Story Time

It's story time, friends, and the subject of tonight's story is the worst person in the world.

For lunch today, I had an hour between my classes, so I went down to one of our campus eating establishments. It was a pretty busy time, of course, being about 1:00, and so there are a number of us waiting around the grill area to place and pick up our orders. Now, enter a specimen. A specimen who is too good, too busy, too elite to wait in line like an average citizen. We shall call him, for the sake of argument, Tim. Tim does not stand at the back of the line. The back of the line is not where Tim stands. No no, he makes his way to the front, in order to better survey his kingdom. However, despite this better vantage point over his domain, he seems unaware of the existence of all the other citizens whose orders were placed, and are on the grill before his.

And so, being that Tim should not be made to wait, he sees an unclaimed order sitting under the lights, and sees no one to whom it may belong. Now Tim looks around once more, and makes his approach. But before he grabs the plate, he puts his hand, his slimy scaly bare hand right on top of the fries, just to make sure it still warm enough to suit his royal palette. The implication here, I assume, is that he was perfectly willing to leave it there, after having groped to his content, if he found it unacceptable. But lo, he absconds with the prize. I say he absconds because he headed in the opposite direction of the registers, and slinks back out the door, towards the rock from under which he came. But that's not the worst part of this story.

A few minutes later, several of us are still waiting by the grill because we understand how things work, and who do we see but Tim marching back up. I see that he has already eaten about half of the burger, but has decided he has a problem. He approaches one of the gentlemen running the grill, and shouts "Yo... Guy... I ordered a blahblahblah..." and so on, shoving his order slip in the cook's face to emphasize the discrepancy between it and the ruins of his platter. Of course it isn't what he ordered. Did he think, by some voodoo ritual, that it would be? Or is he just that big of a jackass? Yes, dear reader, this person complains... in a most gratuitously obnoxious way... about not getting the right order... after stealing an order that was not his... that was wrapped in foil, such that he did not even know what it was he was stealing... and after eating most of that... he complains.

Congratulations, Tim, you are the worst person in the world.

Stand-up Coach Passengers

Specimen: See below
Natural Habitat: The back of the airplane, but right in front of you.
Scientific Name: Erectus Viator
Diet: Impatience

There's a certain hierarchy that operates each and every time an airplane lands and comes to a stop at its gate. The people in the front get to disembark from the plane before those in the back of the plane. That's how it is now, that's how it's always been. So why, why, why, do the people at the back of the airplane always stand up as soon as the plane comes to a stop? Do they really think there's a chance they'll get to get off the plane first?

Now normally, I might agree with the consensus and say that I wouldn't want to be on an airplane any longer than I have to. That's absolutely true. But for those in the back to stand up first is not only counter-productive, it's downright rude. I, personally, stay seated until it's my turn to get up and leave. I know from experience that standing up leaves you nowhere to go but back in your seat, and it makes you look like a jackass.

Unless it's an emergency, there's no need to stand up as soon as the plane lands. If you're at the back of the plane, it makes you look like an impatient, pompous jackass. It also makes you look like one of the worst people in the world.

Bluetooth People

Scientific Name: novus pretentious
Natural Habitat: Starbucks, overpriced steakhouses, and the freeway
Diet: Robots don't eat.
Specimen:


Outside of having the internet on cell phones, the bluetooth might be the single most pointless technology of the 21st Century. As far as I can tell, these little glowing headsets exists solely to let everyone know how important the owner thinks he is. Because he's sooo important, that he might get a call at any time that he just has to answer, even if he's driving or eating dinner. It's just plain insulting... like the call he might potentially get is more important than the people he's talking to face to face. If your phone rings, and it's important, go ahead and excuse yourself and answer it, but wearing the bluetooth all the time, whether you're expecting a call or not, well that just makes you a jackass. You're not that important. Nobody's that important. Second, it's not that hard to talk on the phone while you're driving; nobody drives with both hands anyway, unless you drive an automatic, and if you own a bluetooth, you probably don't drive stick.

And this isn't the Jetsons, nor is it the 50's, so nobody's impressed with futuristic florescence. So put it away. Outside of people who use the internet on their cell phone, bluetooth people are the worst people in the world.

Reclusive Artists

Natural Habitat: The Hollywood Hills; Wyoming; The Middle of Nowhere
Scientific Name: Tractare Cubo
Diet: Royalty checks; free publicity; time
Specimen: W. Axl Rose
See Also: Sly Stone; J.D. Salinger; Terrence Malick

Now, I'm not here to criticize these people for being reclusive. If they don't want to be public figures, they don't have to. If they don't want to work or write or perform or create art, that's fine too. It's their money, it's their time. But to promise us new material and then make us, their fans, wait an eternity for it is some kind of torture.

Take Axl Rose for instance. Guns N' Roses' last studio album was 1993's The Spaghetti Incident? Technically, their last album of new material was Use Your Illusion II in 1991. That's 17 years. Axl's been promising us a new album titled Chinese Democracy for well over a decade. Well, Axl, where is it?

The problem with these artists is that, because of their status and success, they think they don't have to be held to any kind of standard or timetable. As far as musicians go, I think five years between albums is almost too long, let alone fifteen. Sure, I'm all for artistic integrity, but when you keep the world waiting for your next supposed masterpiece just because you get lazy or because you alienate your collaborators, it doesn't exactly help your image. On some occasions, it honestly is a case of being meticulous about the work that causes it to delay and delay and delay. But when multiple people arrive on the project only to leave years later, and the thing STILL isn't done, something must be wrong.

I'm not harping on Axl Rose personally. That isn't what I'm here to do. I simply don't understand how any one project, be it a film, an album, a work of art, or a book can take fifteen years to produce. There are licensed automobile drivers in this world who weren't even born the last time Guns N' Roses were thought of as relevant. We know from his past work, and the work of the others listed above, that he's capable of some pretty great things. That's why if Chinese Democracy is anything less than a masterpiece of rock music, I, and the rest of the music loving world will be sorely disappointed.

Though, let's not kid ourselves, it wouldn't exactly be hard to outdo most of the bands that have popped up since 1993. But if Chinese Democracy fails, it'll prove that reclusive artists like Axl Rose are the worst kind of time wasters and mismanagers on the planet, not to mention the Worst People in the World.

Spelling Bees

Scientific Name: Apis Cantionis
Natural Habitat: Elementary Schools
Diet: The necessity of literacy.
Specimen:

That's right, spelling bees. Now you're probably thinking, "Kidd, that's a really specific and relatively harmless thing to hate." Wrong. Spelling bees are the reason 72% of today's youth think "great" is spelled with a number. In theory, these competitions are designed to have the opposite effect, to encourage learning through competition and reward. Alas, it is but a charade; a horrible back-firing charade. Why? Because the spelling bee, by rewarding its winners, gives our children the impression that spelling is some kind of special skill to be specially rewarded, like not everyone should be able to do it. It's like celebrating graduation from kindergarten. Here, congratulations for doing something everyone is expected to do. Not only are you expected to do it, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to "not be able to spell." But that's exactly the sort of excuse that spelling bees enable.

Granted, English isn't a perfect language; it has its quirks, but it's basically phonetic and once you learn the rules, if you can spell one thing you can spell anything. No one can spell any better than anyone else. Words are only spelled, in most cases, one way. And that's what the word is. Otherwise it's a different word. There's no creativity, there's no memorization, no talent or skill involved. In other words, there is no scale of better or worse "spellers." And that's a word that shouldn't even exist... like "breathers" or "sleepers. If anything, rather than glorifying a mastery of the mundane, we have special words for people who are unable to do these things. In fact, English is the only language with a word for spelling, and the US is the only country that puts on these embarrassments. Everyone else in the civilized world just does it. All we're left with is little punks with false self-confidence because they're surrounded by illiterate savages, and the savages with a free excuse never to "learn how to spell."

One more thing. Nobody has ever spelled anything out loud in the history of man, outside the context of a spelling bee. We can write things down. That's what paper's for. In fact, that's the whole point of spelling in the first place -- to write things down for other people to read. If you're talking out loud, you just say the words. If you insist on having spelling bees, why not have them write the words? And if you still have trouble, we have whole big books dedicated to how words are spelled and what they mean. They're all already written down in there. What do you have to spell out loud them for? You heard it here first, spelling bees are the worst people in the world.

Backroad Tailgaters

Specimen: People driving giant red trucks and silver SUVs.
Natural Habitat: Right behind you.
Scientific Name: Sequor Volo
Diet: Your exhaust fumes; quiet backroads.

Have you ever taken a pleasant drive through the backroads of your town, or any single-lane road surrounded by forests, farmland, or vast tracts of untouched land? Do you ever find yourself driving at the leisurely pace of the speed limit? Perhaps you're just taking an afternoon drive through the country. Maybe you're skiddish of speed traps that the police might have set up. Whatever your reason, few things are more frightening than looking into the rear view mirror and seeing a shiny red 4x4 barreling up behind you like a bat out of hell.

(Five of the drivers in the above picture are horrible people.)

Now, I normally don't have a problem with people who break the law by speeding on the highways. Most everybody does it, so why fight it? You're more likely to get pulled over for impeding the flow of traffic anyway. But beyond medical emergencies, there's absolutely no reason for anyone to speed on a road with only one lane in either direction. So when one of these speed demons pulls up behind me, you know what I do? I follow the speed limit exactly. They probably think I'm just a moron, but at least I'm making them obey the law. If they truly want to go faster than you, they'll do the Christian thing and go around.

These people seem to think that the same rules that apply on the highway also apply on the backroads of small-town America. They do not. There's a reason why more people die on the country roads than the highways and interstates. It's because toolbags driving top-heavy vehicles think they'll be just fine on those twists and turns at the 75 mph that they're used to on I-95. No dice. They flip and spin out faster than a cokehead driving bumper cars.

Good Ol' Boys who think they own the road, kids playing mailbox baseball, teenagers who just want to friggin' get there already, they're all guilty of tailgating us reasonable drivers who simply don't want to be hassled by some dirtbag who think the speed limit doesn't apply to them. They're also the worst people in the world.

Movie-going Teenagers

Specimen: Go to a movie theater on a Friday night. They’re everywhere.
Natural Habitat: Auditorium 9; Sneaking into Auditorium 13
Scientific Name: Tener Celebratio
Diet: Poprocks and, with any luck, Coca-Cola

Last time, I exposed the morons who make horrible comedies. Today, I’m targeting the morons who make the former so successful. Have you ever gone to the movies, looked around at all the posters, and wondered, “Who wants to see this garbage?” Have you ever been sitting in a theater and had the first ten minutes ruined because the teenager next to you had to text message their other friends about how they can’t talk because they just sat down for some lame horror movie?

Sure, some teens are actually respectful of others at the movies, but you can’t deny that the reason many people have abandoned going to the movies is because some people between the ages of 12 and 20 don’t know how to shut up and turn their phones off for two hours.

Not only is this specific brand of teenager the bane of just about every moviegoer’s existence, but they’re often the only reason that movies like Epic Movie and The Grudge 2 get churned out year after year like clockwork. They’ll see any old shitball movie because their friend Tina knows a guy who works at a theater who said his boss liked it. But good movies that real people understand and enjoy? Those are usually too deep and will be dismissed as ‘lame’ or ‘too geeky’ for these specimens.

Idiot-savant comedy directors and the bottom-feeders who make them thrive are, without a doubt, the scourge of the movie-going public. They're also the Worst People in the World.