Friday Hodgepodge Of Vitriol

It's a beautiful Fall day here in Northern Illinois.  The sun is out, there's not a cloud in the sky and the gentle breeze sends the fallen leaves skittering along the streets and sidewalks of my modest village.

What better time to vent about some things ... minor things ... that annoy the shit out of me.

Morning Radio:  For more years than I care to remember, I've awakened to the sound of an all news station on the clock radio.  I don't know why I picked this particular station at the time, but it's just become a habit.  And it was fine until about a year ago, which is when I realized that this station was really grating on my nerves and getting me off to a bad start.  I won't name the station, but it starts with a "W" and ends with a "BBM", which I believe is an acronym for "Worlds Biggest Butt Munchers".  I don't have a problem with the news stuff, but I do have a huge problem with the two early morning hosts.  For the sake of anonymity, I'll call them "Pat" and "Felicia".

As with most stations, they both introduce themselves to their audience about every 15 minutes. The first one used to start out with "Hello Breakfast Lovers!  I'm P-t C-----y".  I thought this was slightly annoying, as I hate breakfast and felt that he was ignoring my presence.  The other one did and still does the standard introduction with no embellishments, which is fine.  In fact, I don't have a problem with her at all, except she sounds like she attended Madam Haversham's School of Elocution.  So, the more I think about it, I'll just leave her out of this discussion.

Anyway, "Hello Breakfast Lovers" was bad enough, but lately "Pat" has started his spiel as follows: "Hello, I'm P-t C-----y, By the dawn's early light!"  The first time I heard this, the first thought that jumped into my head was "What the fuck?  What does that mean?"  And as bad as that is, he continues by addressing his co-host "Good morning "FLEESH".

"FLEESH"?  Holy shit.  I'm waiting for her to bark at him to stop calling her that, but it hasn't happened yet.  To his credit, "Pat" is blessed with a good set of pipes, and I imagined him as resembling Mr. Rogers ... you know ... kind of having that good uncle appearance.  But when I looked up his promo picture, I got this instead:

"Yeesh!"

I'm sorry, but can't cut anybody any slack when they look like a rubber Halloween mask.  I think I'll just change to an easy listening station, as opposed to a hard listening station.

American Family Insurance:  Their television commercial drives me 100% apeshit.  The theme is "Protecting Your Dream" and features cutaways of a bride appearing to be trying to escape from a serial killer, some dude yanking on a lawnmower that won't start, a sweaty woman pulling off a field hockey helmet; and worst of all ... some guy slamming down a cup of coffee next to a laptop while the announcer intones "So fire up the laptop, pour a cup of coffee, 'cause there are going to be a lot of late nights".  To this I usually respond ... hey announcer, why don't you go fire up your ass.

And then, the commercial ends with some smug looking asshole who looks like Dave Hester from A&E's "Storage Wars" standing there with his arms crossed across his chest. 

Dave ... Or  AFI Asshole?

The only thing that I get out of this commercial  is that I wish I had American Family Insurance so I could cancel it.

The Morning Walk:  No, I didn't get into a fistfight with the Paper Man this morning.  I didn't even see him.  But I did see this:

"Don't Look At Me!"

During my walk, I rounded a corner and came upon a woman standing by a dog who looked a lot like the one above.  When she saw me, the following transpired:

Woman:  "Would you walk out in the street?  He can't go if you're watching him!"

Me:  "You're watching him."

Woman:  "That's different."

Me:  "I'll bet it's not.  Let me just stand here and see."

Five seconds and a dirty look later, the woman yanked the dog out it's hunched stance and huffed off.  I wonder if he ever took a shit?

The Grocery Store:  After my walk, I drove over to Butera Supermarket to purchase mushrooms, Shake 'N Bake and Halloween Oreos (Don't Ask).  As I was waiting in the ONLY checkout line open, one of the employees told me that another lane was open.  I looked over and saw "Adelajda" manning the post.

Sidenote:  Several months ago, Adelajda and I had a bit of a dust-up when she left her station (with the checkout light ON) and went over to chat with someone while I stood there like a dumb ass, waiting 5 minutes for her to saunter back over and do her fucking job.  We had "words" and I vowed never again to get in a line where she was behind the cash register.

Anyway, I told the employee "no thanks".  Not taking no for an answer, the employee asked me why I wanted to wait behind two people instead of going to the open counter.  So I just told her "because I don't like that bitch."  That seemed to do the trick.

By the way, after my altercation with Adelajda, I contacted the good people at Butera Supermarket on their website about her assholery, but never received an answer.  Perhaps the powers that be at Piggly Wiggly Inc. (owners of Butera Supermarkets) may see this and look into their poor correspondence practices.  On an up note, congratulations to "The Pig" on their 100th anniversary!

Happy Birthday ... Er ... Anniversary ... Er ... Whatever