Pet Peeve of the Day

Having crawled out from under my rock, I decided to spend the day browsing the internet. Just some random browsing. And I stumbled upon my mother's local newspaper and an article published last week. MAN DOES THIS BURN MY ASS!!

Step 1: U.S. Surgeon General publishes a report on the dangers of second-hand smoke.
Step 2: Local law enforcement decides it is their duty to label smoking with a child in the vehicle as CHILD ABUSE!
Step 3: Charge all people caught smoking in a vehicle with a child with a Class 1 misdemeanor ($1,000 fine! That'll make 'em quit smoking!)
Step 4: Decide smoking in your home is child abuse!
Step 5: TOTAL VIOLATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS!!

Maybe I'm stretching things a bit. Maybe my visions of perfectly happy homes being disrupted by SWAT teams wielding automatic weapons and bullet-proof vests is going overboard. Maybe I just think that the government should mind their own fucking business and let me raise my kid!

What's next? Are they going to arrest me if I buy my kid a Happy Meal. Why not? Isn't just as dangerous to let my kid get fat? Doesn't a diet high in saturated fats clearly endanger my child's well being? What if I let them get a dog? What if it might someday bite? Isn't it dangerous to have my kid in a car at all? What if I let them play in the mud? Or eat a bug!! Or skin thier knee!! What if I don't apply Neosporin to every cut every time? What if I think it's okay for them ride a bicycle? Or climb a tree!! What if I cut my chicken and vegetables on the same cutting board? What if I let them try sushi? What if I'm okay with them playing video games? Or watching R-rated movies? Or listening to Rap!!! What if I let them ride horses? What if I let them swim in lakes? What if I let them go fishing? What if I don't make them tie their shoe laces? What if I forgot to read them Mother Gooses Nursery Rhymes every fucking night?

Seriously!!

Yes, I realize that smoking is the parent's choice and the child has no say in it. Therefor the national dictatorship feels it necessary to force us to do what is right. In that case... lets assess all the other "ADULT" choices that affect children.

What if I never marry her father? What if I do? What if I divorce him? What if I refuse to let her see some of her family members? What if I force her to see others? What if I make her go to school? What if I make her do her homework? For that matter, what if I let her skip school one day? What if I don't make her eat her vegetables at every meal? What if I don't force her to see a therapist? What if I let her eat chocolate cake for breakfast? What if I rub whiskey on her gums when she's teething? What if I let her watch too much TV? What if I don't pick her up when she cries? Do we pass a law that makes breast-feeding mandatory because it is better for children's health?

Let me make sure I've got this straight...
...I could be drunk every night, never hold my child, never tell them I love them, force my child to grow up in some fucked up relationship that is unhealthy, feed her crappy food, let her vegitate in front of the TV, never make her take a bath, and allow her to drop out of school... but as long as these activities aren't actually "harming" her it's okay... GOD FORBID I SMOKE A CIGARETTE IN A CAR WITH HER!!

Can we say, "HAIL HITLER!!!"?

People are STUPID!!

Okay, so my mother just posted about a shooting in her area that made the news.

Check out her post HERE.

You can read the newspaper article HERE.
And another article about it HERE.

Basically, to sum it up, a 19-year-old girl heard an intruder outside her boyfriend's trailer. She got a gun & went to the door. The intruder ends up being someone she knows and he pushes his way into the house & will not leave when she threatens him. When he advances further, she shoots him at least twice & kills him.

The real kicker is when you read the comments that were left by readers.
I tried to sort them by subject so that I could address them in groups.

• Why would she go to the door at 2 am. If she was scared enough to grab a gun why not call the police and just stay inside. Sounds fishy to me. (be)
• . . . . so call the cops if he had been breaking in before . . . obviously you knew this was happening, so it was mentally planned, "if he does this again, I'll be ready" so that doesn't make it self-defense to me, it makes it premeditated . . . . (glts)
• . . . . that is why you don't open your front door in the middle of the night. If I was scared to death, I would not even cracked the door. She intended to shoot him before she opened that door. (A)
• . . . . she's so scared she needs a gun, but she opens the door? She knew who it was! . . . . (pg)
• . . . . they said he pushed his way in but she was the one that had the door open to begin with. If she was not comfortable with David then why even open the door a little bit? . . . . (lm)
• . . . . I hope the police look into this very good. There is a lot more to this than meets the eye . . . this is the guy that was at their house many times . . . He was there just the day prior . . . . (kir)

Okay, you think there's an intruder so you grab a gun. You find out that it's just some jerk you know trying to get into your house. You crack the door and tell him to leave but he pushes inside. He doesn't leave when you threaten him. SHOOT THE BASTARD!!

At no time was this girl obligated to go put the gun away just because she found out she knew who was at the door. The fact that she knew him does NOT give him the right to force his way into the house. The fact that she shot him before he could hurt her does NOT automatically put her in the wrong. In most cases where a woman is raped, beaten or killed, the attacker is someone SHE KNOWS!!

Even if she was able to get to phone and call the police to take care of the intruder, a lot can happen between the time she makes the phone call and the time the police actually get organized to enter the home. This man was obviously not phased by her pointing a loaded weapon at him! That in itself is enough of a threat for me to justify shooting him!

• Did he have any kind of weapon? Last I knew you couldn't just shoot people for entering your house . . . . (be)
• . . . . I'm not sure you can just shoot someone even if he enters your home . . . . (vvum)
• If he didn't have a weapon and was not physically threatening her, I think she is in trouble. (w)

Who cares if the man had a weapon or not? As far as I am concerned HE was a weapon! The man spent 12 years in the state pen. He has five felony charges on his record. Two of those are for 3rd Degree Assault! He's been out of prison less than a year. That is enough for me to view the man as a threat and capable of committing violent acts.

• I'd like to know where the boyfriend was during all this. (sf2m)

What does that have anything to do with it? He wasn't home. It doesn't matter if he was at work, at a friends, getting drunk, getting high, or screwing a hooker. She WAS home and she DEFENDED herself!

• . . . . how can any of you say people deserve to die like that. Unless they hurt a child or kill someone. He's not perfect, far from it, but to die? No . . . . (sf2m)
• . . . . no one deserves to be shot. I would rather call the police and let them handle the intruder then take a life . . . . (AR69)

Hate to burst the "life is precious" bubble, but frankly, some people DO deserve to die! Would it make a difference if there had been a child in the house? Would it matter if she had been a 17-year-old girl at her parent's house? Was she supposed to wait until after he had attacked her? Would you have waited until after he attacked you or your wife or your daughter? It's sad, but some people do deserve to die. You can say that you would have rather had the police handle him, but if you were standing face to face with someone who might hurt you, I doubt you would just lay down without a fight and just hope the cops rescued you.

• . . . . were drugs involved? (ps)

I don't care if she was high as a kite. It doesn't matter if she was a junkie. It is irrelivant if they were selling drugs. This is a case of a man who pushed his way into a home and refused to leave when threatened with a weapon. Anything involving drugs is totally unrelated. Half of that town does drugs and a third of those people are in some pretty high positions. Being a "pot head" does not mean that you forfit your right to defend yourself from an intruder!!

• I know who she is and she is full of it. He was probably already in the house and she shot him because he was all cracked out. Why did she have a gun? I know it wasn't hers. (gwts)
• Did the girl have a handgun permit? If not she could be in a lot of trouble. (sf2m)
• A few questions, was the gun legal, or was it even her gun? Why does a 19-year-old have a gun? Why does she know where a gun is in her boyfriend's home? (ps)

A rifle does not require a permit. Any teenager can own a rifle or shotgun. Why wouldn't she know that her boyfriend had a rifle? Are rifles a big secret these days? If she's staying alone in his home, you can probably assume that she knows things a lot more intimate about him than the fact that he has a rifle.

There, I think I've addressed all the ridiculous comments that were left.

I was simply stunned by the stupidity of people and the war that was being waged between people who claim to have known both parties. Out of 159 comments left, only a handful were anything more than rumor, speculation, or accusation. I've simply concluded that people are STUPID and have no lives!! I of course had to read through all of the comments just to remind me of how glad I am that I no longer live in that area.

The gene pool could really use a life guard!!

Frankly...

We've been married a year! You just weren't invited!!

Okay, here’s something I just don’t understand about our society. I don’t understand why it is that when people find out that an unmarried couple is pregnant, the first question that pops into their mind is, “Well, are you going to get married?”

So, upon further thought I can understand how this might pop into one’s mind, it’s only human nature to wonder these things. However, it puts a whole new meaning to the word “untactful” when you have the nerve to actually ask the couple, “So, are you going to get married?”
I mean honestly, there are only two logical reasons I can think of for why you would ask this question outright (maybe that’s because only two people have actually asked us).

The first reason that you may ask a couple this question is really quite simple. Your religious denomination has convinced you that the proper thing to do is to get married. This is one reason, as annoying and stupid as I might find it, that I can actually forgive. I can forgive it because I have learned that religion has a tendency to overrule simple common sense and human decency. However, I cannot help but ponder this for a moment. If your religion believes that this is the next logical step in life, than I must assume that it probably feels that the couples previous lifestyle was “sinful” and that the unborn child was conceived in an act of “sin”. That being said, why would someone of such a strong religious faith care whether or not the couple continued to live in “sin” or whether they tried to cover up the “sinful” act by getting married? Being totally confused by this, I must admit that I hold no grudge against my child’s grandmother for asking this of her son. She asked the question, he told her we weren’t and she graciously accepted his choice. Regardless of what she may or may not think, she has the class and human decency to keep her opinions to herself on the matter. I like her!

The second reason that you might ask a couple this question is not nearly as simple and falls more into a category of sinister. You are really just a good for nothing, nosey, gossip-whoring, rumormonger (as I believe was the case with the other person who asked us this question). This person really doesn’t care what your intentions are or why you might choose one path over another. All they really want is to get as much information as they can to gossip to their friends about you. In this case, there is really no wrong or right answer to the question at hand. If you tell the person, “Yes, we think that marriage is the next logical step,” they will tell all their friends how tragic it is that you are getting married because you got pregnant. If on the other hand, you tell this person that you do not believe a baby is a good reason to get married, they are likely to tell their friends how tragic it is that your poor child will be born a bastard. (Just a note here: If I ever hear anyone call MY child a bastard, they will need some serious dental work done in the near future.)

I’m certain that there are probably a few other reasons that someone might ask this question of an unmarried couple who was expecting, but I am not yet aware of these reasons because everyone who really knows the two of us has not needed to ask. They simply knew us well enough to realize that we do not believe a baby is the right reason to get married. Oh, we may talk about it now and then, and we may crack a joke here and there, but at this particular moment in our pre-baby lives we are not seriously considering getting married before the baby gets here.

So I am still perplexed at why we find it acceptable to ask a pregnant couple (I use that term lightly because it is obvious to anyone with two eyes that only ONE of us is pregnant!) if they have any plans to get married in the near future. I mean think about it this way. If a married couple came up to you and told you they had decided not to have any more children, would you immediately ask, “Oh, well are you getting a divorce?” I’m certain that unless you were talking to my biological father this question would never enter your mind. Why is that? Getting a divorce is almost as “trendy” as getting married these days!

Stop Pretending Already!

Everyone has at least one person in their life that just won't seem to go away. You know, that asshole relative that insists on making everyone's lives miserable and who just refuses to die. Or that idiot ex that still lives in the same neighborhood as you and has become a constant reminder of something you'd just soon forget. Everyone has them. That neighbor who parks in your spot every chance they get or lets their dog piss on your rose bushes in the middle of the night. There are just some people who seem to stick around like bad pennies and pop up at the most inopportune moments in your life.

My question is, "Why do you try to pretend they don't exist?" Oh yes, I understand that we'd all like to let bygones be bygones and we all have these strange delusions of being "better people".

But honestly, there are just some things in life that are not going to go away. As much as we'd like to move on and get past things, there will always be at least one person who insists on making your day shitty.

So stop pretending that everything is all sunshine and light and start tuning into your dark side.

I must admit that I'm generally a pretty chipper person who is easy going and doesn't hold too much of a grudge. I tend to be pretty forgiving, though far from naive, and I try to make the best of the worse situations. I'm positive enough to be able to look back on my life and honestly say, "I have no regrets!" Given the opportunity to do it all again, I wouldn't change a damn thing, because frankly, that would change who I am today. Even in my most idiotic of moments, I have walked away from my mistakes a better person for having made them.

That being said, I am certainly not all flowers and daisies!

I do not pretend for a moment that the things that irritate me ARE NOT THERE. Every day, on my way to work, I must drive past my ex-husband's workplace and see HIS truck parked in the front lot. As much as I'd like to forget that someone like him is roaming around WASTING PERFECTLY GOOD OXYGEN, I can't for the life of me do it. Each morning, I find myself glancing in the direction of the parking lot and finding that red truck. On a good day, I take little more than a passing glance. On a bad day, I mumble obscenities under my breath and imagine flipping him the bird if he were there to see it. Then there are those days where I imagine that he was walking across the road to get something at the gas station and my brakes mysteriously fail.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I dwell in the past. I'm very happy with my current life and 90% of the time I don't even give a passing thought to the negative aspects of my life. It's just the fact that some things just don't disappear. And I figure, if they aren't going to go away then THERE IS NO SENSE IN PRETENDING THEY AREN'T THERE.

I think that is just unhealthy all around.

If you convince yourself that these things are no longer in your life and that there is no possible way you could be reminded of them ever again, then you are setting yourself up for total failure when all of the sudden you pass them on the street.

On the other hand, if you've practiced flipping them off every morning, then it will be no big surprise when you meet them at the gas station 6 months from now. It'll just be second nature to flip them off and proceed with your day unscathed.

So my advice to you is to STOP sweeping your nosey neighbor under the rug. STOP hiding your ex lover in the closet with the rest of the skeletons. STOP trying to be the image of perfection that you will never be able to fully attain!

Instead, get out your HIP WADERS; march through the daily BULL SHIT of life, HOLD YOUR HEAD UP HIGH and PROUDLY PROCLAIM that you are well aware that your best friend's neighbor is the same PIECE OF CRAP that you mistakenly fell in love with 10 years ago.

DON'T HOLD BACK!

DON'T live in a delusion and allow the assholes of the world to somehow alter your views on reality!

TAKE OFF your damned rose-colored glasses and come to terms with the fact that while you are generally a good person who tries to do right, you wouldn't mind seeing some people plastered on a missing persons report!

You can't undo your past and it isn't going to go away,

SO DAMN IT...

AT LEAST BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF!!!