I just hate this crap....

When I was young and foolish, and our oldest was just learning to talk, I banished from our home the word "hate."  My feeling was that there was enough hatred in the world and perhaps, just maybe, if we raised one person without the concept of hatred then the world might be somehow improved.

I will pause here while those of you who are parents more experienced than myself enjoy a good chuckle.  Go ahead, knock yourselves out.....

Alright, everybody got it back to together?  Yes, as you can imagine, that well intentioned banishment lasted just long enough for Michael to have learned it and then watch me abandon it entirely the first time we were in the car and someone pulled one bonehead move or another.

"Man I really hate it when people drive like that.  It's just so selfish AND dangerous..."

The hatred treaty was broken and the first shot was fired by me.  So, having been asked by my son "what does hate mean?" I reluctantly gave up on my high minded ideal of an era of Pax-SmallTownDada.

Since then I have refocused my idea of hatred.  Hatred exists as much as violence, poverty, hunger - all things that exist no matter how much we wish for their absence from our world.  So rather than not mention it, we try and understand it - its causes, effects, and drawbacks.

So, because it's Saturday and I have a few moments before running to ballet or to check in on my sister and her broken leg, I thought I would catalog some of my hatreds here.  Yes, liberal and temperate as I try to be, I have them.  I admit it.

1.  The hard wired smoke detector that the ham-handed flat-brained builder of this fine home installed four feet from stove.  I cannot so much as boil a cup of water without setting off all eight of the house's hard wired and networked emergency alarms.  If ever I wanted to change careers and earn a living defusing bombs, I think the alarms piercing my ears with little or no advance warning every damn time I fry an egg have given my nerves at least a fighting chance at survival disarming bombs.

2.  The four way stop sign by my house. Lookit - the rules are simple people - when it's your turn, it's your turn.  It's all about knowing when it's your turn.  If you tailgate through riding the bumper of the car ahead of you just because you feel like you have waited there long enough, well then...welcome to the list.

3.  Intentional stupidity - goes without saying.  When people indulge their desire to be intellectually shut-off just to reinforce an argument they feel comfortable with but know is fundamentally flawed - well that is something I despise.  Now you may think that is harsh, and normally I would agree - but when you argue for a living like I do something like that just wastes so much time.  Enlightenment is a gift and a goal.  So refreshing when people travel that path.

4.  Reality TV  - first off - anyone believing Reality TV in any way shape or form represents "Reality"   probably falls into the category above.  No offense to any of my dear dear friends reading this who might otherwise be fans of the Real Housewives of whatever cultural, ethically, or morally depraved community is being featured.  But, c'mon - there is something called the Heisenberg principle.  It basically says you cannot observe a phenomena or experiment without subsequently changing its outcome.  Same is true of people - you can't put a tv camera on them without turning them into complete idiots.  Throw in the huge sums of money these people get paid for being idiots and you create a class of super-idiots. If most of these morons on reality tv lived in our neighborhoods, we wouldn't let our kids walk down their side of the street.

5.  The smell of liver cooking.  Speaks for itself.

6.  Cooked liver.

7.  Raw liver.

8.  Purposeful unkindness. People who are deliberatly unkind and think that is ok.  Newsflash - it's not ok.  Your deliberate unkindness is a burden to those around you. If you worked as hard at kindness as you do indulging your unkindness you might just make a better world.

9.    Cable-TV.  Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called "57 channels and nuthin's on."  True.  My mom, back in the day when we had three VHF channels and three UHF, would threaten every day to cut the cord off of the boob-tube.  I find there is a direct relationship between the number of years I have lived and how much of a genius she turned out to be.

10.  Cell phones.  People - get over yourselves - unless you are Jack Bauer you can make do without the phone glued to your ear 24/7.  Most of the problems at the four way stop sign can link directly back to people's obsession with their cellphones.  Leave it on the mantle or kitchen counter and go out for the day without it.  It will make you feel delightfully old fashioned. There is real wisdom behind the saying "hang up and drive."

11.  Call waiting - nothing like telling the person you are talking to "hey, I have to take this and see if, no matter who it is, they are more important than you..."  Most times I just hang up when someone puts me on call waiting. Evidently the conversation was over anyhow.

12.  Whining - yes, I see the irony - a list of me whining about the things I hate and one of those things is whining.  I don't normally like Andy Rooney - he is a grouchy old pain in the ass, but the smoke detector going off this morning while I was boiling water for Michael's hot chocolate has me in an Andy Rooney mood ;-)

So that's this morning's random thoughts.  Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Here's hoping that whatever burr is under your saddle; whatever "chaps your hide;" or, as my mom says "frosts your cookies," that today you find yourself in the company of people whose mere presence will soften the sharp edges of your contempt and take the sting off of your peevishness.

Dennis
smalltowndad@hotmail.com