Memoirs Of J

I’ve been having weird dreams lately only they’re not just dreams; they’re actually flashbacks from my oh-so-halcyon school days.  See, from grades 4-12 my life was a living hell.  Particularly bad were years 4-9, but the rest of my primary school career was, to put it bluntly, fucking shitty as well.

I was in 8th grade, one of the worst years I can recall, riding that bus full of inbred little bastards from Pleasant Lake.  Since we lived way out in the middle of what I would classify a cesspool overflowing with scumbags and morons, our bus ride to school was approximately 45 minutes long.

In other words — adequate time for attention whoring little assholes to find ways to amuse themselves at the expense of others.

I sat as close to the front as I could.  This was my general seating philosophy – try to immerse myself as little as possible; board and unboard the bus as quickly as possible with as little interaction as possible.  Why?  Because I had no friends.  I was new to this school this year, was awkward and gross looking, and had basically nothing resembling social skills.  I was fun to make fun of.

I sat quietly by the window in the 2nd seat on the door side of the bus.  I kept to myself, watching the boring scenery pass as my dread for the day ahead ballooned the closer we got to school.  The popular little boys and girls were laughing and making fun of pretty much everyone who wasn’t part of their clique.  I slid down in my seat hoping to remain invisible and anonymous.

“Hey!  Hey, you!  Want some oatmeal cream pie?”

Ricky.  That little rat-like punk.

“No,” I replied, barely making eye contact.

More hushed giggling coming from behind.  That’s when a small wad of Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie plopped into the seat next to me.  I turned and glared as I brushed the bit of snack cake to the floor.  I could tell they were still tossing sticky wads of this shit because I heard a couple subtle plops on the empty seat behind me.

Finally arriving at school, I quickly gathered my belongings and hopped off the bus.  About  half way to the building a gaggle of these little punks congregated behind me laughing hysterically.

“You might want to check your coat!” suggested that little asshole, Ricky, as he and his blond-haired, Starter jersey wearing, wanna-be black rapper posse ran past me nearly hyperventilating in amusement.

I arrived at my locker and sure enough, a big gob of gooey oatmeal cream pie was stuck to the left shoulder of my new leather coat.  The leather coat that my grandpa bought me for my birthday because he knew how much I wanted one like it and it was ‘too expensive’ for my parents to get for me.

I wiped it off but of course it left a big dark spot on my new coat.  I was so upset, but I don’t know if it was really because of the jacket having a mark on it as much as the fact it tainted one of the few assurances I had at the time that anyone actually cared about me enough to do something nice like take me to a store and buy a somewhat expensive coat that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get.  I mean my grandpa is a total cheapskate and did this for me, which I really appreciated, then someone comes along and I guess adulterated the good memory and experience with something so stupid.

I’m a pretty big fan of technology and social networking and so forth, but one thing that is seriously starting to grate my nerves the ‘comments’ section on articles and facebook posts.  Most people writing comments are just assholes; there’s just really no other way to say it.

I was perusing the Cit Pat online the other day and there was an article about our company’s 125^th anniversary coming up.  There was nothing negative in the article at all – its purpose was simply to note and celebrate that we’ve had this company HQ’d in Jackson (a good thing for the local economy) and serving the entire state for that long and how it’s a real milestone.  Well sure enough, the snark starts dripping.  People commenting on how (inexplicably, mind you, since there is no connection whatsoever) the anniversary is somehow another way to siphon money from bilked customers and pad the “big wigs” pockets even further. “Big wig” means person who is employed there, of course.

I love the comments on how people shouldn’t be paid “so much,” because it is just stealing from captive customers, how employees should be downsized, as well as many other sparkly little nuggets of golden insight.  This kind of rhetoric is particularly egregious when they’re referring to a public employee (teacher, police, gov. office worker, whatever).

Basically what it boils down to is you are demonized if you have a job because you “don’t deserve” to be paid as much as you are as judged by some anonymous person who knows nothing about what you or your organization do, or what it took to get there.  You’re lazy, inefficient, and wasteful.  Conversely, these same individuals demonize those who do not have jobs and are on welfare or some other assistance program because they are “lazy bums who just don’t want to work!”  There’s a plethora of unfilled jobs, right, but some people just don’t want to get off their asses!

The cognitive dissonance here is just astounding.  It’s a sanctimonious dash to run around screaming about why EVERYONE else – not you yourself – but everyone else is doing life wrong and should be punished in some way, and you naturally are the one who should determine the method because you know everything.  You can’t tout your litany of complaints about people who don’t have jobs (or “good enough” jobs), and then immediately turn around made judgmental proclamations about those who do!

“Personal responsibility!  No handouts!” they shout at everyone else, but oops…  “it’s not my fault I’m 3 months behind on my energy bill and got shut off!  They sent me a huge bill for my arrears!  It’s not fair!”  Complete and utter hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness…