The Airing of Grievances

The tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances. And as Frank Costanza famously said, "I gotta lot a problems with you people, now you're going to hear about it!"

Use this list as a little bit of inspiration before you bring your own list of grievances tonight to the Grey Lodge Pub starting at 6pm. You don't want to miss it! There will be a Festivus Pole and the Feats of Strength (with prizes). There will also be the greatest Holiday beers known to man: Goose Island Xmas, Great Lakes Xmas, Manayunk Festivus, Penn St. Nicholas Bock, Rogue Mogul Madness, Scaldis Noel, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Sly Fox Xmas, Troegs Mad Elf! It's a Festivus Miracle!!!!


1. Digital books

Don't try to convince me this is a good thing because I don't believe it. Ok, so maybe we'll save some trees and some money in education because it will be cheaper than replacing vast amounts of textbooks and blah, blah, blah. LIES. The replacement of vast amounts of the tangible printed word into something digital that can be edited and changed on a mass scale in the blink of an eye? Kinda scary if you think about it. When the revolution happens, I'll be sitting in front of the Library of Congress locked and loaded with my finger on the button and I will blow anyone away that happens to wander near me with a Kindle.  Clearly, I'll be allowed to do that because I'll be President at that point since I'm one of the fewer than 25,000 people in this country who still actually read and all your knowledge went up in digital smoke. I have this BOOK that shows me how to make fire, bitches. BOOM. That's the sound of your knees hitting the pavement. Worship me.

Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to watching a marathon session of "Doomsday Preppers" while perusing land listings in North Dakota, MRE and custom bunker catalogs.

2. My children
We all knew this was coming. Let me tell you a story about my life "before children". Before I had children, I worked with brain injury patients. My job was to assess their cognitive and social strengths and weaknesses as a result of their injuries in preparation to return to the community and more importantly, their jobs.  I worked with a range of patients; basic customer service positions all the way up to company CEO's, lawyers, and pharmaceutical reps. I was good at my job. Damn good. And I loved it. Why? Mainly, because I got to boss people around and tell them what they were doing wrong and how to do it better? Yeah, kind of.

So anyway, I had decided when my oldest son was born that I was going to stay home with him until he was in first grade. Clearly I was more than up for the task of motherhood because I had 6 years worth of clinical psychology training (undergrad and grad, plus internships) under my belt. My children would be the shining models for cognitive-behavioral intervention and positive reinforcement. Who better to raise my kid than my own genius self?

This is a list of things I cannot get my darling children to do despite my best efforts:

• Stop picking their nose and eating it. In the house. In the car. In public. EVERYWHERE.
• Finish their entire dinner without breaking down and bribing them. 
• Get dressed in the correct order. (We do this EVERY frickin day and EVERY day my 4 year old acts as if it's the first time he's ever heard the news that his underwear goes on before he puts his pants on.) 
• 
• Keep their shoes and socks on in the car. This is mainly my youngest and he KNOWS it sets me off. I've tried making him walk from the car into the house (Little effer found the only knee deep puddle in a 1 block radius and jumped in it. Grrrrrr!!) and apparently applying superglue to kid's feet is against some kind of law. He's an apocalyptic version of Johnny Appleseed; he doesn't plant and create things, he destroys them.

This is a list of things I do on a regular basis to deal with the above issues (please note NONE of this was in any of the expensive developmental psychology books and classes I attended.)

• Scream and yell like a crazed person. 
• Drink wine like I live on the street. 
• Regularly flip them the bird behind their backs while muttering under my breath how it would be so easy to just run off to Mexico. Little ingrates.
• Think about trading this mommy gig in to return to work and then realizing how much I would miss the insanity. *Sigh* I'm such a sucker.....   

3.  Tobey Maguire
I'm continuously baffled how he finds work as an actor. He may be a great person, secretly brilliant, and a wonderful human being but I REALLY don't get him or his supposed acting prowess. The only thing that I think he was remotely good in was the opening scene in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" mostly because he had a total screen time of about 3 minutes and Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro dominated the scene by tripping balls. Keanu Reeves is a better actor than Tobey Maguire and that's saying A LOT. At least Keanu occasionally inflects (I. am. an. F.B.I agent!) and has the tiniest of sparks behind the eyes. I was all excited when I saw that they're doing a new version of "The Great Gatsby" because I LOOOOVE anything F.Scott Fitzgerald and the party chapter of the book may be one of the greatest things I've ever read. Then I found out Tobey was in it. Done. Killed it for me completely. If I want to watch somebody stare with dull, lifeless eyes and an open mouth for 2 hours, I'll take myself on the El to watch the junkies coming down off their fix for free.

This guy has a net worth of $75 million dollars. Let that soak in for a minute.

4. People who wear tights/leggings as pants. 
If it says "tights" or "leggings" on the package when you bought them, they're see-through and meant to be worn in conjunction with something. Preferably, a long shirt that covers your ass. Do you own a mirror, look in it and say "Well, I can kinda see all of my underwear but that's ok, I guess. My shirt sort of covers it." It doesn't. We can all see IT. Put on some shorts or even (perish the thought) some pj pants; you aren't Lady Gaga.

No.

Dear God....NO!!!

5. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures.

6.  The Dutch. All of them.

Thanks for those 2, I was struggling.

7.  People who get random celebrities tattooed on themselves. Exhibits below.

HUGE fan of pudding pops! HUGE.

Happy little tattoo....

Now THAT'S a mullet!

wow.

WOW. Dear God woman....

O.M.G. O.D.B.

She tells me what to read and now Oprah demands that I tattoo her on my body!!! I will obey!!

8. People who use the self-checkout line and then look to you for help because they don't know how to use the self-checkout line---THAT'S WHY THEY HAVE CASHIERS, YOU DUMB F**CK!!!!