Not Picky

My oldest has started recording Minecraft videos. If you’re not familiar with the concept, this means he records himself playing the game for awhile, then puts the video on YouTube for the world to watch. I had no idea there was such a demand for videos of blocky graphics with a soundtrack of a pre-teen boy saying, “So…yeah,” every two and a half minutes.

He’s very excited about it, to the point that every other word out of his mouth is “record,” and every plan he relates to me of his future—ten minutes from now or ten years from now—includes a provision for “recording.”

During these conversations, I’m reminded of the wife of a former coworker, who almost got herself strangled for a similar transgression. I’m willing to put up with this  behavior in my kid, but in a relative stranger it was unforgivably aggravating.

Her husband and I were on a business trip together, and since he was staying for two weeks, she joined him for the second one. Our time overlapped by only one day, but it was a very long day.

We collected her at the airport, and on the drive to the hotel (approximately 30 minutes) she proved herself to be amazing: competent, efficient, and skilled. I know because she told me. Six times.

She was also apparently a horseback rider, and we were near an area that’s famous for its horses. She was planning to hit up a nearby stable and do a little riding. I know this because she told me. Fourteen thousand times.

“I was thinking of doing a little sightseeing. If I’m not riding, that is.”

“I’ll probably go shopping for presents for the kids on Thursday, unless I’m riding, of course.”

“I’m thinking of riding on Tuesday, so that might not be the best night to go out for a fancy dinner.”

But the best thing, the thing that made me want to shove her under a train, was that night when we went out to dinner.

There was an area where lots of restaurants were clustered together, so we went there. She assured me that she was not at all particular, and anything would do. We examined the first menu board. Her husband and I both said it looked fine. She pursed her lips.

“I don’t know…there’s not really anything here that strikes me…” We walked away to check out another restaurant while she breezily declared, “But you know, I’m easy—I’ll eat anything.”

Next restaurant.

“Well…I’m not really in the mood for Mexican.” Off we went.

“But I don’t care—anything is fine with me. I’m not a picky eater.”

Oh yeah? From what I can tell you’re actually what picky eating would be if picky eating were given human form and a superior attitude. But whatever.

Finally, on the recommendation of the maître’ d of another restaurant (Him: “What kind of food were you hoping for?” Her: “Oh, I’m not particular—I eat everything.” I rolled my eyes so hard it took 15 minutes to get them back in place after that exchange), we found someplace she would deign to sample. They served seafood. We ordered and our meals arrived. Because I was raised with manners, I asked how her entrée was. I didn’t actually care.

“Oh, well, you know, it’s okay, but this is a citrus sauce, and I sort of prefer a cream sauce.”

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to lose my shit. I wanted to say, “Then why did you not read the fucking menu, where it said that the dish you ordered was served with a citrus sauce and not a cream sauce, you self-involved, conceited, irritating twatwaffle?

You will understand when I say I was not disappointed in the least when she declared she was too tired for any further socializing after dinner. No chance for us to become lifelong friends? Darn.

I have no idea if she rode. I have no idea if she was able to find seafood with a cream sauce. I got on an airplane the next morning and left before the urge to shove her under a train became overwhelming. Or rather, became irresistibly overwhelming.

Have you ever wanted to shove someone under a train? Have you ever had someone who was clearly an exceptionally picky declare that they were not? Do you prefer cream sauce, or citrus sauce?

Dogs and Dingbats

Our topic today is dogs. Not my dog, though. I do have a dog, but he’s not funny. In fact, he breaks a cardinal rule in my household that everyone who lives there is required to give me material or they’re out. He’s on notice.

Anyway, in the past few months I’ve had a couple of interactions with other people who have dogs, and it is they about whom we will be talking.

The first was an experience at the grocery store recently. As I was walking out of the grocery store, a kid on a skateboard came zipping through the parking lot, up to the door of the store, popped up his skateboard and walked in. A dog in a car parked in the lot saw this, launched itself out of the car (and into the parking lot traffic, which was fortunately going slowly enough that nothing bad happened) and ran into the store after the kid. (It was pretty clear the dog didn’t know the kid; it turned out the dog just didn’t like skateboards.)

I saw this, turned around and went back into the store. I alerted the courtesy clerk, who read the dog’s tag and made an announcement over the PA system for the dog’s owner. It happened that the woman who owned the dog was right at the front of the store, and walked up to see if this was, in fact, her dog. It was.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed, upon the realization that this was her pet. “How on earth did you get out of the car?” She kept saying things like, “How did you manage this? How in the world did you do this?” Gee, lady, I don’t know—maybe it was all four of the windows you left rolled all the way down? She was positively mystified as to how her dog was able to get out of the car and into the store.

She wasn’t concerned with why (to be fair, I guess it didn’t really matter), but she was baffled by the idea that a dog could jump out of an open car window. It was a pretty warm day, and it would have been wrong to leave the dog confined in the car, so leaving all the windows open was appropriate, but for the life of her she couldn’t conceive how the dog managed to get out of the car and into the store. Really, you dingbat?

But I seem to find myself often in the company of dingbat dog owners (point for research: is this because dog owners are more likely to be dingbats than owners of other pets?). The other experience I have to relate involves a woman at the video store, and her conversation with the male video clerk. And in this case, the woman dog owner was a dingbat, but the guy wasn’t much better.

The woman was renting “Marley and Me,” and she and the clerk were talking about their respective dogs. Now, point one: the woman talked in a baby voice and referred to dogs as “doggies” (acceptable only if you are under the age of 5), and point two: well, I don’t really have a point two beyond the fact that they were both dopes. They had this exchange in my hearing:

Her: What’s your doggie’s name?

Him: Charlie.

Her: That’s a great name.

Him: Yeah, I like one syllable names for dogs.

So right away my twitdar is going off. It’ll probably come as a surprise, but I have a very low tolerance for that sort of thing.

The conversation moved on to the movie she was renting. Now, maybe I’m just ultra-dialed in (fact: I am not) but even I know the basic tenants of “Marley and Me” and I’ve never read or seen it. Yellow lab, ill-behaved but irresistibly charming anyway, dies at the end. Right? This woman, who was apparently new to Planet Earth, or spent the last five years on a raft in the middle of the ocean with no contact with the civilized world, knew nothing about the movie beyond the name, and the fact that it has a dog in it. I assume she acquired this information from the box.

The clerk told her about his reaction to the movie, clearly trying not to give away the one critical plot point (THE DOG DIES). He told her how moving it is (THE DOG DIES). He told her how it made him feel really emotional about his own dog, Charlie (THE DOG DIES). He mentioned the amusing madcap antics of the main character (THE DOG DIES).

At this point the clerk who was helping me handed me my movie and said, “Due back Wednesday” or whatever. And thank goodness she did, because I was seconds away from turning to the woman renting “Marley and Me” and saying loudly, “THE DOG DIES.” (It took a lot of effort not to do this.)

I suppose it’s possible that I am a dingbat dog owner. I certainly confess that I have my moments of dingbattery. But I like to think that I’m at least capable of figuring out how my dog would go about getting out of a car when every single window was rolled all the way down. And also? THE DOG DIES.