socially inappropriate phrases as segues into socially important topics

friday, april 12, 2019

(is it interesting that the proper use is to segue “into” something instead of segue “to” something?)

“driving in this april ice storm with zeppelin four blaring makes me feel like i’m existing in a movie scene…i’m parked now…”

i frequently use words or phrases that have made some crowds gaze back like they’re sucking on a lemon. i’ve learned that a poorly placed f-bomb or c-bomb or r-bomb can prompt some queries that require verbal self defense. even saying god damn to the wrong person can provoke a glare. all these scenes are generally stale killjoys. i have learned these things, but that’s not to say that i’ve decided to act on them.

neither have many of my friends. but now we know that often the best (and sadly more boring) decision is to err on the side of not offending and then tell our friends behind closed doors what we WISH we would’ve said in that spot. baby dyl recently told me after the fact that he had a light joke pass his mind while we were standing in front of a very millennial barista that since our names together would make the word “dyke” she could just write that for the name on our order. i’m certain if he wouldn’t have refrained then she wouldn’t have liked it. we would have seen her distain for every imagined coors light crushing bro douche using wrong pronouns and ruining the world in her eyes. but i would have laughed. and baby dyl doesn’t have a mean spirited bone in his body.

words are just funny sometimes. no need to get our undies in a bunch about them. you know you and all your friends will be fertilizer soon, right? so it goes. laugh a little.

all this said i still am looking for ways to sneak in my favorite offensive words in ways that can be accepted, and i think i found the one time i can use the phrase “dumb cunt” and maybe (eeeeekkk) get a little away with it in any crowd. i think this because it’s applied in a place where 1) someone is obviously being selfish, 2) he or she is obviously ignoring statistics out of either arrogance or ignorance, and 3) no political positions are dragged into the issue. here it is…

“…don’t text and drive. texting and driving is for dumb cunts.”

it’s very clearly for dumb cunts. this is no debate. and i’ve done it before, but i’m not going to compound how dumb it was with the self-righteous claim that i wasn’t being a dumb cunt at the time. these things continue to happen in mass. even though:
— according to the national safety council cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes per year.
— each day in the united states, approximately 9 people are killed and more than 1,000 injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver.
— nearly 390,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving.
— 1 out of every 4 car accidents in the united states is caused by texting and driving.
— answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. traveling at 55 mph, that’s enough time to travel the length of a football field.

and yet, the world is filled with people who genuinely believe they are much better than average at “multitasking” and find ways to convince themselves that they glance up enough to not actually be cognitively distracted from hurling down a road with thousands of pounds of mass at their control (and responsibility).

and yet, every goddamn week i’m in the slow lane and someone nearly drives me off the road and i gaze over to see some fucking north loop bro in a bmw listening to drake and texting one of his patagonia vest bro friends about how saturdays are for the boys. or a fucking soccer mom in a minivan sending a snap of her giving a dashboard performance of the latest bull shit ariana grande hit. or a hipster sending a group chat about where he and all his friends are meeting with their dogs to sit on a patio and drink craft beer that saturday. or a grown up former teenage emo sending a video of himself crooning in one of those typical, turn of the century pop-punk drawls about the pain of loneliness.

i made all that up besides the part that all sorts of people suck behind the wheel. i just find it fun to envision entire scenes of the people i only see parts of. i have entire worlds playing on different screens up here. muahhahahaha. the point is these cunts cover all demographics.

sure, it makes sense to allow people to pursue personal risk. i’m all for it. if you wanna engage in self-destruction in the comfort of your own home as the means to some FUN or simply some ESCAPE, i actually support it. tie down the dinosaur baby. but when your personal risk comes at the risk of rear ending or paralyzing or killing someone doing the right thing then fuck your personal risk. this isn’t about you.

it involves a real self-delusion. a belief, if only temporarily, that the self exists outside of the statistics. it’s like a marlboro red pack a day sucker assuming that cancer is something that happens to other people. everyone while they’re driving and not being attentive convinces themselves that car crashes and running into pedestrians and flash of a second mistakes happen to the OTHERS. those less equipped for multitasking than the self.

i am, of course, no stranger to self-delusion. to conveniently tricking myself into thinking i’m right as a means to not change a behavior. a nick swardson comedy reminded me of one of my own recently and it lies in this paradox: i “care” about my health. i manifest this care by not eating much sugar. and i shun people in my mind who power through four cokes with one meal at the restaurant i work in. “you disgusting pigs.” but i also care about fun. so i will occasionally plow snow up my nostrils and slam a dozen pints in the name of pursuing my own fun or escape. the revelry is good for me, i say. i say the health consequences are balanced out by saying that all the kale and exercise i generally take part in and ignoring sugar make occasional narcotic abuse just fine and less risky. i use trade offs for my self-delusion that tells me it’s all FINE. never mind that loads of tragedies begin with thrill seekers like me thrill seeking and assuming its benevolence.

and as for MORAL consequences that i am willing to ignore. eesh. e.g. the fact that my occasional consumption is part of a funnel of funds that help a massive criminal enterprise engage in corrupting entire governments and kidnapping and extortion and sometimes mass murder — i just flat ignore these. willfully. push them aside. line them up with the facts that it is near impossible to make all socially conscious financial decisions — e.g. fossil fuel consumption is gang rape on the planet and i drive a car and turn on the lights and i pay taxes to a government with a hard on for its own military industrial complex and far less than impressive regime change record.

and i tell myself…IT’S ALL FINE MIKE.

i digress. or try to. but some behaviors just really set me off and one of them is all these dumb cunts staring at screens and claiming multitasking superiority when they should just be watching the fucking road. there was a stretch of time when i walked a lot that i started carrying rocks in my pocket so that i could throw them at the next person not paying attention at a crosswalk and nearly turning right (directionally) into me.

i’m going to put on a cape and become the pursuer of justice in this realm. don’t be a dumb cunt or you’ll eat rocks! and i was a pitcher in junior high! i’m the one with the rocks and i’m the one that can throw them faster than fuck!