Everyone knows “That Guy”. The fat guy that stinks no matter what. The guy with the me first attitude. The guy that makes everyone around him uncomfortable in any situation. The guy that thinks he’s better than the world, but still shoots snot out of one nostril right next to an old lady at a bus stop. That fucking guy. He ruined my entire Friday last week. I usually don’t work on Fridays so I was already a bit pissed off that I even had to go in. So I wake up and lug myself to a train station to get to work. I had to stand on the train. Then I see this fat disgusting excuse for a man get on the train and plop his fat ass down in a handicapped seat. I close my eyes and pretend he’s not there. But you can only ignore the 300 lbs of stench for so long. I hear him talking over the noise of the train to another passenger. Everyone else gets quiet and seem to be annoyed at Tubs here. We get off at the same stop, Dry Creek. I walk up the stairs to the sky bridge and make my way to the shuttle van. He takes the elevator and waddles about two minutes behind me. I make it to the shuttle van and sit down. The van fills as we have to wait for Tubs. Everyone knows he’s coming. By the time he get’s to the shuttle there about five empty seats. I close my eyes again and pretend he’s not there. He plops down next to me. The force of his ass hitting the seat reverberates throughout the van, sending debris and dust into the shuttle’s atmosphere. The pigeons that were roosting on the covered benches disperse as if a shot was fired from a .45 cal. His stink lines emanate spreading remorse to all of us trapped on the van. Windows open as if on cue. He’s unshaven  with at least three weeks of growth on his face. His haircut speaks of the same grooming schedule. Clothes screaming to hold onto his 5′7″ 300 lbs frame, begging for a rip. “Oh if only he’d rip us stitch by stitch then we’d be discarded, then we could die.” I’m plastered to the window, clinging to the precious fresh air seeping in only when the driver accelerates. It’s a new driver, so she’s going extra slow. “HEY WHERE’S FRANK AT? DID HE QUIT?” Tubs shouts. Frank’s the usual driver. “No he’s just training a different route this morning.” the driver politely responds. “OH… OK” Tubs adds. We continue our uncomfortably awkward ride to the office. I try and lose myself in my music, if only an iPod could block out smells and sound. His sweat running out of his clothes as if they can’t wait to evaporate. Now I’m sweating from suffocation. If I don’t get off of the shuttle soon I’ll dry up. I keep hoping that something interesting outside will happen. Just something to distract me. Just something to trick my mind into forgetting that I’m dying a little each time he breaths.Thank goodness my stop is before his. I slide by him with more friction than I’m comfortable with. His stench stays on my cloths for 45 minutes.

If you think I’m some kind of hate monger against people with weight problems, I’m not. I do however hate lazy people. This man is a shame. The disgust on everyone’s face is testimony enough. It’s as if he refuses to bathe, wash/change clothes. Toothpaste is not considered a necessity by this man. Hygiene in general is left on the wayside as unimportant to him. I can’t stand his very being. No one can. I only see this guy for fifteen minutes four days a week, but that’s enough to know I hate him. That’s enough nose torture, enough sweat. I can’t imagine he is like this by accident. Chaos theory tells us he should have fallen into a body of clean water by this time, at least hindering the smell. This is planned. This is deliberate. This is a meaningful purposed action on his part. This is war. Stay tuned for the revenge.

It occasionally happens that food is burnt onto my stove. It’s a STOVE, for Christ’s sake! You make food on it, and it is extremely hot. These things happen.

Yet, somehow through the evolution of stove technology, it has continued to seem acceptable to cover stoves with a substance that scratches off when scrubbed. I am not talking a scouring pad here. I am talking the innocent green side of a normal kitchen sponge. My stove is covered in a nice pale-yellow-tan coating that these same genius stove desingers seem to think is attractive. Problem is, you can’t USE this pretty stove, lest it simultaneously get very hot and get food on it (as previously discussed, a likely occurrence). The food will just have to cake on, layer upon layer, because even that will look better than a scratched up stovetop.

An added frustration: Somewhere along the line, someone got frustrated with not being able to scrub their stovetop and added these little metal food-catchers beneath the coils. This helps reduce the amount of food that gets on the pretty pale-yellow-tan part of the stove, but sadly, YOU CAN’T SCRUB THOSE, EITHER. Mine are presumably made of aluminum and have a shiny finish on them. The shiny finish immediately jumps ship at first contact with the green side of the sponge.

With this day and age of excess, I love the following list of ideas to teach our children how to simplify … just follow the link here.

http://www.onlineorganizing.com/NewslettersArticle.asp?newsletter=go&article=794

I have long encouraged people to give my children “experience” gifts rather than more things and it surprises me how difficult that seems to be for people.  It is almost as if they don’t think it is a true gift unless there is something they can unwrap, play with for approximately 3 days and then discard in the tub with all the other things.  Of course, there is the chance that a few months from now they will rediscover it and play with it for a few more days  I love the idea of having the memories of fun times with people we love rather than another piece of plastic to eventually end up in a landfill. 

My hope is that, with a little direction, the experience gifts are ones my children will request on their own as time goes on.  I can picture them sitting and thinking about how much fun it will be to go to the “paint your own pottery” place with Aunt Angie and then reliving it each time they look at that clay spider they picked out.  Sure it leaves them with bringing another “thing” home however this one has a personal connection tied to it.  Personal connections make our lives much richer, fill us with gratitude and inspire us to keep others close to our hearts.