A Perk and a Pain

I don't often get to vent about this particular client of mine. One, because in my line of work, confidentiality is a huge deal. Two, because people never believe me. So, I steam about it at work, I steam about it at home to S, who thinks I have nothing to whine about at all because I get to deal with this guy. I can't even say his name on here - well, maybe I can, but then it would be too out there, but he's a well-known celebrity who not too long ago flaked out on his contract & fled the country. And, for some undeterminable reason, he has been working with me for about 3 or 4 years now. I don't know how I got so lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you want to look at it - my view changes with his whim) that this famous guy wants to deal with me, but, it's definitely a perk. Even my boss can't figure out this guy's long time loyalty.

My own best friend didn't believe me. We went to lunch one day in the little town where I work, I told her if he was out, which he often is, I would introduce her. Sure enough, he was sitting on the street, just like a normal person, which it just so happens he is, and we walked by. I glanced over at him & said, "Hey (Dude)," and he popped up to shake my hand & comment on my handwriting, which seems to thrill him for some strange reason. My friend about had a coronary. I introduced them, he shook her hand, she could only make strange glubbing noises at him, and then he bounded off down the street to fetch his lunch. We turned around & walked back down the street - we had gone an entire block without the friend saying anything, mouth still agape. When we reached the corner, she turned to me and said, "I thought you were lying!" Gee, thanks, long-time friend & ally. I am a big fat liar, so of course I must be lying! Geez.

My mom goes off & tells her friends that I'm his agent even tho' I'm not sure she's even seen anything he's been in. She also got to meet him during a street festival when he was hanging out with his wife (also a good client & if it weren't for the professional relationship & her having two rowdy boys, we might even be good friends). I stopped to greet the wife, who I had talked to plenty of times but never met face to face, and Dude broke free of his admiring group of fans to shake my hand & say HEY R! Suddenly, I hate to say, my place in the world seemed not so minor as the fans watched his enthusiastic greeting.

The funniest thing is, is that my husband, who is a huge fan of Dude, hasn't ever met him. He's not bitter or anything.

Dude always has vague things he wants to do. Cart off to a foreign land - "What about here? Here? here.... What's there to do here?" - which would be okay if he didn't switch continents faster than I can type, take private jets here & there. Vague is somewhat acceptable, but when the guy wants to fly to a far off land on THAT DAY, it tends to freak me out a little.

The kicker is, is that he's not a jerk at all. Very humble, very friendly, very grateful. He doesn't complain & whine & fret. All of these things have earned my affection for him. I don't care who he is, if he were an ass, I would've tried to wash my hands of him a long time ago.

A little while ago, he came in, again on one of his vague missions, ogled my map for a while & chit-chatted about here & there. A pasty young man burst thru the door, breathless from the stairs, & exclaimed, "Hey Dude! I was over at the tavern & I had to come up & say hi!" I was confused for a moment - I didn't know if this guy knew Dude or not, and Dude of course was nodding in a friendly way & making the appropriate friendly vague comments. Turned out, this guy had just seen Dude come in & not leave, so he decided to come up & meet him because he'd been "living here his whole life & had never seen Dude". We both said, really? Because Dude really is down on the street quite often - in fact, people come to town just to try for a Dude-sighting. After pasty boy apologized to Dude & to us for coming in & being a fan, he left. Dude stared at the map for a moment, cocked his glance to the door then slid it slyly back to me & smirked. I know how he feels about this celebrity thing.

We have a sort of friendship. He follows me around the office like a big jolly dog, makes jokes, tells me about his travels & also about being the victim of fans who think that screaming one of his trademark lines at him & his family while they're walking down the street is a good time, and even of the mean fans who think it's Dude's duty to tolerate camera phones & such jammed in his face - "you asked for it! It's part of the job!" they say. If he sees me on the street, I'm always greeted by a big hug & friendly chatter. So, it is an honor to deal with him - never in a million years did I think dealing with a big name celebrity would be part of my everyday job, especially one as friendly & humble as Dude.

But still, he's a perk AND a pain.

Tailless Wonder Wilson

Since I mentioned it, I must tell the story of T.W. Wilson. I realize that not everyone will enjoy kitty stories, and you probably have a mental image of me as Crazy Cat Lady at this point. If so, fuck off. I like cats, they like me, it's just the way things go. And, since some people can't care for their cats or abandon them along the roadside because "they'll take care of themselves", there are those of us who must fill in, sometimes more than we want.

I was driving home on a frigid, dark November night on my usual route, down a backroad, when I saw a dark patch in the road that I knew had to be roadkill. Unexpectedly, the roadkill raised its head & looked at my oncoming vehicle. I passed it by & then circled back around. I didn't know what it was - raccoon, possum, cat or fox, but I can't leave any living creature in the road to die like that (this reminds me to relate the story of the raccoon....). As I approached the living road kill, it raised its head again to look, probably expecting a repeat of what had put it there in the first place, and I saw it was a cat. I stepped out of the truck & peeled off my Land's End coat and laid it on the road next to the cat. Then, gingerly, I gripped the poor thing by the nape of its neck to prevent any bites, and carefully slid it onto the warm fleece interior of the coat. Strangely, it made no attempt to bite & didn't even offer a complaint when I piled the bundle of coat & cat on the front seat & proceeded to drive home.

Since it was after hours at the vet, and this was not my cat & I was broke, I didn't know quite what to do, but I felt terrible expecting the unfortunate animal to hang out until I could get him into the vet the next morning. I pulled the top off a cat carrier & made a warm nest inside with a heating pad underneath & lay him (as he did indeed turn out to be very much a him) in it. I sat & stroked him for a few minutes & then shut the light off & closed the door. I visited him several more times that night & he meowled a couple times, but he didn't seem to be in incredible pain or anything, so I rested easier.

Bright & early the next morning I loaded him back into the truck & headed off to the vet aka my former employer. They kept him for a couple of days, x-rayed him & declared him to have a broken pelvis. When I called to check on him, Doc Judy uttered the ominous words, "You're going to have to make some decisions on this cat." He might not walk, might not pee, might not operate his bowels properly. This did sound grave indeed.

So, I made the decision to keep him. I think laying on the ice cold road for however long he did must've worked in his favor by reducing swelling. Once home, we never looked back. There were never litterbox issues and, altho' the broken pelvis slightly altered his movement, you'd never know this cat was formerly roadkill, tho' once glance at him will tell you his life hasn't been easy.

He's tailless, first of all. We (the vet & I) were unable to determine whether this was natural or if it had been chopped off in an accident of some sort. Being an old tom, his ears are tattered from countless fights & he's solid as a rock. He's a handsome fellow in his own way, a swirling tiger pattern and white, muscular & big. As for the injury, he gets around just fine, but he just looks like a demented tabby & white rabbit while he does it. My friend Stace calls him "Hippity Hop". He's not all there - I don't know if this a result of the accident or if he was this way before, but he's wacked. Sometimes he has to be calmed when he gets into the "Red Zone" & wants to bite & flip out, but usually a few soft words & head pats will get him back in line. He chatters constantly, and every hop & bound are accompanied by a "whirr" and "murr" - like the impact of his paws on the ground jar these noises loose. He's seriously deranged.

It took S some time to get used to him. T.W., as he came to be known, short for Tailless Wonder, had to live in a room by himself for some time, but then he was moved out with the general population where he's lived happily ever since. Now S will pat him until T.W. starts getting weird, and he enjoys his constant chatter from the kitchen chair while we're cooking. And then, S was the one who came up with his working name, Wilson, because of his resemblance to a soccer ball. So, Tailless Wonder Wilson he remains - it's his boxing name.

He's a trial at times, and altho' we had him neutered promptly (with much exclaiming & joy over his recovery from the vet folks), he still likes to bash the hell out of the other cats from time to time. The peculiar thing is, is that he won't mess with the smallest of the lot, a bitchy Himalayan named Bella who never has & never will take shit from anything. Nor will he fight with the lead cat, a brilliant beast named Vincent who is another story unto himself.

Several months ago he had to spend two weeks at the vet due to a urinary tract infection. A nerve that controlled his urination had been damaged & they weren't sure if he was going to make it thru it or not. I was beside myself at this news - after all the old warrior had been thru how could he be brought low because he couldn't pee properly? But, two weeks later, he was released much to my & the vet's & all the techs' relief. Turns out they had become quite attached to his talkative furriness while he was there & everyone was rooting for him.

I often wonder if he remembers his old life & if he wonders how he lucked into a warm house with a constant food supply & cozy fleece blankets to snooze on. He's my cat to be sure, and I have an overwhelming fondness for him & he for me. Altho' he's not much of a lap cat, something I think I prefer, he will snuggle up to my back, or leg, or whatever he can press himself against, and fall asleep. And, if I fall asleep on the floor, he will clamber up on me like I'm a giant pillow and nod off.

I think we'll keep the dumbass.

Final Kitten Update

As I was reading thru my posts, I realized I never finished the story (well, at least my part of it) about the orphaned kitten.

The kitten left after a recuperative two weeks at my house, separated from the other cats other than a brief confrontation with our wacked out Tailless Wonder Wilson which made the kitten hiss & fluff as much as she was able in her hairless condition. TW Wilson is another story for another time however.

After the two weeks, S started to grumble, I was a little tired of cleaning up kitten mess (she apparently had no idea what the litterbox was for despite my constant attempts to explain & show it to her), but she was a bundle of energy & feeling good so Mom agreed to take her home. I delivered her on a Saturday & Mom put her in the bedroom, isolated from her cat clan, and the kitten promptly started using an old cat bed as her toilet. At least it was old! But, before you think that my mother's home has become a litter box, the kitten, upon being allowed out to socialize with the others, learned to use the box - she must've seen the other cats do it & got the idea. I'm glad. There's few things worse than an un-potty-trained kitty.

Two weeks later I visited Mom's and saw the kitty. I am very happy to report that she is growing her fur back in and, altho' still skinny, it's more of a svelte skinny than bony (or skeletal in her case - I've never seen a skinnier, more starving cat than her) skinny. She looks sort of like a miniature cheetah. And WOW is she a handful. I'm glad we got her out of the house - she's all adrenaline & kitten teeth & claws.

Mom named her "Eppie". I don't know where she gets these names, I never have understood why she wants to dub these animals such weird monikers - I grew up in a house with cats named "Weener", "Tuffy" (Tuffy later became simply "Wee" because he was), "Yellow", "Spaz" and "Gidget". I know Gidget is common, I just don't like it. We also had a cat named Apple Pie, but that was all my fault - but give me a break. I was five when I came up with that. Other cats that I named in the house had slightly more dignified rings - Cosby, Sappho, Emily & Amanda, India & Hawk.

Anyway. Mom named her that because she's a "shot of adrenaline". I suppose that's fitting, but all I can think of is some character - was it a Jim Carrey character? named Eppie Epperman. And then all I can think of is Carrey's disturbing Fireman character from whatever that show was that I never watched. In Living Color I think it was. Regardless, Eppie is Mom's cat now & she can name her whatever she wants without me saying (a comment that followed most of Mom's kitty namings in our household), "Mom, that's a really dumb name."

So, one more kitty waif off the street & into a good home. The gods were smiling kindly on little Eppie the day Mom found her. It makes me happy.

Stranded

Last winter I was on my way home from work on a cold & rainy night. While driving thru the small crossroads of Dialton, a dark figure sprang at my truck from the side of the road, waving its arms desperately. As I swerved, I noted it was a woman in a dark sweatshirt. I paused briefly, considering the situation - a lone woman on a rural road in the pouring rain after dark. Normally I wouldn't pick up a stranger, but this seemed like the sort of situation where I should let my pity, usually reserved for needy animals, win out.

I've only done this twice before, once when I saw a young girl walking down the highway after her car broke down & some enormous filthy goon in an equally large & filthy flatbed had pulled alongside to offer her a ride & various STDs - she was only too glad to choose my wholesome-looking self over that fellow. There was also the ice storm when Farmer Fess, previously unknown to me, had ditched his two-wheel drive Ford right in front of me, leaving me no choice but to offer him a ride. Ironically, I picked Farmer Fess up only a few feet from where I picked up this banshee. I figured these past two situations were safe enough at the time. Plus, with the farmer, it gave me the opportunity to prove the worth of my little foreign truck that gets constant dirty looks from the locals in their Dodges & Chevys - he did indeed admit a grudging admiration after my trusty Goat refused to slide off the road several times.

So, I found myself backing up slowly while the woman ran towards me. I rolled the window down & she started babbling about running out of gas, had no idea where she was, supposed to go to her mom's, walked for who knows how far in this weather. In her defense, she was sopping wet & wearing only the sweatshirt & pants. I asked her where she needed to go & she replied, "Springfield - by the mall". Okay, about 20 minutes in the other direction, but at that point I felt like I was already in it, no turning back. I told her to climb in. She shot me a look of gratitude & relief before bounding back to the yard where she'd been lurking to retrieve a plastic grocery bag & placed it on the floorboard, which fortunately is protected by a thick rubber mat.

I asked her if she was an ax murderer, which I thought was a fair question, and she replied with an emphatic, "Hell no!" and offered me an ice-cold, damp hand in greeting. Once I had turned around in a convenient driveway & started heading in the appropriate direction, she started to show her true colors. Her boyfriend was a drug addict. He didn't care who he hurt. It's her birthday (later on in the ride she revealed her birthday was Dec. 11th, which that day was not - it was Nov. 29th). She alternately cried, laughed, called me Baby Girl & all sorts of mishmosh crap like I'm beautiful, I'm an angel, to which I chuckling heartily inside - no one's ever made the mistake of calling me an angel nor do I want to be thought of as one. She introduced herself four times on the way into the city. I caught a glimpse of her wide-eyed, lined, toothless face goggling at me in the light from passing cars. During the drive I suspected I'd been had - she knew precisely where she was as well as the homes of the local cops. More than likely her miserable hood of a boyfriend had booted her out & she just needed a ride to her mom's where she could spend the night until the lout sobered up.

"This woman is unstable," I thought.

Aloud I said, "Pardon the way I drive," as I jammed the Pathy into third gear & squealed around a 45 degree curve. She seemed unfazed & babbled on, blissful in her drug & alcohol-induced haze, confident in the ability of a stranger to deliver her unkilled to her destination. The drugs were questionable, but the way she was behaving led me to believe this might indeed be the case. She was positively manic. Maybe she just needed some drugs? The liquor was apparent as soon as she sat in my bucket seat. Not that I have issues with drugs - right before picking her up I had been taking puffs from my pipe which now was stashed safely out of sight in the ashtray. I hadn't considered it when I stopped to help, and then thought briefly of the skunky aroma that must be emanating from the cozy interior, but, those fears were quickly allayed when I realized she was crazed.

As I drove into the city, I was thinking.... what's in that bag? She seems insane... these sort of people are predictably unpredictable... I had noted she didn't put her seatbelt on, so if she did indeed flip & out & try to kill me, I could always use the windshield as a weapon. One must think of these things, you know. Also as an added precaution, I carry several large, fist-sized rocks in my center console just in case I need to smack someone in the skull with one. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Onwards we drove, me making risky maneuvers on the slick roads in the top-heavy vehicle, her crying & calling me Angel & writing her name in the fog that had gathered on the passenger side window. Finally we neared the mall. I pulled into the turn lane & disturbed her blatherings to ask where. "Oh I'm sorry, baby girl, I need to go to Bechtle"....which is not the mall at all. I gritted my teeth, told her it was fine, and we descended the hill for the 7 or 8 minute drive to Bechtle Avenue. She told me she was going to have a drink when she reached her mom's. I replied by telling her, in all honesty, that that was exactly my plan when I arrive home, too. She looked at me as if I were Jesus reborn, reached into the mysterious bag on the floor & pulled out a can of Miller High Life & offered it to me. Had it been anything other than that chilled camel piss I might've accepted, in town or not. I just couldn't do it. She shrugged & cracked the can open, chugging a little at the light. I rolled my eyes & cut the drive to Bechtle to about 4 minutes, narrowly missing a Cadillac and a Honda in my effort to switch lanes quickly. Once on Bechtle, she chanted "Motomart" like a mantra, which I took to mean we needed to turn by the Motomart. So I did. I kept waiting for her to say, "this house" or "that house" but instead found myself on the end of a dark street in a seedy residential area. She directed me to follow the road on around & then indicated a small house with about 5 cars in the drive. "Right behind the Cougar, baby doll". I was only too glad to be rid of this babbling freak & screeched to a halt, awaiting the arrival of Crackhead & Co when they tried to steal my vehicle. But, my fears were laid to rest. No criminals sporting guns streamed from the house. She blearily invited me in & promised that her mom would give me gas money. No way I was going into the house the size of a shoebox with that many cars outside. No good could come of that, I thought. I decided to cut my losses and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. As we parted ways, she leaned over & gave me a big hug & told me how beautiful & angelic I was. I suffered this with a grimace over her shoulder. She alit from the truck, bag of cheap beer in tow, we waved to each other and I peeled away from the driveway without even making sure she got in the house okay. I had done my good deed & with that many cars, there had to be someone at home. I won't be picking up any more stray people for a while.

The unexpected end of this story was realized a night or two ago. I was driving home, again passing thru Dialton, when I spotted two figures walking towards me in my lane. One was clad entirely in black, the other was a half-naked, hairy brute. Neither of them showed much interest in moving out of the lane, which is something I take offense to. I roared towards them, truck clicking & clunking in its usual way, and as I neared & started to veer slightly around them, my suspicions were confirmed. The familiar, prematurely aged face of the woman stared at me, openmouthed, as I stared back, my own awestruck expression hidden behind my sunglasses. I knew it. I'd been had. Hornswoggled. Duped.

I drove past & watched in my rearview - her head spun around to follow my truck briefly - did she recognize me? Or was I just another white SUV passing by? Then, without another gesture or glance, she turned back to continue her evening stroll with what I presume to be the wretched fuck that kicked her out on that frigid, rainy night.

Friday

Now it's Friday & I only have three hours left before I go home & it's not soon enough. We have no big plans for the weekend other than maybe going out to the pond for some fishing. Even tomorrow, while S is at work, I'm going to clean as much as I feel like, and then I'm going to catch up on some reading. Pleasant enough.

But, Stace is planning a big weekend of boozing after her first week at the new job (after being unemployed for 6 months - lucky shit) which she's decided she hates, some of our other friends are coming down to the town I work in for the bi-annual Street Fair which I avoid like the plague - too many people, most of which are super-yuppies nowadays, and our friends in Georgia are heading out for a weekend-long Hootenanny, which sounds like a great time, complete with music & good drink.

Have a great weekend everyone! Be safe - but only if it doesn't cut short the fun!

Our own little Buffett fest

A couple months ago, Jimmy Buffett tickets went on sale for Riverbend. I got up earlier than usual on Saturday & headed to the service counter/Ticketmaster at the local grocery. I arrived an hour before the tickets were available and already there were seven people ahead of me. A little while later, my good friend Stace showed up, braless, grouchy, determined to get tickets, too. At 9 am, we were all at the ready - money & credit cards in hand, excited about the upcoming concert.

Then the system went down. The manager typed away frantically, wordless, trying to get the systems to mesh while a cow-like employee stood by & gazed at us with big bovine eyes as we started to stamp & fret. I wasn't terribly worried - another good friend was supposed to be sitting at his computer to buy up a batch of tickets - I was confident he'd come through even if the manager didn't. Finally, the system came back up, but the tickets were all gone. Dammit.

I left the store, fairly calm, and phoned Dave. "No I didn't get them. I forgot. I was out chopping wood." I felt my blood pressure rise, "Chopping wood??? In the RAIN? What the hell?" He was apologetic. Dave is a very casual person. Pretty unexcitable. "I'll check with some people - I'm sure someone got extras."

I had to call S and deliver the bad news. He was depressed. Deeply saddened. I told him what Dave said - his comment regarding the wood-chopping was the same as mine, but he seemed hopeful that Dave could pull something together.

It didn't happen. No friends had extra tickets, our only choice was to try Ebay. Of course, the vultures on Ebay were selling the tickets at triple what they'd just paid for them a few hours prior. Asses. Principle wouldn't permit me to purchase them. I don't have many morals, but not supporting greedy scum suckers like that is one of them.

We decided to do our own Buffett fest on the night of the concert, cheeseburgers, shrimp, grilled corn & of course margaritas & Caribbean beer. That night was last night.

The Buffett fest went well until someone... me... had too much tequila. I mixed a couple of margaritas, decided they were way too weak, so on the 3rd one I think I did half tequila, half mix. A lot of tequila. We finished dinner, I helped clean up but I don't remember much of it, came back out, started to feel sorta drunk - let me clarify here - I love tequila & I've never been so screwed up on it to taint me forever. I even like the TASTE of it. Usually I chip at it - 2 shots right off the bat to get the buzz on, then another 1 or 2 shots spaced out thru the evening to maintain. Last night was the first time I thought, I need to lie down. This is not a happy time for me. So, I laid down where I sat, which was in front of the couch, and I pillowed my head on the stinkin' ass dog bed. I kept one eyeball open for a considerable time watching Breakfast with Hunter, but I must've passed out. I woke up 3:15am, nestled into the dog bed with cats surrounding me, and S was sleeping on the sofa. I slept on the dog bed! And the sad part is, I was pretty comfy. I even debated just curling back up & going to sleep - the dog, probably confused, was sleeping in the bedroom. But, I decided an aspirin was in my best interest, got up, sucked down a gallon of water along with the aspirin, went back to gaze at my sheetless (in the dryer, of course) bed, thought long & hard about the dog bed again (ha!) and ended up spreading a blanket on the mattress & putting a spare, raggedy pillowcase on my pillow & threw a towel over S's (ha!). I think I fell asleep somewhere between 9:30 & 10:30. How lame is that? Scott had a little J rolled & I passed out even before hitting it! He smoked it all by himself. I think he was disgusted with me. I'm a sot.

Ah well. I probably won't be hitting the bottle tonight - I need to let my system chill. Yee. Feelin' pretty good in spite of it, tho' - I've heard that good tequila (which I would think Cuervo qualifies as good tequila) doesn't leave you with much of a hangover because it's so pure. None-the-less, thank goodness for Goody's Headache Powder!

Nasty

Okay. I was enjoying my Italian BMT from Subway when an old coot came in requesting info on Mongolia. I set the little nub of sandwich along with some chips in the back room so that I could enjoy it after the coot left. Coot left, I went back to get the remaining sandwich, and one of those big, green trash flies flew out of it. Normally I'm not too disturbed by fly feet on my sandwich, but since it appeared to fly OUT of the sandwich, I thought I'd better investigate.

It laid eggs. A little cluster of nits, in my sandwich. Needless to say, I was all done with lunch!

Boss was trying to gross us out - Coworker & I were doing little dances of disgust, he popped it out on his finger & I hid behind a chair. I HATE maggots & grubs. HATE them. I mean, I'll go after poisonous snakes, I'd even consider wrestling a small alligator, and I will pick up most bugs but show me a grub, I'm gone. So foul. The foulest thing ever.

I'm going to go wash my hands now. Maybe take a shower. I'm soiled.

Stupid people

I'm sure there are plenty of rants out there about stupid people. Here's another.

I've been exploring a new way home over the past few weeks, and one of the most delightful things about this new route is that it passes right in front a smalltown liquor store. Last night I stopped in a for a bottle of Cuervo. I paid the little Indian-American man behind the counter & left the store as a car full of homeboys (or whatever they prefer to be called) pulled in next to my Pathfinder.

I climbed in the truck, fired her up, and glanced back in preparation for backing out. A young girl was driving the car and she was chatting it up with the two guys in the backseat. The guy on the side closest to my truck had his door hanging open. I could see in my side mirror that if I backed up, my fender flare was going to clip the door.

Now. My truck is the farthest thing from quiet with its medley of whirs, clunks & clicks, so, unless Homey G was deaf, there's no way he couldn't realize the truck was running, and I know they had to have heard it start even if they didn't see me get in.

I sat patiently for a few seconds, waiting for them to unload from the car or shut the door so I could be on my merry way, but, no. They showed no interest in moving or shutting the door. I tried another tack - I turned around and gave them a cold stare, revved the engine slightly, but to no avail. I couldn't figure out if they were just trying to be hardcore or if I actually needed to get out and explain it to them.

I have no tolerance for airs, and if they needed to have it explained, they deserved to have the door ripped off.

So, I threw the gear into reverse & put the Goat in motion. The flare would've indeed clipped the door, but Homey grabbed the handle & pulled it shut quickly when the truck heaved away from the parking block, giving me his best "What the hell are you doing?" look. I slowed my backward movement long enough to glare back, so he got the idea, nonplussed by his do-rag & gold teeth & kept on going.

I don't have a problem with most people, regardless of their race, preferences, attire or political leanings. Well, okay, maybe I am slightly prejudiced based on political leanings, but we all have our flaws.

I just have a problem with stupid, rude people who don't think. And we all know there's a whole lotta stupid out there.