Dear Jackass in Charge,

Believe it or not, I do not wish to spend my Friday evening with you at the work-sponsored Christmas party.  I do not care for you. You seem nice enough, I guess.  If you were my neighbor we’d probably get along just fine.  (Although, you seem like the type who would write a sharply worded letter to the neighborhood association if my garbage can sat on the curb one hour past the garbage can curfew.)  I’m sure you are a lovely person outside of the workplace.  However, your general disrespect for my colleagues and me has ruined any chance we have of getting along.  Let’s just review a sampling of behavior… perhaps you’ll see what I mean.

First of all, you use phrases like “precipice of renaissance” with a straight face.  You gush, “Welcome to Tuesday!” instead of “Good morning.”  or “Hello.”  (Who hired you as the official days of the week spokesperson anyway?)  Regardless, I can’t stand seeing you heading in my direction.  I avoid eye contact to hopefully bypass any of your polysyllabic verbosity (I gots words, too) and idiotic catch phrases.

Then there’s the fact that you don’t like us.  You’ve told us to our faces how spoiled you think we are… and how we have a false sense of entitlement.  Yes, we are truly awful people for expecting other people to… you know… do their jobs.  The nerve!   I can’t tell you how fun it was to sit on the first day of school and applaud the favored members of the staff.  They were called up by name and given gifts for… you know… doing their jobs.  Yet there was no mention of all the staff who came in for two weeks to prepare for the start of the school year… two weeks of their vacation time… two weeks without pay… two weeks for the good of the cause.  In fact, we were scolded for using too much paper and breathing your air or something ridiculous.

I really could go on and on with the terrible things you’ve said and done in our time together, but I think you get the idea.  I don’t care for your management style (if you can call it that).  I don’t want to spend my free time with someone who doesn’t like or appreciate me.  But most of all, I wouldn’t be able to resist bringing my copy of How to Work for an Idiot as my white elephant gift.  Something tells me I’d be in trouble.

In summation, any holiday spirit I have (in the workplace) cannot overshine your general toolishness… and outside of work, you don’t exist.

Sincerely,

Me

I was just in a drive-thru line waiting for my chopped salad and lemonade for lunch… and the guy ahead of me (in a royal blue corvette, go figure) opened his door and spit on the pavement.  Actual saliva… not even tobacco (although that’s just as gross).  Really?  Guys still do that?  Did I miss a day in health class where they showed us that men create more spit than women?  Do you really need to mark the drive-thru lane as your territory?  Is half-wit hillbilly the image we’re really going for now?

Guys…  if you’re out in the forest shootin’ up deer and skinnin’ ‘possum, then go ahead and have a spit to solidify your manly experience.  But out here in the nice, clean suburbs… keep all bodily fluids to yourself.  Spitting doesn’t make you look manly… it makes you look stupid… and gross.  Stop it.  (Although, blue corvette was already looking stupid and gross sans spit.  Ohhhh snap!)

I think I just watched the making of a future serial killer at Target. I am the first to admit that I am VERY judgy regarding many of the parents I see in public and how they treat/monitor their kids… but this lady would have made Hannibal Lector a bit uneasy.

I was engrossed in reading every sunscreen label in the aisle when she first surfaced.  She had a small boy in the basket part of the cart and a young girl trailing behind.  I made an assumption that she was their grandmother, but this turned out to be false.  They passed behind me in the aisle quietly… then she got to the end and I heard her start fussing.  She had one of those deep, raspy smokers’ voices that gives you the chills.  It turned out that the little girl paused at my cart and was nosing into what I had.  The woman freaked out… not about her rudeness… but about the fact that she had lagged 4 feet behind her mother.  She nagged on and on about how someone would come along and steal her away if she left her side.  Yikes.

Two minutes later, I heard her again.  “Don’t do THAT!  You’re going to split your head open then I’ll have to take you to the hospital for stitches.  Is that what you want?”  Yikes.

Another two minutes went by… “THAT is the most disgusting thing in the world. I can’t believe you just did that.  That’s disgusting.  You are going to get so sick now we’ll have to take you to the hospital.  If you do that again I’m just going to leave you here!”  (I’m guessing he ate a booger or something here… or licked the cart… who knows?)  Then she shouted, “That’s IT!”  The boy began desperately crying and begging, “Please don’t, mama… please!”  “One more time and I’m leaving you here.”  Yikes!

This same conversation happened at least 2 more times… her chastising him for being filthy and disgusting and threatening to leave him.  Then sobs and begging from the child.  These poor kids must be terrified of the world around them.  Everything they touch will result in a trip to the hospital.  Every stranger is a kidnapper.  If they misbehave, their mom will abandon them.  I was sick to my stomach.  I probably should have said something.  =(  If this kid isn’t constructing a “woman skin suit” in his basement by the time he’s 30, I’ll be shocked.

… to my Big Book of Grievances.

He left me the nastiest note this weekend… something along the lines of “Bitch, pick up your mail!” And what’s worse… he kidnapped all my mail and took it back to his lair (the post office). I had to go and wait in a 20 minute line with Toothless Tommy and Stands Too Close Sally.

“I’m here to pick up my mail,” I stated with confidence to the woman behind the counter. “Was it on vacation hold?” she inquired. I shrunk a bit as I murmured, “No, I got in trouble for my mailbox being too full.” She lumbered off and was gone for what seemed like an eternity. I was expecting her to come out dragging one of those huge “fan mail” sized sacks… but it was a modest little bag… just slightly bigger than a barf bag. (Which is so appropriate as my mail makes me want to barf!) I was expecting a lecture, instead she complained about one of the jerks in the back (no doubt, my mailman).

That blasted mailman… he’s forgotten about the time that he left me two books of stamps when I only paid for one… and I returned the extra book to him with a pleasant note. That was the honeymoon phase, I guess. A note alone would have shamed me into being more punctual with my mail… but he had to involve an errand… to the post office! *shudders*

I don’t have any power to do anything in retaliation… and now I have to walk the 10 miles down to my mailbox to pick up my mail every day or my life will be in danger… but I CAN secretly loathe him from afar… and I plan on doing just that. (I’m sure the feeling is mutual!)

The war between Snarky and her Mac has escalated to physical violence… on the part of the Mac.  OK… so maybe I started the fight last year when I would bang the laptop on the desk to get it to power up.  But this is an entirely new laptop… it doesn’t know about my past war crimes.

Anyway… from the very beginning, the Mac has been trying to hurt me.  The edges on this thing are unbelievably sharp, cutting into my wrists all day long.  My friends laughed at me and called me a wimp… they couldn’t possibly imagine that a company would make a computer with razor sharp edges.  Hmmmm… just mine, I suppose.  But I googled it and discovered that many were experiencing the same issue.  In fact, there are even cushion-type products on the market for just this issue.  There wasn’t much I could do, so I covered the edges with sticky notes (classy!) and learned how to type with my wrists in the air a little more.

Today, however, the Mac lashed out at me and actually drew blood!  I was shutting it down and shoving it in my file cabinet for the night, when it actually sliced my finger open.  That bitch!  This wasn’t even caused by the sharp edges… it was something lethal on the outside of the laptop.  Who manufactures these things?  Ginsu?

So I just want you all to know… if my lifeless body is found at work near my desk… it wasn’t suicide… it was the Mac.

I don’t care that your car is “bad ass” bright yellow. I don’t care that you have 22″ rims. I don’t care that your spoiler is almost as high up as your roof. I don’t care that you have a custom paint job (flames, no less). I don’t care that you have a stupid bumper sticker that says, “I don’t discriminate – I hate everyone!” or something just as obnoxious. I don’t care that you have a decal of Calvin peeing on something (what a political statement). ESPECIALLY when said items are on a Chevy Cavalier! *ROFL* Come on! That’s the equivalent of taking a pair of Payless shoes, covering them in glitter, and acting like you’re wearing Manolo Blahniks. Resourceful? Sure. Cool? Never.

Why put such effort and money into a cheap car? I don’t understand it. Like somehow adding these features magically changes the molecules of the car. No, this isn’t a suped up Cavalier… it’s really a Formula One race car… is this what I’m supposed to think? And I’m sure they’ve spent AS MUCH money into the detailing as they did on the actual car. Why not get a cool car to begin with for that amount of money?

Seeing a suped up Cavalier reminds me of when Elizabeth Berkeley’s character in the movie Showgirls dressed herself up in Versace (pronounced VerSASE) after her first big paycheck. She was still a two-bit whore even in an expensive dress.

Most of you know how much I detest Macs. I do not question whether they can do amazing things. My problem lies in the fact that you have to pay three times as much for a Mac as you would for a PC with comparable stats and features. You’re paying for the branding. Also, Mac assumes you are an idiot… but I won’t get into that… today.

Anyway… I’ve been stuck with Mac products for my entire career. My current computer (at work) is the iBook G4. It has a new annoying habit of refusing to start. Each day, I spend a little bit more time trying to get it to start up. First, I get the big black box that says “HA HA… try and restart me” or something like that. Then I restart. Deadzo. Then I restart. Deadzo. Then I restart and get the command prompt. I type in mac-boot and I get the sad Mac icon with the question mark (as if to say “are you talking to me?”). Restart… deadzo… restart… deadzo… restart… mean black box… etc. Eventually… after 10-20 minutes, everything pops up and the thing performs normally. Until today…

I spent over an hour in the mean black box/deadzo/command prompt loop. It REFUSED to start. What’s strange is that it started on the first try for the last two days. It was almost like this vindictive little thing saved up two days of energy to challenge me in an old-fashioned showdown today. After an hour of the loop… I finally unplugged it… picked it up… and gave it a good shake. I plugged everything back in… pressed that bratty white button… and POOF! It started right up! I WON! *blows on her smoking guns*

Something tells me it’s not over…

As a teacher, the debate I constantly find myself in the middle of regards No Child Left Behind. It’s a paradox – it, in fact, leaves a LOT of children behind!

If you are an early learner with average abilities, you are set! If you struggle or are bright… you are left behind. Once you turn 9 or 10… you are left behind. So they need to change the name to “No Average Child between the ages of 5-8 Left Behind”.

NCLB doesn’t take into account socio-economic issues, either. Apparently, children should all learn at the same rate, regardless of any other influences in their lives. That’s news to me. Forget all the research on the culture of poverty and its negative effects on learning… we’re not going to give you money to bring in programs you need to address it… we’re going to punish you instead and take money away! That’ll fix it. Hmmm… “No Average Middle Class Child between the ages of 5-8 Left Behind”

I find it convenient that the span of the NCLB program is 10 years. Just long enough to run into the next president’s term. If it happens to be a Republican (dear God… let’s hope not), they will swiftly change to a new initiative so we forget about NCLB and the fact that students haven’t made “adequate progress”. If it’s a Democrat (go Obama!), the Republicans will quickly point out that education did not meet the standard under the NEW administration (even though it’s Bush’s demon seed).

And the other thing that bothers me is people automatically assume that, because I’m a teacher, I oppose NCLB because I’m being held accountable. I’m all for accountability and being highly qualified… that doesn’t bother me one bit. (Umm… hello? Two master’s degrees, TYVM!) I’m not here to be George W.’s puppet. I don’t care about the tests. I care about the students and what they need… and that will always be my focus. Suck it, George.

You HAVE to visit this site to read a parody called “No Dentist Left Behind”… http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html

When I’m sick I usually have an abundance of bad dreams and don’t sleep very well as a result.  This morning either my alarm or my kitty (can’t remember which) woke me up right in the middle of a terrible dream.  

All I can recall about the dream was that my love interest and I were fighting for our lives, and he was dying after trying to defend me (hmmm… WoW related? rofl).  Anyway… I woke up just as I was dragging him off somewhere to get help, and I just can’t shake the icky feeling.  It obviously wasn’t a realistic dream, but it shook me. 

I tried to close my eyes for a few minutes and think of happy things.  I fixed some nice healthy oatmeal for breakfast.  I listened to my favorite tunes while I got ready for work… and all the way here.  No luck.  

Now I’m starting my day at work, and I feel broken down already.  My body feels like it actually went through the battle… my spirit is low.  This is not a good way to start my day… especially since I already feel like this place is a war zone at times.  (Not the students, but the adults who work here.)

Why can’t I ever be dreaming of kittens and tulips when the alarm goes off?

*Has the flu… shuffles back to bed to pout and be a baby.*

(Another reason not to travel in the winter. If the lady with SARS coughing up a lung and then shaking my hand in church didn’t do me in… it had to be the guy with bubonic plague sitting next to me on the plane.)