I saw a flaming jackass throw his cigarette out his car window today, which started me musing on things that piss me off. I remember one time when we lived in Marin when this happened. Ayla must have been maybe 8 or 9 at the time. We were stopped at a red light in Corte Madera in the left lane, and beside us in the right lane was a blonde bimbo yakking on her cell phone and puffing away -- until she blithely tossed her fag out the car window. Red light. Stopped in traffic. I threw it into Park, jumped out, marched around the car, picked up her stinky butt, and tossed it right back into her lap. Ditz never missed a beat, just told her caller, "Oh my god, some crazy woman just got mad about my cigarette".
Hah.
Hell, it felt good.
OK, here's another one. Our first summer in Denver, mid-July, baking hot -- my car thermometer read 104 degrees. I'm driving down Arapahoe Road, and here's a guy on the corner, wearing a Quiznos cup costume. (Here's what it looked like, though the guy was just sagging there limply, being fully ensconced in vinyl in the hot sun. He wasn't moving much.
I pulled over and went to talk to him. Turns out the poor guy speak no Ingles, just some immigrant sucker out to make a buck, and the asshole Quiznos Subs store manager on Arapahoe Road in the Denver Tech Center tossed the guy out there in the broiling sun in the full-body vinyl costume, to dance around for the lunch crowd at the peak of the day's heat.
I asked him if he was okay -- he said in broken Spanglish that he didn't feel so good. So, I piled the guy and his costume (AND his empty size-medium Quiznos soda cup -- that was his hydration for three hours in the sun) and drove him back across the street and into the strip mall to the Quiznos. Got him indoors, and barked for the store manager, PRONTO. And I climbed right up into her grill.
The squat, tubby woman was all beligerant and in my face -- "it's not that hot, he's only out there for a couple of hours, he should have said he didn't want to do it." IDIOT BITCH.
I explained to her that her brain-dead decision to send a full-body costumed character out to get dizzy and faint in the sun did not reflect well on the Quiznos Corporation, and that I was going to write an article about it, and get right on the horn with the VP of Franchise Marketing for Quiznos, and get them riled up about it. I was ROYALLY pissed off. I HATE it when people do stupid-ass things at work, and this was just such a dumb decision, it was amazing.
When I got back to my office, sure enough, I called Quiznos corporate, and totally freaked out their VP of Marketing. It was glorious. And writing the article was fun.
And, ever since then, I have refused to patronize Quiznos -- because it wasn't the only Bad Quiznos Story I came across. (Note: Googling "Bad Quiznos Experience" brings up 204,000 hits.)
I guess I just have a short fuse when it comes to boneheaded behavior -- especially when I experience it first-hand. I have always known that I have a strong righteous streak, and defending the underdog has always been important to me.
Onward and upward.
