People (and things) who can Bug Off

Yeah, I know, I've got logorrhea tonight but I feel like I need to work off a lot of bad energy.

I didn't really say much on the FFOT this week, but there have been enough things that have ticked me off in the past few days that I'm going to give my "little list" (as in The Mikado) right here.

So, these are my thoughts on people and things that can bug off for the coming week.

1. Lindsay Lohan can bug off.

2. Those stupid financial-services ads aimed at self-indulgent baby boomers with Dennis Hopper or what's his butt on them, where he's talking about "you don't hand your dreams over to THE MAN when you turn 60!" Please. Do you realize that people of ALL OTHER GENERATIONS are groaning, rolling their eyes, changing the channel, and swearing never to use that company? Also: many of us in Generation X are looking at the Baby Boomers as "the reason we will never get to retire." I mean - I guess I should be proud of some people taking financial responsibility for themselves so they don't suck Social Security dry QUITE so fast...but I'm still depending on my IRA, my TIAA-CREF, and my stock investments, and considering the money that's going to Social Security (and yes, even though I pay into a state pension fund as well, Social Security is taken out of my check) as basically falling down a rathole. (I also feel that way about the state pension fund money. I will just be happy if they can still provide some level of health care coverage when I retire.)

3. Nancy Grace can bug off. Please use less eye-makeup, thanks.

4. Every reality show that ever there was (with the possible exception of American Idol, which I don't get personally, but which I know a lot of people like) can bug off. We do not need three karaoke-based reality shows. We don't need two "wife swap" themed shows. We don't need shows where dysfunctional families call in some self-styled arbitrator to "fix" things. We don't need more sad-sacks on television. What we need is people we can look up to. And I don't see a heck of a lot of that on.

5. Billy Mays can bug off. I don't need people screaming at me about oxygenated bleach.

6. The intermittent power outages we've been having can bug off. I'm getting heartily tired of having to go and re-set my air conditioner every time some brownout shuts it off.

7. Ozone alert orange and above can bug off. "I can has breathing?" Or maybe that's "Oxygen: not yours." Seriously - it's even HARDER to cope with the crap I'm having to cope with when my chest hurts and is tight and my heart is racing because there's not enough oxygen making it into my lungs.

8. Crappy weather everywhere in the country can bug off. Either people are being flooded out, baked to death, choked by humidity, or threatened by wildfires.

9. People who pull the "better than you" bit can really seriously bug off. Yeah, yeah, I'm SOOO proud of you that you never buy kids' toys made in China (so what do you do, give them pots and pans to play with?). I'm soooooo proud that you bike or walk everywhere even though it's eleventy bazillion degrees outside. I'm SOOOOOO proud of you that you "eat local." However, there are certain things that it's not possible for me to do, and I'm fed up six and a half feet deep (and I am 5' 8") with the guilt-trip you are trying to lay on me because I don't worry intensely about the same things you do, and constrain myself to the same narrow circuit.

10. People in general (with the exception of my Invisible Internet Friends) can bug off. I'd really love a week off where I could just stay home and not talk to anyone; I feel like I've used up my quota of being able to deal with people for the week in today alone.

Actually, I have to say: I love my Invisible Internet Friends. I can log on whenever I feel like it and read what they have to say. If I don't feel up to interaction, I don't have to log on. I don't have to deal with tones of voice (there are a few people in my life who, although I may love them, have nails-on-the-chalkboard voices). There's also the comfortable distance - most of you don't even know my full name or who I really am.

When I was a kid I dreamed of having friends who would always be there when I wanted them to entertain me, but who wouldn't be there bugging me when I wanted to be alone. While I recognize that's a pretty selfish desire as an adult, my Invisible Internet Friends actually pretty much realize that childhood desire. It's almost like having imaginary friends (which I had a lot of as a kid) who actually happen to be real. (Well, yeah, none of you have wings or are six-foot-tall pink camels, but still.)

Oh, and I forgot 11:

All of the hype, all of the hoopla, all of the conspiracy-theory-filled fauxumentaries memorializing the tenth anniversary of Princess Di's death can totally bug off. I do not understand the cultlike mania that people seem to express over her. Yeah, she was pretty. Yeah, she died tragically. Yeah, it was sad. But, you know - there's a whole world of ALIVE people out there who might benefit from your attention.

(I wonder if that's part of it - it's easier to be all weepy over a "dead Princess" than it is to buckle down and try to deal with your own living relatives or with people in your town, or, for that matter, the person working at the counter of the grocery store. Because you KNOW some of the people who are Diana-venerators are the same people who look at the lady working the checkstand at the Publix as somehow sub-human and not worthy of recognition).

Oh, and speaking of people who died roughly 10 years ago, here's 12:

Those in the media who are crowing over Mother Teresa's "doubts" as if they are PROOF, PROOF! that God is dead and those who believe in a supernatural being are at best deluded fools and at worst some kind of twisted fetishist can completely, totally, and utterly nihilistically bug off. I'm so done with you. This whole thing is just total proof to me that you report what you want to report, and spin it how you want to spin it. It's not something to be gleeful over. I'm not even sure it's news, outside of a religious-perspective show, like one of the ones on EWTN or "Faith and Religion weekly" or whatever PBS' nod to religion is called.