A Nameless Blog

As you probably know, I don’t like most people.  It’s not that I’m unfriendly; it’s just that it tends to take a lot for for me to consider someone interesting.  That said, I only rarely dislike people.  I’ve found that most of humanity tries to get along with people and doesn’t want to be hated.  That’s no reason to like people, but it’s certainly a reason not to hate them.  So even if I don’t necessarily like you, I probably don’t hate you, and will do my best to reserve judgment regarding your personality.

There are certain people, however, I can’t help but judge and dislike.  Of course, there are obvious members of this clan: murderers, pedophiles, televangelists, the members of Nickelback.  Those types.  But there are some people I hate who, I must admit, aren’t entirely deserving of my hatred.  This is a post about these people.

Take, for instance, bathroom attendants.  They’re normally pleasant enough folks.  It’s their job to offer small talk and give you a towel after you wash your hands.  Occasionally, they’ll have a tray of cigarettes or mints for purchase.  They have a tip jar, yes, but they never overtly beg or give you too much shit for not tipping them.

But seriously, fuck bathroom attendants.  They provide a service that’s completely unnecessary.  What, you don’t think I should be able to grab my own fucking paper towels?  I’m a modern American — I’ve been well-trained with regard to hand-washing technique.  Even the cigarette/mint tray is superfluous, considering these bathroom attendants are always at joints that can sell you such wares at the bar.  And that way, you won’t have to suck a cancer stick that you know has been handled by a strange man in a public bathroom. 

Don’t let me forget that they’re always jammed into an already crowded bathroom.  I’m surrounded by sweaty, half-drunk dudes with piss on their hands, and now I have to tiptoe around a wrinkled towelboy who tries to spray me with cheap cologne?  Fuck off, bathroom attendant.

Who else gets my undeserved hatred?  Ah, yes — the guys who sell roses at restaurants.  Again, they’re just trying to make a buck, so I shouldn’t heap on too much hatred.  But can’t they come up with a better way?  First of all, they’re a bother, which doesn’t help.  No, leave us alone with our linguini, thank you.  Second of all, like the bathroom attendants, they offer a superfluous service.  They might as well exclaim, “Thoughless gifts here!  Get your date a thoughtless gift!  Make her carry around a plastic-encased rose that I bought from the 7-Eleven!  Show that you’re making kind of an effort to express your love!”  Fuck off, rose peddler.

The rose guy falls under the umbrella of all bothersome beggars.  Be it a crazy balloon-animal guy at a family restaurant or a street performer on Fisherman’s Wharf, anyone with that chosen profession (if you can call it that) will earn nothing from me but my ire.

I could go on.  I could rant at length about precocious children, overconfident college students, people who tell only inside jokes, cable-news addicts, John Cena superfans, methheads, Americans who embrace their foreign heritage a little too much, and elderly voters.  None of those people have ever done anything to me, and I doubt any of them will (except for the methheads, who will probably steal from me).  Yet I have specific reasons to hate every one of them.  My question to you, the loyal reader, is this: should I feel bad?

Should I feel guilty that the dude with a faux-hawk and a six-foot-thick cloud of Axe body spray annoys me so?  Should I have any remorse for fantasizing about him getting hit in the nuts by a foul ball?

I ask because, on most levels, it’s a completely irrational hatred.  It isn’t too far from straight-up bigotry — arbitrarily categorize people, then hate certain categories.  I’d like to argue that “these people are making society dumber” is a better reason than “foreigners are taking our jobs and stealing our women”, but the distinction is pretty fine.  I’m starting to think that maybe pretension is the New Bigotry.

You know what?  Fuck it.  So what if it’s the New Bigotry?  This kind of bigotry is good for people.  We need a smarter, more enlightened, more perfect society.  Unacceptable behavior should be discouraged, and unacceptable people should be reeducated and sent to camps and… wait.  I think I went too far there.  I gotta keep that in check.  Everything in moderation, after all.

-Darrell

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.