A RANT FOR WILL
If you’re the kind of person who believes that its stylish to walk around unshaven, in a pair of gym shorts and Addidas shower shoes with matching footie socks or you are one of those gals who insist on letting the whole world know how hot you are by allowing that freshly minted tramp stamp to peek out from under those sexy 3XL“Pink” sweatpants I want your attention for a moment. The loudmouth know it all as well as the guy that spouts off verbally in a public place on his cell phone, I want them to hear this too. And if by chance the person who can’t manage sitting through a stoplight without their loathsome music blasting and a fat, smug American finger up their nose all the way to the second knuckle, as if no one sees or hears your offensiveness, I have a disturbing bit of news for you too.

I don’t like any of you.

Well, let me re-phrase that. I don’t like stupidity and I don’t like ignorance. I’m not talking about the ignorance that causes someone to believe Amway is a good business opportunity or that the Tea-Baggers are going to set the country right. That’s just poor judgment. I’m also not referring to the ‘dumbing-down’ trend that has degraded the intellectual content of literature, education, news, and other aspects of American culture. The whole world more or less suffers from that.
What I am talking about is the insipid, tasteless and downright discourteous behavior that has polluted the urban landscape which we are all forced to experience on a daily basis. And the only reason they don’t lock up the angry civilized people like me for assault is because I silently acknowledge and begrudgingly respect the very American idea that you somehow have a God given constitutional right to be a total asshole if you so choose. I call this phenomenon AUI (American Urban Ignorance). These behaviors, which occur in most East Coast cities can also be observed out in suburban and rural areas. A perfect example of AUI occurred last February.
It was one of those winters in Philadelphia where the temperature changed daily. One day it was all ice and snow and cold. This after it had been much warmer. People didn’t know how to dress. Because of this weird weather, illness often develops. Getting sick in an East Coast city in the dead of winter when you’re 100% healthy is highly probable. For me it’s a bit like Russian Roulette with 3 bullets. I just can’t stand being around germy, septic people anymore, especially in the place where most thoughtless, germ-ridden troglodytes congregate: on mass transit.
Well here’s the thing. I had to go to the welfare office one Wednesday up on Buttonwood Street. So I took the subway from South Philly into Center City. It’s all of a 10 minute ride. I remember I was coughed on seven times, sneezed on twice, farted on, sat in some sticky mystery bio solution and enjoyed the personal odor of several different non-washing, iPod impaired, public transit patrons. I got off at my stop immediately grabbing for the hand sanitizer. I’d turned into Lord Sani-tosis, King of the Germophobes.
The Buttonwood welfare office is in a post-apocalyptic, urban blighted neighborhood resembling what George Romero would use to film a zombie movie. Although it was a short walk to my destination I was only half-right about Mr. Romero’s zombies. They were all actually inside the government office, either working for the Department of Public Welfare or sitting in the waiting room of the damned. After 3 hours of enjoying the obligatory red-tape, retardation and run-around, I had slowly gotten used to their luxuriant, hard plastic folding chairs and accepted all the coughing, hacking, spitting, wheezing, nose-blowing and stinking that only an inner city public welfare waiting room can provide. A restless boredom lurked and I soon became aware of a new evil contagion that had surrounded me. I shall call it ‘OVD’ (Offensive Verbal Diarrhea).
I can’t begin to mention some of the pollution that ignorant cell phone users soiled that waiting room air with. Things like… “LOKEESHA SAY THAT SORE MEAN BABY DADDY HAVE THE HERPEEES…. Isn’t that charming? Resisting restless boredom, my mind started to wander. Was LOKEESHA a doctor? If so, what Medical College did DR. LOKEESHA attend? Did DR LOKEESHA take a biopsy or run any tests? More importantly: why the Hell were people completely ignoring the God-damned “No Cell Phones” signs plastered everywhere? Why was I listening to this? I had to tune-it-out. I had let these people in my head. The waiting room had metaphorically infected my mind.
I finally got out of that zoo once they gave me my food stamp card. HUZZAH! I can buy government cheese, powdered milk, filet and lobster tails all on the taxpayer dime. $205/mo. That’s worth a sore throat or a few sniffles, eh? How’s about a long hospital stay with advanced pneumonia? Or a tiny bit of your mental health? See? See how the mind of Lord Sanitosis works?
Honestly, I would rather pull down my pants in the middle of the next Philadelphia winter storm and make sweet, sweet love to the cold metal crack in the Liberty Bell than to ride that goddamn urine-soaked subway or sit in another Petri dish waiting room with the IGNORAMI. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Riding in a maggot-filled wooden shit cart pulled by a mule with chronic diarrhea would be less offensive than taking Septa. And if I’m ever forced to needlessly sit and listen to crap for any length of time in a public place like a Doctor’s waiting room I’ll be buying ammo in bulk. If I see one more fat girl trying to look sexy in stretchy pants, it’s ON. Or one more backwards baseball cap. Or one more opinionated, loud talking know it all fuck in line at the self checkout. And if I’m sounding a bit judgmental, I assure you I am not alone in my judgment. Ask around.
Listen, here’s some friendly advice. Avoid sitting directly behind the mule when you’re riding in life’s shit-cart. At all costs avoid Septa (Slow-Expensive-Perpetually-Tardy-Assholes) especially on the subway. Most of all avoid the germy, creepy, ig’nant zombie cell phone people. They’ll eat your brains. They really will.
One last thing to my friend, the nose-picker: Please end the show. Just because you’ve unilaterally decided that the traffic light will serve as an extension of your living room doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to sit and watch as you strip mine your snot-locker. Show some fortitude and properly discipline yourself. The public thanks you.