Stuff I would have thought was obvious

Originally posted (by me, duh) on Craig's List Rants & Raves on 5/11/05
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Now, y'all are free to ignore any of the below, 'cause god knows a lot of you already do, but what follows are a few helpful instructions I once never would have seen myself feeling the need to distribute.

1. If you have foot/nail fungus, don't wear sandals. Or at least wear socks with 'em. Yeah, you'll look like a tourist (or my grandpa). So what? At least you won't see people like me making little retch-faces when they glance down and notice that ghastly yellow-clawed thing you call a toe. And if you have dirty feet, wash 'em. Six months' worth of grime crusted under your toenails is NOT sexy, and when you make those "hey, you're kinda cute," googly eyes at me, I'm just gonna wrinkle my nose at you like you smell bad. Because your feet sure as hell do.

2. If you fart on the train, don't think nobody knows it was you. I knew it was you, you nasty motherfucker. I felt the little puff of warm air from your ass, 'cause it was six inches away from my head. That's not funny. No it isn't. What are you, in fourth grade? It ISN'T. Would you fart on your mom's head? Okay, then go fart on her head instead of mine next time.

3. If you accidentally run into somebody on the street, apologize. You might just improve somebody's mood for the whole damned day, and then they might be nice to somebody else, who might be nice to somebody else...you get it. How much does it hurt your little vocal cords to say, "oops, sorry," anyway? Hell, you might even get a date out of it if you're cute and s/he's cute and y'all are being all cute and nice and apologetic to each other. Now, if you run into somebody on the street on purpose, that's a whole different story. You just have issues.

4. If you like to ride up the escalator and I like to walk up it, don't get pissed at me for doing what I can to keep my butt from growing out of control. My walking isn't hurting you, and I'm sure as shit not judging you (even if you do have a huge ass and could probably stand to walk up once in a while, and I'm not saying that you do), so what's the problem? Me walking up the escalator hurts you, how, exactly? I'm skinny. I'm not bumping your shit, and I'm not stepping on your feet, and I make a huge effort to hold my bags in front of me so they don't bump you, so seriously, what's the problem?

5. If you blow your nose on the sidewalk by pinching one nostril with your finger and then blowing out of the other one, don't get offended when I say, "NASTY!" It is. I can say it if I want to. If you don't want me to say it, don't blow your fucking nose on the SIDEWALK. This isn't a cornfield, and we have these things called "tissues" for sale all over this damned city. Hell, if you promise not to blow your boogers underfoot ever again, I'll BUY you the Kleenex. Forever. Seriously. Give me your address and I'll have drugstore.com deliver 'em every damned week if you want.

Ditto for the whole rumbling dredging up of lugies from what sounds like your goddamned anus and hawking 'em out right there in front of my feet. Do you know how much nasty yellow phlegm I have to step around every day? God, people, go to the doctor, because that should not be coming out of your body unless something crawled in there and died. Like a gerbil, maybe. Just swallow it. It won't kill you. The dead gerbil didn't.

6. If you're walking down the street smoking a cigarette and I walk around you, don't give me nasty looks. I'm trying to keep that monkey off my back, that's all. I don't hate you because you smoke, because I smoked. I just don't want to do it anymore, and I don't like it when your ashes blow into my eye. That stings like hell and when I get to work, people think I'm crying. Well, I am, but that's just because my job sucks.

7. If you're sitting across from me on the subway, don't try to look up my skirt. I know you're doing it, and I guarantee, you're not gonna get a crotch shot. I'm gonna start putting socks in my underwear so you think I'm a trannie if you don't cut it out. Then I'll sit there with my legs wide open, and I'll give you a big ol' drooly "come hither" grin, to boot. I still won't fuck you, though.

8. Skeezy bleached-orange-hair Wal-Mart reject who held the doors open on the train so your apparently retarded boyfriend could wander around the platform gawking at all the pretty metal and peeling paint before finally getting on so that you could then jump on him, wrap your legs around his scrawny waist and dry-hump him for three stops: don't do that. Yes, I glared at you until you got off the train. So did about twenty other people who just wanted to get the fuck HOME. Did it make you uncomfortable? Good, because the conductor telling you to let the doors close apparently wasn't enough to break through your trailer-park-inbred hormone-haze. If I want to see that kind of shit, I'll go to the Ozarks, which is apparently where you came from.

9. If I can hear your bass-thumping gangsta rap music even though BOTH of us are wearing headphones, you're going to be deaf in ten years. That is all.

10. If you walk your dog all the time because you think it will help you pick up women, it's probably not gonna work. At least you're not making those nasty kissy noises at women walking by, so you do have that going for you. And your dog is really cute. I'm still not gonna fuck you, but your dog is really cute.

11. People at the bodega whose female pit bull launched herself at me and tried to hump me horizontal over and over again as I tried to extricate myself from her paws' vice grip around my thigh: you might want to take her to the vet and ask WTF that's about. Your dog is a lesbian, and she's REALLY horny. I believe you that she never does that. Really. Uh huh. My massage therapist asked how I got the bruise on my thigh, and I really didn't want to say, "a randy pit bull tried to make me her bitch, but her tail was wagging the whole time because she's friendly."

12. Don't rub something out of your eye on the subway and WIPE THE EYE BOOGER ON THE MOTHERFUCKING POLE. I SAW that shit. I could see that thing from eight fucking feet away. Do I really need to explain why that is just WRONG?

13. Don't pick shit off your head and eat it. You know who you are. We all see you do it. You do it in meetings for Christ's sake. The worst part is that you look at it before you eat it, as if you're evaluating its tastiness. Do you really not understand why nobody wants to be around you? Take a shower more than twice a week, too. You bathe on Sundays and Thursdays. We can tell. Wednesdays SUCK in that office because of you.

14. Don't wobble down the street yammering into your cell phone and pissing off the people who are trying to get past you but can't because you're weaving like a drunken seaman on a wet poopdeck. Trust me, your conversation is about as exciting as shit in a barnyard, and the next time you do it I'm going walk really closely behind you until I freak your shit out. I might breathe really hard on the back of your neck, too. With my mouth open. After a big cup of coffee. Isn't that annoying? Well, you're the aural equivalent of coffee breath.

15. If you sit next to each other instead of on opposite sides of the train, you won't have to YELL to each other, and the rest of the passengers on the train won't know about your "babydaddy's skanky ho" and how you caught chlamydia from him because of her "triflin'" ass. Maybe you should just quit fucking him.

16. Let me out of the elevator before you rush headlong into it and give me a concussion when all I'm trying to do is drag my ass into that soul-sucking habitrail we call "work". If you let me out, then you can get in, and nobody gets hurt. Otherwise, I'm going to start wearing a hockey goalie's mask to work and headbutt the first yahoo who tries to get into the elevator while I'm still trying to get out. Then I'll stomp over to my desk and sit there all day making Darth Vader breathing sounds while hunching over a stack of papers with my arm crooked around it like schoolkids do to keep other kids from cheating off their tests. I will, of course, make sure that the mask matches my belt and shoes, because I don't want to look sloppy.

I would've made this twenty items, but I think I blew my wad for the day.