I am so totally becoming this jerk person. I’m becoming the kind of jerk person who I didn’t like when I was a kid! Remember when you were a kid and you felt that if a rule was unfair you shouldn’t have to follow it? Also, remember when you laughed at honor boxes because who would pay if no one was watching you? And remember there was that one adult that would explain that not liking a rule doesn’t make it unfair, and even if a rule is unfair you still have to follow it and you should always pay the honor box even if no one is looking not for fear of getting caught but because it is the right thing to do?
I have become that adult. Luckily I have not reached the crazy, irritating self righteous stage where I feel the need to point out when people are not following the rules. Also, I still drive too fast so I’m in no position to be vocal about judging anyone else’s scoffing of the laws and rules.
I even feel bad, not guilty just bad, when the cashier forgets to ring something up. I was packing up groceries one day and noticed I had forgotten 2 gallons of milk under the cart. At that point I could have left with them, but I didn’t because it was wrong. I wasn’t worried about getting caught, i knew I wouldn’t, it was just wrong.
Also, I always pay the honor box. Always. Especially at State Parks (which is where I run into most of them), mostly because it’s right, but also because I like funding the state parks system here.
If something has a pay option or a free option you are not allowed to complain about the free option (like a service or something). You totally have to pay in order to complain.
If you want the state to provide services you have to pay taxes. Also, even if you don’t use some of the services a state provides (public education, foster care, tracking the populations of walleye in obscure lakes) you STILL have to pay taxes for those things because we are a group, a society, we all live together and raising the quality of life for one person does help raise your quality of life even if you don’t see the direct results.
Unions = awesome. Actually, this has less to do with following rules than it does with my liberal leanings. It’s not like “big unions! YAY” but the idea of collective bargaining. The idea that unless the employees work together, they will lose all kinds of rights and benefits. Of course now companies like to say “oh! you want a union? you want to keep your health coverage? Fine, we’ll just leave! See how you like them apples!”. It’s a kind of blackmail. It’s a way of saying “you better take the $7 an hour AND the anal rape or we’ll go and you won’t even have the $7!” and that is wrong. It’s wrong in my “right and wrong” issue (of course it’s wrong in favor of employees, but you know…Minnesota). It is fine to make a profit on your employees, that why we have companies, but the profit needs to be proportionate to what they get.
Okay, I have to stop with the unions or I’m going to have unmarked helicopters over my house and I’ll be kidnapped, beaten and covered in Bush stickers.
Quantum physics? Wrong. Things don’t fundamentally change because you THINK they should. 10 dimensions? Wrong. You don’t get to make shit up to confuse people. What’s the point of 10 dimensions? Who is using all these dimensions? Can I get a refund on the dimensions I don’t use? The Uncertainty Principle? Don’t get me started. (obviously, this isn’t so much a matter of right and wrong as much as it it me being like those old people who were like “vaccinations? we don’t need no vaccinations! get your kooky vaccinations away from me”)
I listen to supreme court rulings to see how they line up with my interpretation of the constitution. I don’t like the idea of private gun ownership, I think it’s something of a monstosity, but I accept that the constitution is interpreted in such a way as to make it legal. You are just not allowed to bring a gun into my home.
The thing is, most old people would be like “what’s the problem, that’s what you are supposed to do.”, but it is a problem. The world should not be so black and white, there are all kinds of factors that weigh into situations. So far I’ve not lost the ability to look at a situation from all sides, but I fear that if this trend continues I will lose that ability and then I’ll be one of those rule nazis that everyone hates.
Hell, lots of adults bought me alcohol when I was underage (but in college) and I pretty much refused to after I turned 21. Now that is a jerk maneuver!
The other thing that makes me a total jerk? I’ve been considering going to a pet-loss grief support group but I can’t because I don’t want to be nice to other people. See I spend a lot of my time giving advice to people, being a sounding board for their ideas or just generally being a good listener. I love doing that, it’s something I am good at. The problem with a pet loss support group thing is that if you get support you must also give support, it’s the fundamental dynamic. It’s what makes it a support group and not just another room full of hostages. I don’t want to help people who have lost their pets. It’s stupid and mean and selfish of me, but I want to go there and be supported and leave and that’s wrong.
I don’t like myself very much when I think about the support group thing. I think I am being an asshole.
I am a jerk person too. I admit it, and what’s more – I like being that jerk. I was once the person who used to read the “hey, if you answer this email, then 100 angels will come to your house and fix your credit,” and believed it to be an amazing truth. Then I stopped drinking.
Now, I get frowned at while at a youth suicide prevention focus group because I have pointed out the inconvient truth that teens are totally put off by that cool suicide prevention rap video that your agency puts out. This makes me the jerk because the lady sitting next to me made that video with the help of her 30 year old son that still lives with her because he is “emotionally handicapped”. It also makes me the jerk for silently thinking that this alone is enough to push a depressed kid over the edge and therefore actually promotes teen suicide.
As far as the pet support group – I hear ya sister. I, as a Human Services major should want to be more understanding of others, and yet, here I am not supporting the “emotionally handicapped” 30 year old in his endeavors. I just showed up to that focus group because someone I really liked needed more people and there was going to be pizza – good pizza.
Sometimes, it really is all about me.
Oh, and as far as taxes. This is NH – Live Free or Die. We don’t pay income taxes, or sales taxes. There are holes in the roads here that will swallow a Subaru whole. Also, if your granfather has a stroke and needs help, best of luck to ya. Guess you should have throught about that – this state hates dead beat people who don’t prepare.
when I was in high school I was asked to be on a panel of teens who worked to eliminate drug abuse among kids. I was one of the 3 “reformed” druggies, my job was to show it was possible to reform. The other 6 kids were the squeaky clean kids who wanted to show kids that getting high wasn’t popular because they were popular and they didn’t do drugs.
Anyway, we had to go speak with kids and parents and whatnot. A parent once asked me “why do kids even get high when there is so much more to do?”
I responded to this one, I told her that getting high was fun, that once you got high you realized that it was more fun than a lot of the other things you did. It was probably the most interesting thing you could do in a day.
She dot all defensive and said “you only think you’re having fun! You’re not actually having fun. The drug is making you believe something that isn’t true”
It was so retarded. I mean you ask me a question, I give you a very honest answer but you don’t want to hear that. You already knew the answer you wanted to hear, you wanted to hear about filthy drug pushers that make you do it, you wanted to hear about peer pressure and addiction. What you wanted to hear was that your kid was not at fault for choosing to get high. That he was in treatment for something that was not his fault.
jackass
Take your $7 and shut it, or I’ll give your job to an illegal immigrant who’ll be happy just to help feed the 17 people living with her and still have money left to send home; and also wait in line at the no-insurance-needin’ tax-supported free clinic, which I don’t have to pay for, when her baby has tuberculosis and the croup.
see, you understand. But of course you do, that’s why I like you so much.