Those who don’t know me well might think I’m seriously curmudgeonly and mean in real life. That I snarl at kids, elbow aside the geriatric contingent as we’re all filing into Denny’s for the blue plate special, look for flies so that I can pull off their wings.
Be all of that as it may, I do try to live my life as a good person – and at this point, I can only say: what the fuck was I thinking? What was the point? I’ve recited my litany of woe and bad luck enough here such that I don’t feel like repeating it, because quite frankly, it’s pretty damn depressing. Suffice it to say that my friends call me Schleprock, and have honestly suggested that I find a shaman or someone else who can help try to remove the curse that’s been hovering over me for years.
But through it all, my sunny nature has managed to soldier on and assert itself. It’s not in my nature to be mean and bitchy, though god knows I’ve tried. I’ve left notes for myself: “Be bitchy!” Yet somehow it never takes, kind of like my attempt to take up smoking so that I’d have at least one vice that would make sense with the cancer history. Nope, no luck with that either, sad to say.
But now? I'm done. Now with my rage and depression having no bounds, I’m finding that being bitchy is coming a bit more naturally. To those who don’t understand why I’m taking the garden thing so hard – though I think most people do – part of it is because it’s been one crappy tomato growing season after another these last years. Let’s start with 2008, though the years before that were supremely crappy too, mostly due to a horrible garden plot out by my mom’s in Huntley, a plot that was replenished every year with “mulch” from Stan’s House of Toxic Garden Stuff thanks to the Sun City gardening committee.
But 2008 – that might have been okay if not for that pesky cancer thing and, more importantly, the brain injury that had me not quite knowing what a garden was exactly. So the tomatoes fell by the wayside. 2009 was the Year Without a Summer. 2010, I went on the GAA (Great Alpian Adventure) in August, and missed the prime harvest weeks. This year though – ah, this year. I refused to go out of town for all of August, and there were tons of tomatoes, and there were still tons to be had because it was a late growing season.
Not to mention all the work that went into my garden. Those who think it’s fine for people to steal things from community gardens apparently think that gardening is an easy endeavor, just throw some seeds down and things grow like magic. Never mind the backbreaking work for months on end – especially this year when there was such crappy weather in spring that things needed to be replanted 2 or 3 times.
Plus I don’t get the “it’s okay if they were stolen by someone who was hungry and really needed them” mentality. I’ll remind those folks of that if they’re ever robbed, that the thieves must have simply needed their stuff more than they did. That’s okay, right?
So! Point being, I am now embracing my new life as Bitchy Person.
This means that all the things that once came naturally will be no more, from the basic to the more complicated. Holding doors open for people? Bam! Let their lazyass selves learn to fend for themselves. It’s a cruel world out there, folks. Open your own fucking doors.
No more letting people with just a few items get in front of me in the checkout line. What am I, the lowly paean to your kingly self? I don’t think so.
I will embrace asshole driving. Now I drive….assertively, shall we say. But I’m not one of those clowns who cuts people off or on the highway goes over to the on ramp in order to scoot ahead a few cars. Yep, now that’ll be me as well.
No volunteering at food pantries, or donating food to them in general. No volunteering for anything – what am I, Mother Fricking Teresa? Sheesh. I’ve got things to do here, people.
No more chit-chatting with random people, like the good folks of Iowa. Well, okay, I might still chat – but I’ll be glaring at them as I do it, a fulminating glare no less.
No spare change to the Streetwise guys, ever. I’ll become a lousy tipper – 15% and not a penny above. If there are free samples somewhere, I’ll be one of the cretins who load up completely, not leaving anything for anyone else. Hell, maybe I’ll take up extreme couponing, and start clearing shelves with aplomb? A girl can dream.
No more being so gosh darn nice about things, like today when I was stuck waiting for a prescription that should have been ready. Oh sure, I might have said “no problem” when the pharmacist apologized, but I said it with a steely edge that I’m sure will impact her for weeks.
Okay, so I’m sure I’ll still stop on my bike rides to help turtles across the road, even if they’re massive ungrateful snapping turtles that try to bite my wrist off. That’s just their nature, unlike people, who have a choice as to whether they’re going to steal someone’s months of hard work and labor from their garden.
I am also already formulating my Garden Protection Plan for next year, if I even do bother having a garden. Yes, this is the first year, after the last 9 years of crazy tomato growing and crappy seasons, that I’m seriously considering packing it in. But if I do garden again, you can be sure that somehow, some way……the Clanging Monkey Toy of Doom will be involved. Beware.
