am when I write the checks. I want to share the pain. Why? Because I’m a giver.
APRIL 16
Dear Diary:
Today is the day after taxes were due and I’m feeling very poor. So I decided to go out and treat myself to lunch at the Olive Garden and lose myself in their bottomless pasta bowl. And so I did. At lunch today, when I asked the waiter for coffee, he said, “No problem.” What does he mean, “no problem”? If I had asked for decaf would it have been a problem? Would green tea have been an issue? If I ordered a latte would he have considered it an international crisis requiring emergency aid from FEMA, the Red Cross and a couple of recently molested Boy Scouts doing good deeds in an effort to wash away the trauma?
APRIL 17
Dear Diary:
There are a lot of other expressions along with “no problem” that I hate:
GOOD JOB: I hate it when a parent tells a toddler “good job” after the little moron makes potty in the toilet instead of his diaper. It’s not a job; it’s nature. Little Billy’s not on your payroll; he’s not getting a matching 401(k) contribution; he’s not invested in a confusing, mediocre pension plan. He’s two, and potty training is the parents’ job, not his. When my dementia-riddled ninety-six-year-old aunt Sadie takes a shit in the toilet instead of the sink, that’s a good job. And if you don’t believe me, ask her caregiver, who has OCD and washes her hands six hundred times a day. And now that we’re talking about potty training, what’s wrong with this picture? It takes years for a kid to learn the simple task of elimination (which I feel is one of nature’s few mistakes) and we’re applauding? Homo sapiens are supposed to be the smartest ones on the planet; how come it takes the dogs three weeks—I repeat, three weeks —to get the hang of it, and Junior is walking around with a load in his pants on his way to geometry class?
GIVE ME THE 411: If you want information from somebody, just do what everybody else does: say, “What do you know about that?” Or do what every black person does: say, “Let me ax you somethin’.” But don’t say, “Give me the 411?” It’s not cute. It’s stupid. It’s like visiting a hospital ward filled with terminal cancer patients and saying, “Who’s on the clock?”
. . . NOT: I hate it when people say, “I like her . . . NOT.” I hope people who say that get hit by a car, and then I can go to the hospital and keep them on life support . . . NOT.
MY BAD: Just because you’re admitting you made a mistake doesn’t make it okay. My bad is not an excuse or a defense. I have taken the time to trace the origin of it. It started at the Nuremberg Trials when Adolf Eichmann, who sat shackled in his bulletproof glass booth, was asked by the prosecuting attorney, “Sir, is it not true that you alone are responsible for the cold-blooded gassing of six million Jews?” He replied, “Mein bad.”
HAVE A GOOD ONE: Have a good one what? What the fuck are they talking about? Be specific! Bowel movement? Bank heist? Three-way with my cousin Charlotte? When someone says “Have a good one,” I assume they mean “day,” but how lazy do you have to be that you can’t finish the sentence without becoming exhausted? “One” and “day” have the same number of letters, so why switch them at all? It’s not like they’re replacing “colostomy” or “terrorist uprising.” And if you’re in that kind of rush, then close your piehole and move on and don’t talk at all. If it’s an emergency, just scream and point and jump up and down and I’ll get the message. That’s what Gandhi did.
HOOKING UP: Teenagers who have casual random sex refer to these magical moments as “hooking up.” This doesn’t sound romantic; it sounds like you’ve got a boat tied to the back of your Jeep and you’re dragging it down the freeway. Or, another way to put it, like you’re butt-humping Carnie Wilson.
APRIL 18
Dear Diary:
Speaking of
APRIL 16
Dear Diary:
Today is the day after taxes were due and I’m feeling very poor. So I decided to go out and treat myself to lunch at the Olive Garden and lose myself in their bottomless pasta bowl. And so I did. At lunch today, when I asked the waiter for coffee, he said, “No problem.” What does he mean, “no problem”? If I had asked for decaf would it have been a problem? Would green tea have been an issue? If I ordered a latte would he have considered it an international crisis requiring emergency aid from FEMA, the Red Cross and a couple of recently molested Boy Scouts doing good deeds in an effort to wash away the trauma?
APRIL 17
Dear Diary:
There are a lot of other expressions along with “no problem” that I hate:
GOOD JOB: I hate it when a parent tells a toddler “good job” after the little moron makes potty in the toilet instead of his diaper. It’s not a job; it’s nature. Little Billy’s not on your payroll; he’s not getting a matching 401(k) contribution; he’s not invested in a confusing, mediocre pension plan. He’s two, and potty training is the parents’ job, not his. When my dementia-riddled ninety-six-year-old aunt Sadie takes a shit in the toilet instead of the sink, that’s a good job. And if you don’t believe me, ask her caregiver, who has OCD and washes her hands six hundred times a day. And now that we’re talking about potty training, what’s wrong with this picture? It takes years for a kid to learn the simple task of elimination (which I feel is one of nature’s few mistakes) and we’re applauding? Homo sapiens are supposed to be the smartest ones on the planet; how come it takes the dogs three weeks—I repeat, three weeks —to get the hang of it, and Junior is walking around with a load in his pants on his way to geometry class?
GIVE ME THE 411: If you want information from somebody, just do what everybody else does: say, “What do you know about that?” Or do what every black person does: say, “Let me ax you somethin’.” But don’t say, “Give me the 411?” It’s not cute. It’s stupid. It’s like visiting a hospital ward filled with terminal cancer patients and saying, “Who’s on the clock?”
. . . NOT: I hate it when people say, “I like her . . . NOT.” I hope people who say that get hit by a car, and then I can go to the hospital and keep them on life support . . . NOT.
MY BAD: Just because you’re admitting you made a mistake doesn’t make it okay. My bad is not an excuse or a defense. I have taken the time to trace the origin of it. It started at the Nuremberg Trials when Adolf Eichmann, who sat shackled in his bulletproof glass booth, was asked by the prosecuting attorney, “Sir, is it not true that you alone are responsible for the cold-blooded gassing of six million Jews?” He replied, “Mein bad.”
HAVE A GOOD ONE: Have a good one what? What the fuck are they talking about? Be specific! Bowel movement? Bank heist? Three-way with my cousin Charlotte? When someone says “Have a good one,” I assume they mean “day,” but how lazy do you have to be that you can’t finish the sentence without becoming exhausted? “One” and “day” have the same number of letters, so why switch them at all? It’s not like they’re replacing “colostomy” or “terrorist uprising.” And if you’re in that kind of rush, then close your piehole and move on and don’t talk at all. If it’s an emergency, just scream and point and jump up and down and I’ll get the message. That’s what Gandhi did.
HOOKING UP: Teenagers who have casual random sex refer to these magical moments as “hooking up.” This doesn’t sound romantic; it sounds like you’ve got a boat tied to the back of your Jeep and you’re dragging it down the freeway. Or, another way to put it, like you’re butt-humping Carnie Wilson.
APRIL 18
Dear Diary:
Speaking of
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