All Some People Do is Complain and I Should Now Because I'm One of Them

The mackerel in happier times

I think someone had a live but probably comatose mackerel on MUNI today. You know I’ve mentioned how the #30 passes through Chinatown and people get on with purchases from markets and they can be, well pungent. Pronounced odors. Often they are chickens that only quite recently shuffled off this mortal coil. Sometimes you get sea life that smells as if it is just now dying from botulism. I kid you not. There was an additional effrontery to the olfactory senses today as one passenger encapsulated the twin odors of ganja and sweat with a decided emphasis on the latter. He was toting a skateboard. His hair was in dreads, he was in his 40s. Call me old fashioned — or worse if you prefer, you may consider me a jerk or if feeling profane, an asshole — but certain fashion statements do not work on people of  “a certain age.” (Had I been speaking this rather than writing it I might have been tempted to put air quotes around the phrase “a certain age” and you would have been well within your rights to sock me.) Sometimes on BART my eye will catch a slim figure in a short dress and as said eye works its way up this body I will be shocked to end my eye feast by coming across a woman of middle age or past. Well past. I know, serves me right for looking. When a woman of “a certain age” wears clothing designed for the younger set, the woman in question looks ridiculous. It’s nice if you have the body of a 20 year old but if your face is twice that age, get the hell out of the tube top and shorts. Pronto. There’s a guy at the gym who wears a rat tail. This looks perfectly fine on a ten year old boy. It looks bad on a young man. The guy at the gym is at least 50 and his family must really hate him to let the old coot walk around looking like a goddamned idiot. There’s another guy at the gym who’s maybe past 70 and he’s wearing his hair as long as he did in 1968 and is sporting the same ear rings. Give it up buddy. I lost the ear ring and stud and long hair around the time I turned 40 and my wife and children thank me for my discretion on a regular basis.

It could Have been this flounder seen here circa last June.

Did I mention there was a mackerel in a coma on the bus today? I may be wrong it might have been a fluke or a scrod or a flounder or a trout or a bass or a sturgeon or a halibut or the entrails of moose. I have no verification.

Speaking of annoying bus experiences and people who should be sent to Mars…Guy sat next to me on the bus couple days ago with the sniffles. People do this all the time. Bad enough we have to listen to morons on their cell phones or people chewing gum at the same decibel level as a jackhammer, we also get people who sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. Is it that fucking hard to get hold of a tissue and blow? No it isn’t. Riding public transportation is an endless series of dealing with annoying people.

I should know. I’m one of em.

But enough about me.

This happens. I order a tall dark roast coffee at the Starbucks by work and the barista asks, “do you want breakfast with that?” You mean like a side order of breakfast to go with my cup of joe? Sure makes sense. An incidental, an add on an impulse purchase. Okay I’ll have the scrambled eggs with hash browns and a short stack of pancakes. What’s that? You have none of that? You don’t really have a breakfast menu, do you? This is just one of those dumb things your corporate overlords have taught you to say, isn't it? You probably feel like an idiot saying it but the assistant manager is like right there so whattaya gonna do?

I like this one at Starbucks too when you order something like a latte that needs to be prepared special and they'll have to call your name when its ready, you're asked “remind me of your name again?” What you forgot my name? That’s odd since you never heard it because I’ve never ordered from you before but what you’re really trying to do is not ask me “what’s your name?” because that suggests I’m a stranger to you and we’re all plastic cut out friends in corporate amerika. So let's all pretend.

Hey, who loves hearing my complaints? Show of hands. Anyone? You there in the back, thanks for reading!