1. Chick-Fil-A--I can't stand this rotten place. I really hate everything about it. Their signature sandwich is a stinking piece of chicken with pickles. No lettuce, no cheese, no tomatoes, no onions. Just pickles. Are you kidding me? And if you want it as a combo with soggy waffle fries it's gonna cost you 5 bucks. If I wanted soggy waffle fries I'd go to the high school cafeteria. I have no idea why anyone eats at this place; I'll stick with 99 cent double cheeseburgers and 89 cent cheesy double beef burritos, thank you very much.
2. Dudes Wearing Capri Pants--WTH? I mean the first time I saw this I thought is that guy really wearing capris? What could ever possess a man to put on a pair of capris? You might as well wear a skirt and change your name to Nancy. I guess it's no surprise Ashton Kutcher is wearing them. It's pretty much what you'd expect from him. Let's just hope it doesn't become as popular as the trucker hat. And on a side note, I'm certain that everyone in Iowa where Ashton is from hates him. I know Midwestern people and they don't tolerate men in capris. 
3. Myself at Age 13--I can't think of anything worse than having to be 13 all over again. What a miserable time of life. The constant worries of am I gonna get beat up, being humiliated in sports that I sucked at, awkward school dances, getting dumped on my birthday, and on and on and on. The only people who enjoy being 13 are Chinese gymnasts.
4. Stupidity--I find stupidity in all its forms insufferable. There is nothing more obnoxious than a truly stupid person except for someone pretending to be stupid, i.e. Jessica Simpson or Paris Hilton. Although with those two, I'm not sure it's an act. God gave you a brain; use it people!
5. Red Robin--This is another restaurant that I can't stand. They have gourmet in their name which is complete farce. At least they serve burgers but they don't compare to their competition at all. I can go to Outback and get an excellent fresh hamburger with a baked sweet potato and warm bread for 8 bucks or I can go to Red Robin and spend 10 bucks for a factory stamped, assembly line, previously frozen disk of meat passed off as a hamburger. And if that wasn't bad enough, they try to sell you on the idea that you're getting some kind of value because you get all the mushy steak fries you can eat. Thanks but I'll pass.
6. The University of Utah--This was a hatred that developed later in life. I didn't even know the U of U existed until I was a Freshman at BYU. But once I got to BYU, I developed a hatred for everything related to the U of U. As a kid I thought I hated Purdue. I say thought because now that I hate the U of U, I know what it means to hate another school. I disdained Purdue; I vehemently abhor all things U of U.
7. Stuff on My Fingers--Whenever I eat chips or anything with my fingers it drives me crazy to still have stuff on them. I'm constantly trying to flick it off. Cheetos are the worst offenders but I still keep eating them.
8. Uneven Fingernails--This is a fairly recent neurosis that I've developed. If my thumbnails or index finger nails aren't perfectly smooth I need a nail file right away or I go a little nutty.
9. Reading the Paper--I was reading the Daily Universe the other day and thought to myself I hate this. You have to flip between different pages just to read one article and then you have to go back to start another article and then part of the paper falls out and then you try to fold it to make it more manageable but then you can't figure out where you started from. I hate the whole experience. It's all just so cumbersome and inefficient. And it gets ink all over my fingers which goes back my #7 of things I hate.
10. Country Music--I can't stand this inane garbage. It absolutely revels in stupidity and ignorance which goes back to my number #4 of things I hate. I'm convinced that any two bit hillbilly with an ounce of musical talent could be a country singer and if they can't make it as a singer, I'm sure their 3rd grade education and vocabulary would be more than sufficient to be a country music writer.
11. Soft Rock--This subject has already been treated extensively on this blog and suffice it to say my opinions haven't changed.
12. Sean Hannity--I made the mistake of tuning in to KSL the other day and listening to Sean Hannity. In less than five minutes I was ready to reach through the radio to strangle the life out of him. I'm certain that I share some of his views but he's such a smug, arrogant, pompous ass that it literally makes me ill to hear him.
13. Waking Up When It's Dark--When it's dark out, I just feel like I should still be in bed. And I hate that feeling of shock when you turn the lights on and your body revolts and screams GO BACK TO BED!
14. Whoopi Goldberg--How can someone as talentless and obnoxious as Whoopi be on TV? It's mind boggling. At least she's an inspiration. If Whoopi can be on TV, I guess anything really is possible.
15. The Medieval Club--What in the world would possess someone to dress up and re-enact the most wretched time period in all of history. Did they conveniently forget about peasantry, garbage and human waste filling the streets, a complete lack of personal hygiene, and the Black Plague! Come to think of it, the complete lack of personal hygiene, may actually be embraced by most members of the club. Put down your fake swords and goofy outfits and do something productive. Heck, you could even do nothing and that would be better than being in the medieval club.As a kid, I rarely caused any trouble outside of home. I was a smarty pants; my teachers liked me, and I was never really interested in deviant behavior. I got a detention in 6th grade for not doing my homework but that was about the worst thing I did. However, the hour before and after school spent on the school bus was a completely different story. It was like the Wild West…anything went, and I was often the instigator, or at a minimum, an active participant. At school I spent most of my time with other “good” kids, but on the bus there’s no chance for separation. Everyone is thrown together in one big melting pot. There are boys, girls, elementary, middle, and high school kids, the Amish, white trash, cool kids, nerds, rednecks, brothers and sisters, Christa Schipper ( Oh yeah!), farmers, the handicapped, and a bus driver who hates her life. I’m not certain the bus driver hated her life, but considering she had to drive around the aforementioned lot twice a day, I’d say it’s a given. So it was in this environment that the worst of me came out.
They say prison is often like school for criminals. Well the bus was kind of like that. We were always scheming to come up with something to top the last thing we did. One time a kid made blow darts out of needles and a straw. You never knew when you would get shot. Even the Amish joined in and would occasionally stick someone with a hat pin. I remember tying fishing line to my alarm clock and dragging it behind the bus. That was fun for awhile but quickly lost its appeal. Once we decided to pit two elementary school boys against each other. We convinced the one boy to spit in the face of the other and then convinced the other boy that he couldn’t be disrespected like that. We knew it would lead to a fight, and sure enough, when they got off the bus, at the trailer park no less, we were treated to a show of them duking it out. Another time we convinced a kid to stand up on his seat and play the air guitar while the bus was going down the highway. The bus driver was furious. She stopped the bus, made the kid stand on her seat up front, and play the air guitar for everyone. I’m sure it was humiliating for him, but we thought it was hilarious. Also, were you aware that if you open your bus window and spit, it will fly back in through an open window two seats back? We were; it’s a marvel of bus physics that works every time. But none of this stuff compared to our biggest stunt.
Like all boys I enjoyed fire. I wasn’t a pyromaniac or anything, but fire fascinated me. It’s just part of being a boy. I was never one to play with fire, but one day in gym class a kid sprayed a puddle of his aerosol deodorant on his locker, shut the lights out, and then lit it on fire. It was a pretty cool display and there was no smoke or damage done to the locker either. My friend Derek and I were impressed, and we decided this would be cool to try on the bus. So the next day I brought the matches and Derek brought the Right Guard; we determined to start a fire on the ride home that afternoon. We waited until nearly everyone was dropped off that way there would be fewer witnesses. We huddled in a seat toward the back of the bus, sprayed a bunch of Right Guard on the floor of the bus, and lit it.
It went off without a hitch. No smoke, no damage to the bus, and completely out of sight of the bus driver. It was a nice cool controlled blue flame. We thought we were pretty cool. We were starting fires on the bus and nobody knew anything about it! It became our little trick that we did often after that day.
Then one day Derek sat next to me and said, “Dude, I’ve got some model glue at home that says ‘Highly Flammable’”. I instantly replied, “Bring it in man; let’s start it on fire.” The Right Guard was getting a little boring and it was time to try something new.
The next day Derek brought the glue; I couldn’t wait to start this stuff on fire. Instead of waiting until the bus was empty like usual, I wanted to start the fire while the bus was still loading in the parking lot. Derek acquiesced and squirted a glob of the glue on the bus floor. I pulled out my matches and lit the glue. It was highly flammable alright! But instead of a nice cool controlled blue flame it produced instant black smoke. We stomped it out immediately, but it was too late. The bus driver knew something was wrong. I quickly gave the matches to Derek to hide and braced myself for the bus driver’s wrath. She stormed to the back of the bus and demanded to know if we had started a fire. I lied. Not just a little lie either, but a big fat fib. I said, “We didn’t start a fire. That would be crazy. There’s no way we would do something so stupid.” Then some little kid pointed at me and said, “That boy has matches.” At this point I took the lie to the next level. I stood up from my seat and pulled out my pockets to show they were empty and said, “Martha, do you think I would have matches on the bus? There’s no way I would do that. That’s totally crazy. I’d be in a ton of trouble if I had matches on the bus.” At this point Martha said something about not really believing us, but since she didn’t see any evidence of a fire, she wasn’t going to do anything. As she left we threatened the little kid that knarked on us with bodily harm if he ever ratted us out like that again, but we felt confident the whole thing was behind us. We were relieved to have escaped the situation unscathed.
Unfortunately we weren’t going to get off so easy. My sister’s friend and I’m pretty sure my sister too ratted us out later. Derek and I caught wind of the fact and knew we were in some serious trouble. I mean we had started a fire on the bus and totally lied about it. This was serious. So we started to scramble and tried to think how we could squirm out of this. It seemed hopeless until one of us came up with the idea to go see the Guidance Counselor. In my middle school, the Guidance Counselor was little more than an unqualified shrink that screwed up kids boo hooed to about all their issues. We had seen other kids go cry to the Guidance Counselor about their problems and get away with stuff so we figured we’d give it a try. We decided to tell her that we were in some way mentally impaired and had started the fire as a way to express our rage and anger toward our bus driver. We figured that if she bought the story and thought we were crazy maybe we’d get away with this.
While in gym class, Derek and I told our teacher that we needed to go see the Guidance Counselor. He stared at us and said, “What in the world do you two need to go see the guidance counselor for?” We refused to tell him and just said it was personal. I’m sure he thought we were a couple of flamers or something, but he let us go.
The Guidance Counselor ushered us into her office and inquired what the matter was. At this point we spilled the beans. We told her our bus driver was mean and nasty and that we couldn’t stand her. That she singled us out and made our lives miserable. We just couldn’t take it any longer and finally our rage bubbled over and was expressed by the fire we started.
We were hoping for sympathy and compassion; instead, as soon as we finished our story, the Guidance Counselor began to take us step by step through the process of expulsion. All the way down to what the judge would say, what the court room would look like, and what would be required of us. At this point, I remember thinking, “Oh, #@*&! I’m in serious trouble.” She sent us back to our class terrified of what would come next. We thought for a moment maybe there was some kind of Guidance Counselor-Student privilege thing and that she wouldn’t tell anyone. We knew it wasn’t true, but we hoped. We spent the rest of the day just waiting for the hammer to drop. We made it to our very last class of the day and then were called to the Principal’s office. What dread!
As we walked to the office, Derek said to just deny everything, never admit to anything. That was our only hope. We were ushered into the Principal’s office and there was our bus driver, her boss, and the Principal. Derek strolled in with a popsicle in his mouth and the Principal snapped at him, “Get that popsicle out of your mouth!” Then we were told to sit down and our principal asked, “Do you boys know why you’re here?” I’d decided to let Derek do all the talking. I knew I would cave. Derek responded and said he had no idea why he was there. The Principal wasn’t too happy and began to tell us that he knew all about the fire we had started on the bus and that we were in serious trouble. Then Derek with his cocky attitude said, “What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire.” The Principal lost it at this point. He jumped up out of his chair, slammed both hands onto his desk, and shouted, “Don’t make me come across this desk and slam dunk you. If you don’t tell me about the fire right now, I’m gonna jump across this desk and take you to the mat.” I was scared, and I guess Derek was too because he responded sheepishly, “Maybe there was a little fire.” So there it was. No more denying. We were had.
At this point I was expecting to get expelled or at best suspended. Our bus driver started to yell at us about how mad she was that we lied to her. Then her boss yelled at us for endangering a bus load of kids and told us that the seats on the bus create a toxic killer smoke if they catch on fire. (If that’s true, that’s a real hazard!) Finally our Principal yelled at us about being irresponsible and reckless and how disappointed he was in us. I knew the punishment was coming any minute now. How was I going to explain this to my parents? I thought “My mother’s going to kill me!” And just as I was waiting to hear my fate, the Principal told us to get out of his office and go back to class.
What? Just leave? No expulsion? You’re not calling my mother? Not even a detention? You mean if I don’t turn in my homework I get a detention, but if I start a fire on the bus, there’s no punishment? What’s going on here? To this day, I still have no idea how I got away with this.
That was the end of my fire starting days. Even though I didn’t get punished, I was scared straight! I had stared into the abyss, and I wanted no more.
So I read these two articles the other day and here are my thoughts:
While getting my hair cut the other day, I was forced to listen to the soft rock garbage playing on Magic 95. I was trapped; there was no escape. The experience nearly caused me to impale myself on the stylist's scissors. When you’re being subjected to a Lionel Ritchie song, plunging a pair of scissors into your throat seems like a viable option. Anything to stop the pain!
Starting running back suffered a season ending broken leg.
Starting QB went down with a separated shoulder. Not sure if it is season ending but I won't lose any sleep if it is.
