Common Courtesy #1

Hey look! Another thing I often get on a soap box about: (un)common courtesy. Let's make it another series!

Regardless of what you do for a living, I'm sure you've run into this before. And if you're like me, it takes considerable effort to refrain from excoriating (one of my favorite words, btw...) those individuals that participate in this ridiculous act. Yeah, I'm talking about blocking a hallway.

Whether it be the seemingly harmless mom at Kroger who parks her cart in the exact center of the aisle while shopping approximately a quarter of a mile away, or the retarded people who hold impromptu meetings in the hallway at your workplace, this one really gets on my nerves. And to add insult to injury, it seems that most of the time these people don't care to move out of the way for any reason whatsoever. Or, even worse, when they do, it's this token little shuffle that makes just enough room for the most emaciated anorexic to slide by while scraping the wall.

And I think we all know what goes hand-in-hand with this little shuffle: the look of sheer inconvenience. And nothing puts me in the red like politely pointing out that someone is doing something silly, and being scolded and/or ridiculed for my efforts. (Just to be abundantly clear: yes, I am polite. Nothing like being looked at like a toddler who has just reached into his diaper and pulled out a large turd for simply saying, "Excuse me" because you're taking up the entire hallway.)

News flash: this hallway ain't yours...and it ain't mine either. We have to share it. I'm teaching my 3 year-old what sharing means. I sure as shit don't have time to teach that to a grown adult.

And while we're at it, lest I make another post for basically the same thing, let's go ahead an lump in those people who like to stand just on the other side of a doorway. I don't care what you're doing: checking your phone, having a conversation, smoking a cigarette...move out of the damn way.

Public Bathroom Etiquette #1

Since this seems to be a recurring theme, I'm just going to start numbering them. So, strap in for the very first installment of Public Bathroom Etiquette!

 

Let's kick this series off by going on a little trip to the past. Twenty years ago, I remember being absolutely revolted by the bathrooms in my high school. So much so, that I did my best to not use them. Perhaps that's part of the reason I'm shit shy...

 

Fast forward to college. I remember thinking, Damn, these bathrooms are still absolutely disgusting. Maybe even worse than those in high school. I can't wait to graduate and get away from these morons.

 

Fast forward again to my first few weeks in the "real world." (Which, I'd like to point out, was a tad bit easier than working a 40-hour week at a farm store while taking 18 hours of physics and math courses, despite what so many people kept telling me. Let's just say that "Just you wait..." is not exactly one of my favorite things to hear.) I've graduated from college and entered the professional work force. I'm working in an office building with a bunch of other professionals. Absolutely no riff-raff allowed in here; we had a guard and everything. So imagine my horror when I spotted the little collection of boogers on the wall above the urinal, just like in high school and college.

 

That's when I realized: I'm still around the same people that I went to high school and college with. Sure, the names and faces have changed, but essentially the group composition is the same. All of which is to say that nothing changes. The general proportion of sick, nasty bastards remains the same, they just hide it better in public...mostly.

 

In my line of work, there are an over-abundance of acronyms. However, one I wish I'd never had to encounter is PnF. It stands for Pee-n-Flee, or Poo-n-Flee if you're just one mutation short of reverting back to a troglodyte.

 

Not washing your hands in my household - both growing up, and now - carries real consequences. And almost every level-headed person I've ever spoken to as an adult feels the same way. (I say almost, because one time at work I was introduced to a guy who was a confirmed PnF'er. I refused to shake his hand, even though it made the situation kind of awkward.)

 

I know I've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. My 3-year old knows how to wash his hands. Hell, if no one has ever shown you, I'll teach you, too. Wash your damn hands.

Where do they go?

I feel certain we've all had this happen: You get up and walk into another room, only to get there and not know what the hell you're doing. Well, I want to talk about that quirk's lesser known, more insidious cousin.

I work at a desk in an "office." Think "Office Space" and you won't be too far off. So, farting at my desk would be frowned upon, and just an unpleasant thing to subject my coworkers to in general. So what's a guy to do? Well, I don't know how others discreetly handle this issue, but I generally get up and walk to the bathroom, where I'm free to "take care of business" without fear of repercussion. (If you are an individual that just farts at your desk, may I suggest that this may be part of the reason people don't like you.)

However, from time to time, this all goes horribly awry. You see, it seems like sometimes my ass takes a cue from my brain, and upon arrival at the bathroom, is like, "<snicker>...What gas?" Just a moment ago, I was having painful cramps that seemed like they needed immediate attention. Now, I'm perfectly comfortable, without the slightest hint that anything was amiss. It's made worse by the fact that I know, as soon as I'm back at my desk, the cramps will return. This is an absolutely horrible trick to play on someone, and it's not appreciated.

Tiny Bubbles

I have this theory about consciousness. Bear with me and let me be cliche for a minute. I envision a stream...of consciousness, har har...flowing over a murky bottom. (Maybe, if you're stupid, it's more like a stagnant pool.) This murky bottom is your subconscious. Now, during the course of the regular day, you are assaulted by stimuli. In today's society, it's damn near sensory overload. The big things that you are actively engaged in - working, conversations, hobbies - all enter the stream. The little stuff like the commercial on the TV in the other room that you hear while fixing supper, I imagine just kind of skipping across the surface.

But every once in a while, one of these little ideas...concepts...nuggets...sinks like a rock. Straight through your consciousness - you might not even be aware of it - and plunks down in the mud of your subconscious. There, it festers.

"What the hell are you rambling about?" Bear with me, I'm getting to my point.

You ever get aroused for absolutely no damn good reason? (Every male reader just nodded.) You ever daydream about nothing in particular and then, as you snap out of it, are overcome by a sense of fear/joy/sadness/anger, but you can't figure out why?

I think that transitions to and from consciousness have a chance to disturb these little nuggets that are effervescing down below the surface. And sometimes...POP!...the thought bubbles out.

All of the sudden you're sitting at your desk at work wondering why the hell you're thinking about Jamie Lee Curtis in that damn Activia commercial...

I keel you!

I consider myself a very rational and skeptical person. I try not to adhere to beliefs or philosophies that I haven't at least given some serious thought to. So it can be frustrating to deal with another person's arguments that seem, on the surface, to be based on nothing at all. However, at some point in our lives, we're all guilty of it. I have found myself taking a side in some conversations, and realizing that I really don't have any good reasons for choosing my side other than some visceral appeal to emotion. Thankfully, that doesn't happen often.

Let me get this out of the way: I support the death penalty. And I have for as long as I can remember; or at least as long as I was able to fully understand what it was and what it entailed. I'm perfectly willing to admit that my early feelings about it were influenced by emotion, and had little rational thought behind them at all. As you might have guessed, I can be a pretty angry person; it's the one emotion I'm comfortable with. And so I use it to deal with many situations. However, I'm not violent or beligerent. And a vast majority of the time, I'm not even outwardly angry. I just tend to put things on simmer as I slowly pick them apart, analyze them, and finally file them away.

So what does all this have to do with capital punishment? Well, I was reading a thread on a forum the other day about abolishing the death penalty. Some (not all) of the responses were well thought out and articulate. And both sides were pretty well represented. But as I read more and more, I kept second-guessing my stance. Was it based on a visceral reaction? A need for revenge? Did my hot-headed teenage self still cling to this idea in defiance of my more tempered, rational, older self?

After a good couple of days of serious introspection, I'm happy to conclude that no; my stance remains the same. And my reasons are sound - or at least self-consistent. Rather than sum up the arguments on the thread, I'm just going to put my position out there. After all, this is my blog, and I can do what I want. There are plenty of other blogs you can read that will preach the saving of a life - ANY life.

As soon as humans started living together as groups, communities, societies, etc. it became necessary to set up rules. These rules define what we, as a society, think is acceptable. But that's not enough, is it? Because there will always be some asshat that doesn't care what you or your buddies think is acceptable. So there has to be some enforcement, and punishment, for when you break the rules. So our society says that to kill another, except in self defense, is wrong. Every time. If that's the case, how can I agree with allowing the government to kill someone? Isn't that just the government exacting revenge, which we've all agreed is also wrong? Well...not exactly.

The penal system provides pushishment for criminals that break our laws. But another primary, worthy, admirable, important goal is rehabilitation. My opinion, based on personal experience with other people besides myself, is that there are individuals for whom rehabilitation will never work.
What recourse does a society have for people like this? What punishment do we reserve for the most heinous crimes? The simple answer is to remove them from society. But even that is not so simple. The resounding argument, the one I see most often, is to simply remove them from society by incarcerating them until their death. Opponents of the death penalty will say that this is far preferable to denying them life; from actively taking their life from them. Well, I disagree.

First, I disagree because allowing individuals like this to exist and carry on living inside the penal system means that they have a chance to influence other people. Perhaps even other prisoners for whom rehabilitation is possible. That's not a risk I'm willing to take.

Second, there's no reasonable way of separating such a person from the general populace and ensuring - guaranteeing - that they will not be a threat to other humans; inmate, guard, or otherwise. And believe me, there are people out there who want to construct some kind of crazy structure like the one used to house Magneto in the X-Men movie. Well, this ain't a movie. Try to refrain from suggesting fictional solutions to our very real problem.

Finally, and this is a biggie, I don't agree that every human life has the same value. Before I start some major shit, or walk off the deep end of some sort of eugenics derail, let me clarify. I certainly don't propose some sort of sliding scale, or ranking. I'm merely suggesting that there are people out there who are perfectly happy murdering innocent people simply for their own enjoyment - and we should value their lives less than those who don't go around murdering people.

If murdering for fun was a popular human condition, there would be a society that embraced it, and we could send those individuals there. However, I'm not aware of such a place. Barring that, each society is forced to deal with this incredibly shitty situation. And I truly don't think there are ANY attractive options here.

There are twisted people out there, living among us. When we find them, I think we have to deal with them appropriately. And in my opinion, that means they should be removed efficiently and expeditiously from society. And the only option I think is viable is the death penalty.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about cases where rehabilitation can work. I'm talking about the sickest people out there. People like Javed Iqbal, Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Andrei Chikatilo. These people have no redeeming qualities. They have no place in society. And they have no value for human life. In cases like these, I feel the government should not shy away from its duty to protect its citizens.