Rambling Rhodes

I'm a victim's victim

Warning: This post contains repeated use of the word "victim." Be advised, "victim" is one of those words, if you say it or read it enough, that starts to lose its meaning over time.

Disclaimer: For those of you who are thick as oak in the head, this is to point out this is a work of humor, or at least an attempt at humor. This is not intended to be taken seriously. You're supposed to say things like "Ha-ha," or "Ooh, good one," or "LOL!" Please do not fill my comment box or e-mail with hateful diatribes about me being a misogynist, or a racist, or a pedophile. I'm not saying I'm not all those things; I just don't like to be reminded.

It has come to my attention, we live in a society of victims. Everyone's a victim of something, it seems. You spill coffee on yourself pulling out of a fast food drive through? You're a victim, and eventually, once a jury agrees you're a victim, you become a rich victim.

Religious people are victims of some sort of persecution or another. Non-religious people are victims of the religious right. Blacks are victims. Jews are victims. Black jews are victims. Women are victims. Children are victims. Elderly people are victims.

Here's the problem I have with all this victimhood: I can't apply for any of it. I want to be a victim, damnit! I want to be able to obviate all of my personal responsibility for any of my shortcomings in life onto some vague societal reason.

But the thing is, I'm not particularly religious, but at the same time I have some religious beliefs I hold onto, so I can't really claim victimhood from either of those camps. I'm not black, and I'm not Jewish, which of course means I'm not a black Jew. I'm not a woman. I'm not a child. And I'm not elderly. Those are all pretty much the sweet spots that can claim victimhood, and here I am, maddeningly, none of the above.

As I got angrier and angrier about being unable to call myself a victim, it occurred to me I am, in fact, a victim. I'm a victim of victimhood. I've had to put up with all these victims for so long, I just kind of lost the realization that I'm a victim to all these victims.

You know how some woman claim they're a victim to a male-dominated society? Well, guess what? I'm a victim to listening to them go on and on about being victims. Stop victimizing me, ladies! You don't think I have better things to do with my life than to hear you cry about being victims? Do you have any idea how much better my life would be if you weren't droning on and on about gender inequality? If I were to put a number to it, I'd say my life is probably lacking 20 percent of the quality it should have thanks to your blathering victimhood.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'm sick of being a white victim. All you non-white people--you blacks, and Hispanics, and Indians (both dot and feathers), and Asians and whatever other races I'm missing here--stop trying to make me feel so damned guilty for being white! I get it already! You're not white, and I'm sorry. No, wait, I'm not sorry. Stop victimizing me! You know that job I applied for, but didn't get it, because I'm white? I didn't appreciate that one bit. You know who you are.

Hey, and kids? Is there anything else you'd like from me? Yes, you're the future. Fine. But, honest to God, the second one of you tykes think it's funny to point at me and say I touched you in your private place, even though you know I've never come within 20 feet of you in my life, the burden would be on me to prove I didn't, and you can just stand there and smile and smirk because you know I could be looking at several years in Pound Me In The Ass Prison (PMITAP). And hey, bonus points, I have a shaved head and goatee and a unibrow (which I have to pluck like mad to separate), so I look enough like a kid-toucher as it is. I'm sick of being a victim to the all-powerful "Children of the World." Little bastards.

And, you elderly people can just cram it already. I get it. You're old, which you think entitles you to things, usually prescription drugs or something life-lengthening like that. What you do not have is some God-given right to comment on the rather crappy quality of my lawn. I know you think your lawn is important. I do not hold such a belief system. If dandelions weren't meant to be in lawns, God--or evolution, or both--wouldn't have made them so fuck-awful hard and expensive to get rid of. Screw it. I think they're kind of pretty. I will no longer be a victim to your nosy, opinionated old-fartyisms.

As for the Jews, I guess I can't claim some sort of victimhood from them. Besides, they have way too many other people claiming to be victims of the Jews, so they don't need me added to the pile. Although, if they could maybe work to improve the quality of the worldwide media they control, I'd sure appreciate it.

Good Pee

My cousin is staying in Rochester for the next few weeks while her husband, Matt, recovers from a kidney transplant operation that took place a few days ago. Matt's father donated the kidney, so it's an inspirational and heartwarming story and all that.

I came to an odd realization yesterday, as I and several other family members stood clustered around Matt as he laid there in his bed of recovery. That realization was, in a hospital environment, all sorts of conversation that's otherwise taboo is not only not taboo, it's pretty much encouraged.

For example, one of the big topics of conversation revolved around how good Matt's "numbers" were when it came to how his new kidney is functioning. Apparently, his "numbers" are better than at any time since his last kidney transplant some 30 years ago or so. So, that's good news and all.

However, as a visual representation of the quality of his numbers, people apparently felt compelled to comment on the large cannister of urine sitting on the floor. There you had family members, most of whom probably have never walked in on Matt in the bathroom, eagerly and enthusiastically commenting on his augmented ability to produce copious amounts of urine. No one really mentioned the fact the urine was draining into that cannister by means of a catheter, but the urine itself was a topic for intense conversation.

At one point, my aunt actually looked at the urine cannister and said, "Good job, kidney!"

I'm sure the kidney appreciated the vote of confidence.

Cutting All Ties

Okay, I'm not one for small talk. In fact, I think my skills when it comes to inter-personal communication have been deeply hindered by a combination of Web-based communication tools and a 9-5 office job with little interaction with actual, you know, PEOPLE. I'm most comfortable communicating via keyboard. Stephan Hawking has his voice synthesizer, I have MSN Messenger.

It goes beyond that, of course. I'm hyper-sensitive to ambient noise, so more often than not I miss over half of what's being said directly to my face because my focus is on that strange thumping noise coming from the wall 30 feet away. Because, seriously, what the hell is that noise? It's driving me CRAZY!

Anyway, all this is a segue into my sandwich purchasing experience at Subway last night, wherein the Sandwich Artist working the counter was one of those incessant chatter-boxes I've grown to know and dread.

For most people, perhaps 80 percent of the population, when you say "hey, how's it going?" you get the standard "Not bad; yourself, Rose McGowan?"

So, when I said "hey, how's it going?" to the Sandwich Artist last night and got back--complete with a dramatic stretching and rolling of the shoulders--"Oh, could be better; I went snowshoeing today, and I'm really sore."

Crap.

Okay, I had a chit-chatter Sandwich Artist. Unfortunately, there was also a television tuned to some news program, and a couple sitting directly behind me discussing the possibility of getting a puppy which, honestly, was far more compelling than any narrative about snowshoeing could possibly be. My pathetic attention was torn asunder in three different directions.

Now, I have this thing when somebody is trying to talk directly to me, but I'm not really following, because there was apparently a storm front moving in and there are all the pros and cons about getting a black labradour retriever. And the thing is, if I'm not following the person trying to talk directly to me, I go ahead and pretend I got every word perfectly.

The tricky thing about pretending you heard everything perfectly, when in fact you absorbed only about 40 percent, is it's up to you to hold up your end of the conversation based on less than half the information required to conjure a coherent response. Oh, sure, I can occasionally get away with "you got that right," or "I hear ya," or "storm front's moving in," but I've developed an unfortunate tendency to just chortle a little laugh in the hopes the person said something even remotely a little bit funny.

This is a double-edged sword. On the one sharp edge, perhaps the person did, in fact, say something they think is funny, and my laugh has emboldened them to spout more inane blather I'll have to respond to. On the other sharp edge, they could have just told me their significant other died the other day, so my laugh is completely inappropriate, and now I've deeply insulted the person PREPARING MY FOOD!

In the case of last night's Sandwich Artist, my laugh was of the emboldening variety, so he continued to go on and on about. . . I have no idea what. Eventually, the conversation came back to something I was actually focused on: my sandwich. I had ordered a foot long Roma Ciabatta, something something, and I said "you don't need to cut it." I've said this to every Sandwich Artist I've ever encountered, going back more than ten years now.

For some reason, Sandwich Artists have been trained, almost to an instinctive level, to slice footlong sandwiches into two equal parts. I have no idea why this is. Personally, I prefer an intact, non-bifurcated hoagie. That's just my preference. And, so long as I instructed the Sandwich Artist to hold their slicing hand at the appropriate time, I've never had any problem getting an intact sandwich.

Until last night.

ME: That looks good. And you don't need to cut it.

SANDWICH ARTIST: Actually. . . I do.

This had never happened before. I was being second guessed by an over-talkative Sandwich Artist. Of course, at first I did my little chortle laugh, which was basically a kind of conversational place-holder while I considered my next verbal move. Of course, in that precious interval, my sandwich was evenly clove in two.

ME: Why do you have to cut it?

SANDWICH ARTIST: It's easier to eat this way.

Now, admittedly, I'm not a certified Sandwich Artist; I don't know all there is to know about the secret world of the hoagie. But, I think it's fair to say I've sampled both sliced and un-sliced sandwiches and detected no quantifiable differential in their relative ease of edibleness.

In fact, if anything, I think a sliced sandwich may be slightly less easier to eat because, depending on the point of slicification, the ingredients (I'm thinking mainly tomatoes here) can sometimes be cut at odd points, meaning they can actually fall out of the sandwich before it even reaches your mouth because they've been hewn apart and have no significant hold to the rest of the sandwich. I think you all know what I'm talking about here.

I know this sounds strange, but the moment that Sandwich Artist drove his knife into my sandwich, he also drove a deep wedge into any possibility we'd ever eventually be friends. Just minutes before, I was 40 percent willing to listen to his snowshoeing experience; but at the instant of slicing, I wanted nothing more to do with the presumptuous, knife-weilding Sandwich Artist. He was less an "Artist" to me than he was a mere sandwich assassin.

In fact, I don't think I'll ever go to that particular Subway store ever again.

So there.

UPDATED: This post has been slightly edited to make certain non-bloggers of the world happy.

Pooch Snooze

Stepped on a Pop Top

There Can Be Only One

You know, with the demise of Strip Mining For Whimsy, I'm reminded, yet again, how completely out of date my "Daily Read" blog list on right actually is. I should really do something about that sometime.

Or, you know. . . not.

And When He Opened The Seventh Seal

There was silence in Heaven.