... About Staples

I consider myself to be a fairly patient person, Reader. I'd have to be. I mean, come on - just look at my friends (you know who I'm talking about, and of course it isn't you!). But there's one tiny little thing that always annoys me. I know it isn't that big a deal, and I should just let it go, but I'm telling you, Reader, it really chaps my hide. I just don't understand why some people feel compelled to staple everything in sight. I just got a stack of four receipts with five staples in it. I know what you're thinking, Reader: Surely, I jest. Well, unfortunately, no (and don't call me Shirley). Why?! WHY would you ever need to use more staples than there are objects to be stapled?!

And the kicker? The kicker is this: two of the receipts were upside-down. So never did it occur to The Great Staplemeister to use his excess of staples to staple things the right way! I mean, he took five shots at it and still managed to mess up. I have to wonder if this isn't some kind of sick, cruel joke, like maybe somebody's having a good laugh about it.

Speaking of, don't you hate it when people laugh at their own lame jokes? Part of you feels like you should be polite and offer a courtesy laugh, but then the reasonable part of you grabs the polite part of you by the collar and hoarsely whispers, "You don't want to encourage this type of idiocy, do you?!" You know that if you laugh, they'll just do it again. It's the whole positive reinforcement thing. But, no matter how hard your reasonable side protests, you know the polite side will win out. So you smile with way too much teeth, force a couple of raw "HAR!"s out of your throat, and then hate yourself the rest of the day for being such a faker.

It's almost as bad as when you have to make small talk with people who obviously enjoy small talk more than you. I can't stand those people. Wouldn't you think that my lack of eye contact, my mumblings of "yeah, sure" and "uh-huh" would offer some kind of clue that I'm entirely disinterested in this stupid story about your life? Like the lady at the check-out counter at the gas station today who, instead of ringing up my muffin, launched into a story about how worried she gets when her 16-year-old grandson stays out all night with his friends. Part of me wanted to say, "No worries, lady, he's probably just perusing around my neighborhood at 3 in the morning with his speakers turned up full blast."

Seriously, Reader. Those kids make me want to scream. I mean, if you want to listen to that brain-numbing music and drive around wasting gas all night, it's your prerogative. But do you have to be so disrespectful of people who might be trying to sleep in the middle of the night? People have lost all sense of common courtesy, and it makes me insane. They butt in line like 4-year-olds, or they gab away on their cell phones while you just have to sit and wait for them to finish their oh-so-important conversation about how so-and-so did such-and-such to who-and-who, they swerve around in traffic without using turning signals. But the worst act of discourtesy? The worst is when they just leave their shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot instead of putting them back in the cart bay.

That's just ridiculous! How hard is it to walk an extra ten feet and put your cart away? It's pathetic how lazy they are. It's like they're completely in their own universe, and their brain just doesn't register how stupid they are letting themselves be. These people are so lazy that I bet if they button the wrong button they just say, "eh" and let it go. I bet if the battery in their remote wears out they'd rather just sit on the couch and watch lame Discovery channel shows about dung beetles than get up and change it manually. I'd even venture so far as to guess that if they made a mistake when stapling receipts, they wouldn't even bother to remove the misapplied staple before slapping another one in. How about one more, for luck? Why do they feel compelled to use so many staples?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Like I said, Reader, that's the only thing that really gets to me. So maybe try to be a little more conscientious next time? Otherwise I might lose my patience.