Category Archives: my uber-confrontational personality

QUIT TRYING TO MOTIVATE ME

Posted by plumpdumpling on May 6, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under my uber-confrontational personality, stuff i hate
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Lately, I’ve been seeing them everywhere, but especially on Pinterest. These supposedly-inspirational quotes in stylized letters that are so nice to look at that they kind of make you forget how incredibly pointless they are.

I actually liked them for a while and even briefly considered making my own Pinterest pinboard for the ones I liked most until I just became overwhelmed with how many of them they are and maddened by how . . . just . . . fake it all is. No one’s going to be called to action because of these things. No one’s going to “DO IT” or haul up their anchor on the past because of some dumb poster.

I blame the British for starting all of this, naturally, when their totally hott Keep Calm and Carry On poster was discovered ten or so years ago:

But I don’t think that would’ve worked on anyone, either. At this point, I’m refusing to like anything other than kinetic typography like this illustrated dramatic reading of a video game review that Tracey showed me:

Or any of the not-meant-to-be-inspirational, just-meant-to-be-awesome design Lisa of Elembee.com is doing:

Otherwise, it’s all demotivational posters for me.

I’m Really the Victim Here, When You Think About It

Posted by plumpdumpling on February 10, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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The other day, I had just bought some pastries from the Financier in Grand Central and was standing against the marble column outside its doors to text Kamran a question about electrons that had just hit me when some elderly gentlemen passed by and said, “You get the prize for stupidest person! STUPIDEST PERSON!” I think he was hitting on me.

The other night, I was walking up the hill to Kamran’s apartment behind a mother and her three kids. The two oldest ones, a boy and a girl, were wearing backpacks that were almost as big as they were and were holding hands. They started lagging behind their mother and saying, “We’re too weak to go any farther!”, and the other reason I didn’t speed up and pass them is that they were Asian, which everyone knows is the most adorable brand of children. (I mean, up until a certain age, of course, when they get too precocious and start babbling nonstop about math on the bus in the loudest voices possible. Stereotypes!) At a certain point, though, they were just walking too slowly for me to maintain any distance, and as I got right behind them, my shadow fell over them, and they turned around and yelled, “KIDNAPPER!” and ran to catch up with their mom. As if I would purposely acquire children.

This morning, I had to be at work early to make nice with the sales team, so I was hungry for a seat on the bus at 7 a.m. But after helping a rather frail old woman with the ticketing machine and having her tell me how nice I am, I was eager to keep the good times rolling and let her go ahead of me to get an open spot. The only remaining option was next to a very . . . large . . . hulk . . . of a sleeping person who was taking up three-quarters of a two-seater and was allowing his or her coat to spill onto the rest.

Usually I would’ve just stood, but I really want to relax, and I almost wanted to punish this person for having the audacity to be heftier than I am. (I have issues, I know.) So I plopped right down on top of that coat and scooted myself as far into that seat as I could, not caring how uncomfortable my closeness made this person. I figured it was a woman judging by the impeccable tweed of the coat and the amount of bosom it had to take to create such a soft pillow in which conceal the lolling head, but it also smelled distinctly of men’s cologne. He or she spent most of the ride snoring, coughing, and gurgling, and all I could think about was what sort of diseases I was being exposed to and would be bringing home to my delicately-immune-systemed boyfriend, godblesshim.

At Fulton Street, a heavy arm reached across me to the metal pole on the outside of the seat in front of us, and I thought it was aa hint to me to move so the person could hoist his or herself out of the seat, but you know I wasn’t moving without an “excuse me” and a “thank you”. So I continued on with my Hunger Games (what a ripoff of The Giver and Gathering Blue, right?) and ignored the hand. When it came across me again, though, this time with an “I’m sorry”, I wondered what was up and looked over at the person.

It was a lovely older lady with the nicest smile, and she explained that she was trying to push the button to signal for a stop but that it wasn’t working. I tried the button myself to no result and suggested she try pulling on the rubber yellow tube that runs the length of the bus high against the windows. Of course she couldn’t reach it, though, because I was sitting on her coat. We had a little chuckle, and then someone hit the button in another part of the bus, so I got up, and she scooted past me with some effort and many thanks.

This is your fault, other New Yorkers! If 4/5 of you weren’t awful, I wouldn’t have to treat you all with disdain just to be sure.

Hey, He Started It

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 16, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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Last night, I was at the drugstore in my new neighborhood. It has one of those queues that starts at one end of the store with a little “Enter” sign, and if you’re at the opposite end, you’re met with a little wall that tells you you’re not in the right place to join the line. So I entered at the end of the queue lane like a good little girl with my new toothbrush in hand, but just as I got to the line of cash registers, this dude cut in front of the wall, slipped ahead of me, and sidled up to the cashier who should’ve been helping me.

Now, I don’t blame anyone for not going to the end of the queue when there’s no one in line–I get a real kick out of going around unnecessarily long ones, actually–but you’d better be sure your rule-breaking isn’t going to end with you cutting in front of someone like this guy. And of course the cashier didn’t notice what he did or care to do anything about it, so I said, “I know you know what you just did.” But he either didn’t hear me or didn’t care to let on.

A second later, I heard him turn to the racially-similar guy next to him and ask him to “help a brother out” with some money to cover his purchase. The guy next to him said, “Don’t play me like that,” and the ditcher said, “I have kids to feed!” His cashier pulled his item away from him, and he said, “When you have kids, you’ll understand!” And then another lane freed up, and I paid for my toothbrush and assorted other entirely unnecessary trivialities with my loads of cash.

Let My People Gooooooooo

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 10, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under my uber-confrontational personality
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I don’t know if it’s my dark, curly hair or the many Michael Chabon books I’ve read, but despite my feelings about the U.S.’s totally wack Israeli foreign policy, I sometimes feel a weird kinship to the Jews.

Which is why, last night, when I heard a Hispanic dude on the corner of 42nd and Lexington saying, “She kept trying to jew me into coming to that party!”, I wanted to turn and say, “Listen, you spic, my people have been enduring stereotyping and ridicule from a-holes like you for thousands of years now, and it ends right here, right now.”

But then I remembered that I’m a regular, old white girl from Ohio. Minorities get to have all the fun.

Can My Karma Withstand Altercations with Two Old Ladies in One Week?

Posted by plumpdumpling on October 13, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway, funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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I was alone at the bus stop yesterday morning and standing at the far corner of the glass enclosure, which is where I always like to stand when it’s available, because it shields me from the wind coming off the river. A younger man approached, and rather than walk past me to also stand in the enclosure, he stood just on the outside, as if he was lining up beside me. A few more people walked up as we waited, and all of them also stood outside in line, and I was thinking, “What a civilized people we are.” I moved to the other side of the enclosure so all of them would feel free to move over and come inside, too.

When the bus pulled up moments later, it stopped directly in front of me, and I casually stepped forward to claim my rightful position as first on, when out of nowhere, this older lady rushed over from the right and attempted to intercept me. I have no idea how long she had been waiting there, because the right side of the bus stop enclosure is covered over with an ad for an opera singer who looks like Russell Crowe. All that was clear to me was that I had been the very first person at the bus stop, so no matter how long she’d been hiding, I’d been there longer.

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