MY HANDS ARE A DEADLY WEAPON

I’m annoyed. That’s right friends, get your ticker tape, contact the balloon people close down the canyon of heroes, I’m annoyed and I’m back with a fresh installment of:

The Top Five Things That Bother Me Today

#5 – Odds – As some of you may know poker is allegedly a game of odds; play when the odds are in your favor and you’ll win money, do otherwise, and you’ll be standing in line next to the employees of Bear Stearns. I played poker last night (for the last time). I played it well. I played the odds; I waited for the right moment to strike, and when the odds were overwhelmingly in my favor, strike I did. Now I say it is allegedly a game of odds because despite my caution, despite my self-control, despite my prayers for an ace not to show up on the river, here I sit with a decidedly lighter wallet. The thing is, no matter how I played the hand, no matter what I might have tried to do otherwise, I was always going to lose. It was ordained, predestined, fated if you will. I don’t know what lesson you’d glean from such a defeat, but I can tell you what I’ve learned; ODDS ARE DUMB! From now on when I play poker (did I say I was never playing again?) I’m going to appeal to a force more powerful than simple odds, an authority more consistent than statistics. So, if anyone knows a good shaman or witch doctor, send them my way, I have a game Saturday night.

#4 – The Media – In case you hadn’t heard twenty story crane collapsed over the weekend, destroying a townhouse and sending rubble and debris out across Second Avenue in New York. Understandably streets were closed, cars were rerouted and traffic has built. Now all of this is newsworthy information, all of this is information a reporter should convey to the public. What pisses me off is when that reporter then takes a camera man into the street to interview the people in said cars, stuck in said traffic. I sat there watching cars around the man being interviewed drive by, slowly, but still, moving. Meanwhile this yutz sat in his car, immobile, answering questions as insightful as, ‘how do you feel about the traffic?’ how does he feel about the traffic!? Are you freaking serious!? Forget the fact that between the yutz the cameraman and the reporter they’re actually making traffic worse, this reporter wants to know if sitting in traffic on your way to work at 8:00 in the morning is pleasant!

So to recap: The reporter reporting on how bad the traffic is is actually making more traffic, while he asks someone stuck in said traffic, if traffic is bad. My head hurts.

#3 – Power Hungry Secretaries - Now don’t get me wrong, generally speaking, I love secretaries. Well, I love the idea of secretaries. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Don’t look at me like that, you know you’d do it too if you could. Anyway, before I get too far afield, what I’m talking about are not the secretaries of Congressional fantasies, but the battle axes generally found in doctors offices, standing between you and your physician like that big fiery red demon thing with the whip in the first Lord of the Rings movie. You know the type, they’re arrogant, mad with power and use expressions like, “I’m sorry, but that’s office policy.” I don’t know what it is about having the power to make appointments that makes these bottom rung wretches think they deserve to control their little universe, but someone needs to clarify the chain of command. An appointment book isn’t a weapon, but my fist is, and the next time one of them pulls this crap again, I’ll demonstrate the difference.

#2 – Non-Legal holidays – How is today a holiday? I’m at work, I’m not leaving early, and a fat woman wearing about a gallon of $4 perfume sat on my left thigh on the bus this morning. So while I’m sure St. Patrick did something to someone that makes people wistful, I’d appreciate it if we didn’t call it a holiday. It’s a tease.

#1 – Morons - I wish I could make this a narrower category, but when I’m assigned extra work because the office manager doesn’t think I’m busy because my desk is so clean. I find myself at a loss for words less broad than moron. I mean I can think of plenty of adjectives to put BEFORE moron, but still, moron is the word that comes to mind. Imagine, someone thinking that I have all this free time. Preposterous!