Welcome to the ‘09 show. If you’re like me, you may have spent a tiny fraction of your winter break wondering why the hell you know the lyrics to “The Bad Touch” by heart but couldn’t remember shit when you sat down to take your finals. It’s sad to think that this may speak volumes about my personal priorities.
Now that we’re all back in school, a.k.a. the second happiest place on earth, it’s time to focus on the year ahead: namely, that self-improvement thing. No, I’m not gonna drop the R-bomb, but you know what I’m talking about. There’s more to a new year than just crowding the ARC in hopes that going every day for a week will make you instantly sexy, though there’s really nothing like Try Before You Buy week to make you realize that all those holiday cookies put you on the fast track to Coronary Row.
Alas, I refer to more serious concerns. The fact is that there are some people who desperately need to get their shit together for society’s sake. These people may not know just how dire they make life, but the rest of us are here to let them know. We need to band together and save the douches of the world! The rest of us don’t deserve to put up with what they bring to the table. And so, craftily, I’ve constructed a guide on how to identify (or self-identify, perhaps) said douches.
The flake is the person who always says, “We should hang out soon!” and you, in turn, nod and say, “Yeah, that’d be cool,” in the most half-assed way imaginable because you know they’re full of rap. They always have the lamest excuses for bailing on you, and it’s gotten to the point where you don’t even take them seriously. Often they’ll just say they’ve been “sooo” busy. Everyone’s busy doing certain things when you think about it; I don’t see what makes them so much busier than everyone else.
The arguer refers to he who argues just for the sake of arguing. They will pick a verbal fight with you over any issue – gay rights, global warming, Ashlee Simpson’s nose job – because they always have to be right. Eventually it gets to the point where they stop making sense but keep arguing anyway because they’ll die if they don’t prove their point. They want to drag you down to their level. Do not fall for it. They’re just as bad as the friend who never fails to say, “I told you so” every time you fuck up.
The whiner simply never shuts up at all. Everyone’s entitled to complain, but these people do it excessively in situations where it not only doesn’t help, but is just annoying to the people around them. I was on a bus last year when it hit another car and everyone started bitching and moaning about how they were going to be late to class. Yeah, because that was gonna make everything better.
The whiner sometimes coincides with the princess, who whines because she’s gotten everything she’s ever wanted and whining has become a way of life for her. So I guess, by her reasoning, it makes sense for her to whine that a party sucks when she knows damn well that the only other option she has is to go home and file her nails while she watches a “Gossip Girl“ rerun.
Perhaps the worst of all the major character flaws is the asshole. These people think the world revolves around them. They are the ones who honk repeatedly in traffic because they don’t realize that it’s not cool to throw a hissy-fit in public. The asshole goes out of their way to be an asshole; it does not just happen. They are the ones who go through the trouble of calling the cops on your party instead of just telling you to keep it down, who speed up to cut you off on the freeway and probably end up being the kind of people found dead a week after the fact because the mailman thought something smelled funky out on the front porch. This is because nobody likes an asshole. I’m pretty sure the asshole usually suffers from either deludedly high or rock-bottom low self-esteem with no middle ground.
And so, for those of you who just skipped this entire column to read the last line because you didn’t want to bother with the whole thing and want me to get to the freaking point (yeah, I do this all the time, too) I say that in 2009 people should make it a priority to chill the fuck out. And if you suck, please stop sucking, ‘kay thanks.
MICHELLE RICK can be reached at marick@ucdavis.edu.
