Home Ownership

I'm proud to say that I recently purchased my first home. Understand, the house itself was built in 1899. Part of the charm is all of the original woodwork. But this was the first house that I ran across that had all of the cool parts of owning an older home without any of the hassle of trying to keep it up because all of the broken crap had already been replaced.

Imagine my surprise when 3 weeks after moving in I turned on the garbage disposal only to have all of the relatively new plumbing under the kitchen sink inexplicably explode, followed by a deluge of onion and potato pieces ALL OVER the kitchen not to mention a good portion in my face when I opened the cupboard doors to see what the hell was going on.

Don't for a minute think this is a rant about home maintenance. Despite spending 2 years in an apartment without ever ONCE having to call maintenance I fully expected to have something happen that I'd have to deal with. Maybe not 3 weeks after moving in but I expected something nonetheless. No this is a rant about all of the people that I related this story to who promptly said, "Welcome to the joys of homeownership." All of those people need to rot in hell. If you were thinking that while you read this, I effing hate you.

The joys of owning a home include painting walls without having to paint them back later. Or hanging pictures without having to worry about filling holes. Or knocking down walls, buying appliances, having a yard, and not worrying about being too loud. Yes for these pleasant experiences you have to take on the maintenance yourself but believe me when I say that while its no picnic its even worse when all of the bitter homeowners who've had their own catastrophes practically cackle in glee at your misfortune. Your first home accident inducts you into a club of bitter misanthropists. It's like crawling into a room broken and bleeding from an attack only to find it filled with people who've had their kneecaps bashed in laughing their asses off at you. They all know how much it sucks but they're goddamn thrilled that you now know too.

Ah, Teamwork...

Before I launch into this tirade let me preface it with this: I understand that the concept of teams is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But like all lofty goals this concept is far better in theory than in practice. Nuclear power is a good example of this: "If we just control the reaction we can have amazing supplies of relatively inexpensive and clean energy. Or... we could just say eff that and blow someone to hell." (I realize that isn't how things actually played out but sometimes accuracy must be sacrificed for the sake of an appropriate analogy). Anyway, what you generally end up with is a group of people controlled by the person with the least amount of actual knowledge.

I was recently placed on a team with lofty aspirations. Our group is responsible for researching and interviewing people to determine what technologies we're going to use on our company's website when we redesign it. A worthy goal to be sure and yet I already know how our weekly meetings are going to play out. Everyone on the team is going to insist that the methods that we would be best served by are coincidentally the ones that they already know. Then there will be arguments where no one actually presents any unbiased pros and cons and then I will step in and tell everyone to shut the hell up...

Seriously. I'm fairly certain that my widely-known intolerance for long meetings and baseless complaining coupled with the fact that I have no problem telling people to shut it is why I've been slapped into this group. This mess will continue for as long as 3 months and then we'll finally agree to using PHP for the marketing portion of our site and .NET C# in our online store. Neither will make anyone happy but neither will infuriate anyone to the point where they'll actually fight the transition. This has already been predicted by a number of people and the best that I can hope for is that if I'm enough of a cranky bastard people will get sick of me and agree to it faster just so they don't have to meet with me anymore.

However, since we haven't met yet I have to act like an optimistic Alzheimer's patient on a battlefield. Sure this shit has almost killed me on numerous occasions and I'm fairly certain I've done my share of damage but... wait who are all these people? I seem to have stumbled onto a party!

Did You Know You're Crazy?

I touched on this topic briefly in my earlier post but I think it bears repeating in more detail. You are crazy. Seriously. I can't believe how long it took me to realize it but you're crazy as hell. In fact we're all batshit crazy and the best that we can do about it is to try and figure out in what ways we're crazy, and then find someone who can handle it.

Right now you may be saying to yourself, I'm not crazy. I'm normal. This is false. I guarantee you're effed one way or another and because you think you're normal you can add denial to your list of issues. Or maybe you're a little quirky but it's charming and adorable. Bad news: quirky = crazy; and while some people may have told you that they find your little eccentricities cute they actually want to punch you in the face. How do I know? Easy - they noticed. If your need to eat the items on your plate in alphabetical order truly didn't bother them they wouldn't have even picked up on it.

In addition to being crazy in one way or another, everyone is insecure. Sometimes these insecurities make sense and other times they're so absurd that the urge to slap the bejeezus out of people is overwhelming (try to control that urge, by the way). For the longest time I thought I wanted to meet someone who had no insecurities. Turns out I just wanted to meet a woman who didn't have the same insecurities as me.

This is why opposites attract. Can you imagine if both you and your partner had OCD? I mean sure the toilets would be so clean you could boil pasta in them but breakfast would take forever as you each counted out 167 Chex pieces and measured 382 milliliters of milk. What if you both were sleepwalkers? Who the hell is going to take pictures of you peeing in the dryer if your partner is busy standing naked in the front door, asleep? Find someone you can stand to be around and settle. There are no perfect soul mates but there are hundreds of people who's collection of idiosyncrasies, psychoses, and disgusting habits won't drive you to murder, and therein you can find as much happiness as you're likely to get.

Congratulations! You Hardly Suck at All!

A friend just got engaged. Everyone says "Congratulations" at these times, but I couldn't. Attempting to be polite, I told her "Nice ring". It's all I could think of that was positive.

I don't understand why congratulations are in order for getting engaged. You don't get congratulations for applying to college. Nobody owes you kudos for starting a marathon. For a marriage, OK. If you can get through a wedding with your relationship, sanity and bank account intact you've accomplished something. I'll congratulate newlyweds as sincerely as if they scaled Everest. But not for an engagement.

You know what else deserves no congratulations? Pregnancy. This is a thing that happens when you do nothing to stop it. And it's not like the World is desperate for more children, so don't pretend you are doing anyone a favor. I'd rather congratulate everyone who is currently not responsible for a developing fetus. Is that you? Then good job! You've been using birth control with expert skill. Or maybe you just aren't getting laid. Still, you should remember that there are worse things than celibacy. You could be breeding like Britney. So celebrate! Treat yourself to a nice dinner and some pornography.

I believe that raising children is an accomplishment of the highest order. Especially if they end up not doing very much jail time. Kids get a fancy ceremony and party when they graduate High School but it's the parents that truly deserve it. Is your kid over 18 and has a High School degree? How about a G.E.D.? Well, what about a job in fast food? Good enough! Your country owes you a medal. It is the legions of not-total-losers that are the future of our nation. You've done your patriotic duty.

But I am not convinced engagements are deserving. Unless I am completely wrong. After I told my girlfriend this, she argued "You don't know how many blowjobs she had to give to get that ring!"

I hadn't thought of that. Even so, my friend she can't stop the fellatio yet. Her fiancé still has plenty of time to escape. I'll congratulate them later with a nice wedding gift: cash. And maybe some mouthwash.

Grandkids

My mom keeps doing the, "when are you going to settle down" thing. I'm rarely asked point blank about it but we've skirted the topic a few times and I know it passes through her mind on a semi-regular basis. Frankly its understandable. I'm 25 and haven't had a girlfriend in a depressingly long time (this may have something to do with that bitter thing we keep mentioning).

Personally I do intend to have children at some point but honestly it's a hell of a lot easier to make a baby than it is to find someone to make it with. I've met plenty of nice women but the mistake I consistently make is that I went and got to know them better. Many people seem like a perfect fit for you when you don't know them all that well. After you get beyond the simple things like "I'm a nurse" and "I like walking on the beech" you get into the scary stuff like, "I collect sock monkeys" or "I'm sorry could you repeat that? My other personality was just in charge."

I'll settle down when I find someone who's particular brand of crazy compliments my own collection of neuroses; and that's a tough combination to find. In the meantime if mom wants grandkids she's gonna have to hire me a hooker and poke holes in the condoms.

Introduction

I'd like to introduce you to the authors of this blog.  We found this image on www.someecards.com and found that, with the addition of some choice quotes, it was an amazingly appropriate description of the three of us.