HOW NOT TO BE A SHITHEAD

HOW NOT TO BE A SHITHEAD. IN 10 EASY STEPS.
Current mood: cranky


HOW NOT TO BE A SHITHEAD.

In my 37 years on this planet, I've started to notice a shift in the amount of people determined to ignore even the most basic tenets of common courtesy. More of them seem to appear each day, as though there were a planet-wide virus attacking entire nations, or a birth defect popping up like hanger proliferation in the closet. I have a name for these people. I like to call them shitheads.

You know who they are. They aren't horrible people. They haven't killed anyone; they don't routinely kick puppies. They aren't overtly racist or sexist, and they wouldn't dream of beating their kids with kitchen implements. Yet shitheads they are: the guy who farts in the elevator, the woman who whistles the Bee Gees in the cubicle next to you, the woman who lets her Great Dane take a Great Shit on your lawn, or the guy who holds up the line for coffee because he's too busy discussing his fantasy football drafts on his cell phone to notice the barista stabbing him in the neck with a pen.

So to vaccinate you, gentle reader, (and I can't for the life of me understand why you would, in fact, want to read the words of a crotchety gal like me, but there you are) against this scourge of shitheadism, I have outlined some fairly obvious rules of ettiquette, even though I'm sure you are a lovely person who has never been guilty of any of the following transgressions. At least not without some shots of Old Crow in you.

1. Your cell phone? Hang it up. Unless you're lost, your baby is lost, your dog is lost, your baby and your dog are lost, the dingo ate your baby, you are locked out of your car, you are locked out of your house, your car or house is aflame, or you are bleeding profusely from multiple wounds, you don't need to clutter up an already noise-polluted world with detailed discussions of your latest pap smear. This goes double for anyone in a situation where you 're dealing with a real life person, (because that is the height and breadth of rudeness, really) triple if you are in a movie theater, and quadruple if you're piloting a motor vehicle. You aren't that interesting, and there aren't phone booths in the middle of restaurants for a reason. Learn the art of saying little. You're much smarter that way.

2. Hold the door for people if they're right behind you. And thank them if they do it for you, which they will if they aren't jerks. Don't worry about whether the person will take offense to being helped; only shitheads get offended by someone giving them an honest gesture of courtesy. I don't know about you, but I get a lot more offended having a door swung shut in my face. Stuff like that leaves nasty karmic debts I like to repay sometimes by kicking you in the kneecap ever so gently.

3. Don't talk about people so they can hear you, even accidentally. Look, we all talk about strangers behind their backs. I know I do. Hell, I'm a connoisseur of jonesing on folks; as far as I'm concerned, that's the whole reason Uggs were invented--what other reason could there be? But I am always, always careful to do so out of earshot of the victim. There is no reason to hurt someone's feelings who isn't doing you any harm, even if they did dress themselves like Paris Hilton doing the Walk of Shame or doused themselves in patchouli in lieu of bathing. People who hurt people's feelings callously and carelessly are doomed to have ass rabies in the next life. And speaking of patchouli…

4. Wash your stinky ass, you hippie. Seriously. I know people get sweaty sometimes, and you can't always go home and take that four hour shower when you're running from place to place, but there's stink, and then there's stink. There are things I don't want to smell on another person, and they are: pits, bits, breff, and feets. Not necessarily in that order, either. And don't think store-bought smell covers it up. It doesn't. You're just mingling one bad smell with another until you're one big stink cocktail. And keep the farts to yourself until you're not in a small confined space; if you can't, you need to rethink that plate of broccoli at lunch.

5. Realize that if you don't have kids, you have NO IDEA how to be a parent. Dogs and cats don't fucking count. Not even a little. Parents cannot put their children down if they get a disease that costs thousands of dollars to fix. They similarly cannot put little Billy in a kennel if they decide to go to Vegas for the weekend. And it may surprise the childless among you to know that parents have little to no control over their child's temperament; that's a genetic role of the dice. An easygoing kid was born that way. The parents deserve no special credit. So if you 're out somewhere and there's a kid nearby who's having a fit and the parents are trying everything in their power to settle them down, keep your thoughts to your fucking self. You were a horrible kid too. Because you're past your terrible twos doesn't mean you get to expect every other toddler to act like a thirty year old. Don't like kids? Stay the fuck home. Unless you're in a four star restaurant, an R-rated movie, a bar, or a crack house, you have to share this planet with the next generation. Get the fuck over it. That said…

6. There are places small kids don't belong. Restaurants with more than 2 forks per place setting. College lecture halls. Tattoo parlors. Quiet libraries. The Neverland Ranch. Kids have limits on attention spans, patience, and quiet beatitude: don't exasperate theirs and those around you by expecting them to be something they aren't. When they're letting their inner demons do all the talking, it's time to haul it home. Whenever you can, make sure that they aren't out in public without being well-rested, well-fed, and with a Santa's bag full of toys to keep them busy for as long as you can. Never expect sales staff or restaurant workers to baby-sit for you. After all, Michael Devlin worked at Imo's for years, and you see how he parents.

7. Tip your wait staff. 20% is the norm, not a great tip. If you don't have the money for a tip, eat at McDonald's, you cheap bastard. Otherwise get used to the taste of spit and derision.

8. Don't talk to me about Jesus. Or Muhammad. Or Jehovah, or Allah, or the Mother Goddess, or Thor, or veganism, or fantasy football, or the Grateful Dead, or anything else tinged with religious zealotry. I don't know you well enough to have you preach to me, and really, isn't it the height of arrogance to assume any person past 18 can't make up their own mind? Similarly, don't tell me you're praying for me. Give me a cup of coffee and an Ipod if you want to help me. Anything else is done for your own self-righteousness, which is just pride. And if I remember anything from all the years of sleeping through church as a teenager, that's a sin or something.

9. For god's sake, the foreigners conversing nearby aren't talking about YOU. Are you that self-centered? Really? If you went all the way to another country, would you talk about nothing else with your companions save the people next to you? Have some common sense, you asshound. And hey, let's play devil's advocate: say they are talking about you in their native tongue. You have no idea what they're saying, so why do you care?

10. Kill yourself in the privacy of your own home: don't use the highway to do it. Cars are not toys, penis extensions, phone booths, reading rooms, wet bars, proof that you are a god, indestructible, or made of bubble wrap. What they are is huge adult responsibilities that can kill small children or somebody's gramma if you pilot them impaired by legal or illegal substances, sleepy, on the phone, or just plain distracted. So really, if for any reason you feel you're unable to drive like a sane and reasonable adult, ride the fucking bus. Don't tailgate, swerve from lane to lane, forget your blinkers exist, drag race, cut people off, drive in the center lane, speed through parking lots, run red lights, or refuse to pull over for emergency vehicles. Because if someone comes home to discover you killed their only child because you had to take a call from your caterer, they're going to be justified in shooting you in the face.

So yeah. Shitheadism. Try to avoid it in the future, and encourage others gently to avoid it as well. After all, the world is only getting more and more populated, and if we all keep acting like it's our own private planet, it's going to be a pretty unhappy place to live. At least for you. I'll be in the water tower with a high-powered rifle.