Stuck in my craw. (What the hell is a craw anyways?)

Here's the deal: A lot of people walk into a roomful of strangers and think, "Oh, here's a group of people I don't know. I'm sure they're nice. I'd like to get to know them." Guess what. I'm telling you right now that that doesn't work. Here's a better, proven effective way to proceed. When you walk into a room of strangers, just think, "Oh, here's a group of assholes. I'll see which one can prove to me that they're not an asshole." Much better, believe me. Then you're never dissappointed at the end of the day. You'll never leave a room thinking, "Hey, I can't believe I thought so-and-so was a decent person. They turned out to be such an asshole!" It will always be, "I knew so-and-so was an asshole, and he just proved it."

One thing I've learned over the years is that the majority of people in this world are basically self-absorbed jerks. They care about themselves and no one else. Which is fine, as long as you keep that to yourself. It's when you become a total prick about it, willing to stab anyone in the back or walk on everyone else to get what you think you are entitled to, that it starts to effect those around you. And let me say this, no one in the world is really "entitled" to anything. Think about it. When thousands and thousands of immigrants came to this country years ago, from all over the world, did anyone say, "Hey, thanks for coming to America with your stinky-ass food and your bizarre foreign germs, here's several thousand dollars to help you out, because you're entitled to it." No. No one said that. Okay, maybe victims of crimes and their families are entitled to something, if it's coming from the piece of crap that commited the crime upon said victim. But the general public...not entitled, so give it up.

What put these thoughts in my head? Two words: Christmas shopping.

Holy crap! Is there something that goes off in the collective heads of Americans sometime right before Thanksgiving that makes them become bigger morons than they already are? You know, I don't need to buy a lot of gifts. And I get what I can on the Internet. But there are some things that I need to get in a store, especially for the kids. The mass of bug-eyed, zombified humanity out there in the malls and Targets and Wal-Marts of the country has collectively become the most ignorant pile of flesh ever. I was in the mall on Sunday to pick up a few things, and was knocked about relentlessly by people with shopping bags, none of whom had the simple common courtesy to say "excuse me." What the hell is that? Is it so difficult to acknowledge the fact that you're a clumsy prick? I came across people standing in the middle of an aisle in a store, blocking the way through. When I said "excuse me" to get by, they looked at me as if I was bothering them. And then we wonder why a teen walks into a mall with a AK-47 and lets loose. Yeah, it was the inexcusable act of a severely deranged mind, and too bad he didn't live to face the victim's families rage. But, on some level, wasn't it just the ultimate act of a person so pissed off by the assholes around him that his feeble mind finally snapped? Maybe if everyone was just a little nicer to the kid, eight innocent people would be alive today.

Okay, okay. I'm on a soapbox, and what I really want to be is funny. Sorry about that. Promise that my next entry will be a real hoot. As long as I'm done all my gift buying.