortion, it's a matter of thinking that their opinions need to be presented and respected at all times.

What exactly do they think is going to happen? What are they accomplishing? Are they under the impression that I am pro-choice, but once I see this cheap two-tone bumper sticker I'm going to rethink my beliefs? They must think that I'm about to have an epiphany sitting here in traffic, and change my whole life. Should I thank them? Do they want to spark fury in me? Do they want a debate? 

Do they want to know if I'm anti-abortion and if they can be friends with me?

No. 

Nope.

Nah.

They're just a dog barking. They just want to bluntly barf out what they think. They haven't really thought it through. They found something which expresses what they believe, and tossed it on their car because they're simple.

They must understand that this is an issue on which people strongly disagree. People fight tooth and nail over abortion, and they've casually placed their stance on the bumper of their car to challenge all the people on the other side of the coin. Really, just fuck off. We all have enough shit to think about without some simple, small minded moron throwing their opinions in our face. Now I'm barfing.

Why do people seem to want to have an impact on our lives? Are they bored, or just self obsessed?

It's not all about hot button issues, either. For example, here's something which I see on my way to work every damn day:

A few months ago, someone spray painted the impossible phrase "Smiles everyone! Smile" on a walkway in New Brunswick. I get annoyed every time I drive under it.

Part of the reason is that the phrasing is all screwed up. First we're ordered with "Smiles everyone," which is clearly addressed at the population at large, hence "smiles" being plural. But then it's followed up with the reinforcement of "Smile," which is singular and therefor seemingly directed directly at the reader (Though my personal theory is just that this was scrawled out by some drunk idiot Rutgers freshman who thinks they stumbled across a brilliant and simple way of solving all the world's frowns, but whose brain screwed up the phrasing).

The other part of the reason I hate this is the same reason why I hate the abortion bumper sticker: Don't tell me what to do or think. Leave me alone, shut up, and keep your opinions to yourself.

I know that this is all a bit rich coming from me, considering that I have a blog where all I do is write what I want without input, but the difference is that you have the option of ignoring all my shit. I have to drive under this bridge every morning, and there's nothing more annoying than someone telling you to smile when you're tired and grumpy. Just let me grump in peace.

I'm just going to start spray painting "Frowns everyone! Frown!" on every bridge I see, because I think my views deserve to be seen and appreciated.

I could have just posted this video to illustrate my point:

Scary Story Time #2

Quick disclaimer: I'm a really big fan of horror movies and scary stories. Recently I've been finding a lot of interesting little scary stories written anonymously by people on the internet, so I decided to start sharing some of the ones I like. You should know, before you read on, that I did not write any of these stories, unless otherwise noted. You should also know that I won't always be posting that I enjoy 100%. There could be a ten page story that I post because I like one sentence of it. In that case, I assume I'll explain why I posted horse-shit and what merit I see in it. Sometimes, I'll post "scary" stories that I hate, think are stupid, or maybe even funny. But more than that, you should really know that some of these stories may be somewhat graphic, so just steel yourself for anything, especially poor spelling and grammar (I don't edit these stories). No matter what, though, I hope you enjoy them too, and if you know any stories or sources, please share them with me. Also, if you have any requests, just ask, I have a huge archive of this stuff!

Curious Little Thing

I have an odd habit a friend recently picked up on, a habit I developed about a year ago. He noticed that when I enter a room, any room, and shut the door, I turn my face away from it and close my eyes until I hear the lock click. Only after the door is fully closed will I open them. He gave me a hard time about it until I told him where it started.

I work for a water-seal company in St. Paul. We produce sealant for exposed wood — decks, boats, that kind of thing. You hear about sealant being a dirty word in the Ashland-Ichor Falls-Ironton area, but not all those companies were part of the infamous “Ethylor summer” that wiped out the local economy in the ’50s. I got sent to an industrial park outside of Ichor Falls on business.

I checked into this dismal hotel, the Hotel Umbra, that looked like the decor hadn’t been changed since 1930. The lobby wallpaper had gone yellow from decades of cigarette smoke, and everything had a fine layer of dust, including the old man behind the front desk. I hoped that the room would be in better shape. Mine was on the fourth floor.

Being an old place, the hotel had a rickety cable elevator, the kind with the double sets of doors: one of those flexing metal gates, and a solid outer pair of doors. I shut the gate and latched it, and pressed the tiny black button for my floor.

Just as the outer elevator doors were about to close, I was startled by the face of a young woman rushing at the gap between them. She was too late; the doors shut, and after a moment the elevator ascended.

I thought nothing of it, until I needed to take the elevator back down for one of my bags. I entered, pushed the button for the lobby, and pressed my tired back to the elevator wall opposite the doors. They had nearly completely shut when again I was surprised by a woman’s face moving towards the gap, staring into the elevator through the gate, too late to place her hand in to stop the doors from closing. This time I sprang forward and held the “Door Open” button, and after a moment the doors lurched and slid open.

I waited a moment. From the opening I could see partly down the hallway: no one in sight. Still holding the button down, I slid open the metal gate and craned my head into the hallway to look down the other direction.

No one. No trace of the girl, no recently shut hotel room door, no footsteps, no jingle of keys.

I released the button, but did not lean back against the wall. I stood directly in front of where the gap in the doors would be, in the center of the elevator. After a pause, the outer doors again began to slide shut, to move towards each other until the space between them was the width of a young girl’s face.

In that quarter-second several fingertips appeared, followed immediately by her face again, rushing from around the corner, staring at me as the doors met. I had been watching the gap where I thought she might be, so I saw her — she was about thirteen years old, and very plain, almost homely, with a pale complexion and neck-length dark brown hair that looked mussed or slightly dirty.

I didn’t have time to glance down at her visible shoulder, to see what she was wearing; from her behavior I wondered if she was a runaway or a homeless person who had gotten into the building. She had had a glassy, blank expression, tinged with a little desperation, some distant desire or need. A look that could easily be accompanied by the words “Please help.”

The next time I passed the front desk, I asked the old man if he’d seen a young girl running through.

“Heard the stories, then,” he said between throat-clearings, rocking gently in his seat. “Young Maddy has been here a long time. Takes a liking to gentlemen guests. Always been shy. Never says a word, not a word. Just curious.”

I told him I hadn’t heard any stories, and that there had been a girl taking the stairs and standing in front of my elevator on every floor.

“That’s our Maddy,” he said. “She likes you then. Sweet on you. She just wants to see, that’s all, just to see. All she ever does. Curious little thing. Just wants to see.”

I stayed at the Hotel Umbra for three nights. It was a four-night business trip; the last night I tried sleeping in my car. It didn’t help.

Let me tell you about Young Maddy. You only catch glimpses of her, of a face with a resigned look of quiet desperation, dominated by a pair of wide, dark eyes. Locked doors, barricades, nothing made a difference; she gets inside. I never saw her longer than half a second. Every time I laid eyes on her she retreated instantly, only to appear again an hour or two later. An hour or two if I was lucky.

Let me tell you about where I saw Young Maddy.

Every time I shut the door to my bathroom, in my hotel room, I saw her. If I watched as I shut it, at the last possible second I’d see the crescent of her face moving fast at the gap. I’d throw the door open to find nothing.

Every time I closed the closet door I saw her. If I watched that gap, she’d suddenly be inside the closet, leaning her head to watch me just as it shut. It’s as if she knew where to go, where to be, so that my eye would meet hers. But there was never an impact, never a moment when she’d make contact with the door or the wall.

The first time I sat at that writing table I saw her. As I closed the large bottom drawer. She rushed at the gap from inside the drawer, her wide eyes pleading for something I could not give. I pulled the drawer from its rails and threw it to the floor.

I did spend that last night in my car, but like I said, it did no good. Tossing and turning on that rental car seat, the back ratcheted as flat as I could get it, I’d have to open my eyes sometimes, and if there was a place for her to dart from my view when I opened them, she did. In the side-view mirror, or peeking over the hood of my car — once upside-down, at the top of the windshield, as if she was on the roof.

I’m back in St. Paul again, and I’ve been back for a year. But Maddy hasn’t stopped. If I keep my eyes open long enough, if I watch a place long enough, I’ll eventually catch sight of movement — near the copier in my office, a pile of boxes in an alley, a column in a quiet parking lot — and my eye will get there just in time to see her eye retreating from view. There’s never anything there when I go to look, so I’ve stopped looking.

That’s how I’ve had to change things since the Hotel Umbra. I’ve stopped looking. I keep my eyes shut when I close doors, when I shut drawers and cabinets, fridges, coolers, the trunk of my car. Not all spaces. Just ones that are big enough.

At least, that used to work. I was getting ready for bed a few nights ago, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, door shut, cabinets shut. Watching myself floss. I opened up wide to get my molars.

I swear I saw fingertips retreat down the back of my throat.

This story actually legitimately freaked me out for a while, but that's probably just because I already have a fear of people staring at me. Now I occasionally think of this stupid little girl ghost whenever I see that there is a cabinet or something open across a room. I swear to god, if I EVER see a stupid freaky face peaking at me from under a bed, I'm just going to die on the spot. Oof...Okay, here's something to help us all calm down:

(Photo via: http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_liavrjB9nF1qhtfmeo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1326934227&Signature=jfY8OkwnxULDdZIZfEenS76WZAM%3D)

Look at these guys! So silly!

I'm still scared. Send me your favorite scary stories, guys!

An Afternoon at the Museum/Zoo

Last weekend, Allie, Krissy, and I went to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. It's the museum of medical oddities, and I was really excited about it.

They have a wall of skulls, and each skull has a brief description under them of whose skull it is, sometimes it says how they died, but it always says what makes their skull unique. They have the skeleton of a man whose muscles became calcified, they have leather made from human skin, and they have the skeletons of a man who had gigantism next to the skeleton of a woman who had dwarfism.

The best/worst part of these displays were the goddamn people standing around me, talking about each skull, or skeleton.

I was reading about the guy who had gigantism, and why his spine was bent, when some idiot walked up behind me and said, "Oh gross, look at that guy's spine! Ew, and his ribs are all messed up, wow!" Christ. I'm not saying that I'm a genius or anything, but I'm going to go ahead and take pride in the fact that I wasn't just running from display to display looking at "freaks." Idiot.

I was enjoying the museum until we hit the gift shop.

http://www.muttermuseumstore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MutterMuseumStore&Product_Code=000048&Category_Code=

Didn't click the link? It shows you this:

They sell that. It's a best seller. Come on.

They know EXACTLY who their customers are.

So that was pretty great, but what was probably the best people listening to/watching experience I've had in years was at the zoo. It was unbelievable.

I went to the zoo with my friends Bobby Koester and Matt Van Auken. Matt was there for school, so he had to actually seriously study the animals, but Bobby and I didn't have anything legitimate to do, so we were just screwing around and looking at animals. We weren't there long before we realized the people are way more interesting.

While we were looking at lemurs, standing in a pretty big group of people, we heard a *beep* come from the ceiling. Just a brief tone. I barely would have noticed it if the the woman in front of me hadn't reacted the way she did. She stared up at the ceiling, looking concerned.

I figured she was just curious about what it was, so whatever, I looked back at the lemurs.

Then the ceiling beeped again. The woman, still staring at the ceiling, nervously said, "hello?"

Her husband/brother/boyfriend/guy with a ponytail grunted his theory, "I think a monkey got out."

A monkey.

One of those monkeys we were looking at (lemurs).

I'm pretty sure the zoo sounds off a light beep whenever a fucking monkey gets loose.

Dammit.

About a half hour later, Bobby and I were checking out some seals, because seals are great. After about three seconds of looking at them, I learned something interesting. Seals don't so much make that barking sound that everybody thinks. The sound they DO make is this (Warning: it might be hard to explain this sound if you're reading this at work):

If you didn't feel like clicking the YouTube "video," it's me making barfing sounds. Because that's the sound these seals were making.

So even though the seals were exclusively making this sound, little kids standing near me and Bobby kept doing that "arf, arf" seal impression. Weird. One kid even made the joke, "They're saying 'art!' They want art!" The other kid cracked up. So did Bobby and I.

Also near us was a family who though it was cute and nice to bring a loaf of bread to the zoo. They're the obnoxious group of people who toss little shreads of white bread to all the animals, even though most of the animals at the zoo don't eat white bread.

If that weren't enough, they were were tossing the bread into the water, because not only do seals LOVE bread, they REALLY love DISGUSTING SOGGY WHITE BREAD DISINTEGRATING IN THE WATER WHERE THEY LIVE! It was unbelievable.

It made me so angry. 

I honestly can't wait to go back.