Doowutchyalike

Maybe I live in an alternate reality from the person or people posing as “intosnarkness” on social media who wrote this chuckle-worthy mini-manifesto I saw on Facebook yesterday:

“Hey take it from someone inching towards 40: Ignore the fun police.

If you like it, order your steak well done. Get your bagel toasted with jam and butter. Put ice in your scotch and ketchup on your hot dog. Get red wine with fish and white with steak. Who cares?

If you want to listen to pop music. Watch blockbuster popcorn flicks. Read dime store novels. Enjoy them.

Dye your hair or cut it off. Paint your fingernails blue.

[Filler]

Anyone who tries to tell you your wrong? Say ‘okay’ and go back to what you were doing.

There are no caveats or addendums to this. Nah. You’re allowed the things you like. You don’t have to justify your taste or apologize for it if it’s not hurting anyone.”

I paraphrased that because, quite frankly, it’s a justification for an attack that no one launched. I looked into it and this mini-manifesto is circulating all over Facebook and Twitter complete with self-righteous addendums and caveats courtesy of the reposter. A FB friend of mine tagged me in her reposting of this because it actually uses the word “caveat” which I have come to loathe because people throw it around all the time and especially in contexts where it is marginally relevant to prove some mythical level of learnedness. I don’t know when people started using words and phrases and figures of speech in contexts in which they have no little to no relevance and to be honest, I’ve stopped caring.

At some point in my adult life, I began the process of, oh what’s the expression … completely and totally ignoring what other people say and do. Not because my desire to see English used correctly has waned and certainly not because I’ve abandoned my penchant for attacking total strangers for forgivable offenses just because it makes me feel important and, well, more learned than the plebes. But because it’s a losing battle.

Take it from someone who turned 45 last year:

No one cares, or at least shouldn’t care, about your personal preferences.

You can order your steak well done. Go nuts. I fully support anyone reserving their right to order a steak well done no matter how much it kills the actual flavor of the beef and renders an otherwise delicious cut of beef no more palatable than a fuckin’ Chalupa.

Likewise do I support toasting your bagel and applying butter and jam to it because, um, who gives a rat’s ass? I mean seriously. I used to work at a business called The Bagel Bin and I have seen people put literally everything imaginable on a bagel with little regard for its kosher-ness. I worked for The Bagel Bin long enough to come across the owner and his son eating Tony Roma ribs in the walk-in cooler, so I apologize if my taking seriously any dietary restrictions on up to and including blatant cannibalism could use some work.

Ice in your scotch and ketchup on your hot dog? Why the hell not? This is America for the love of Pete and if someone wants to avoid the unpleasant sensation of actually drinking scotch so they can look sophisticated for ordering a single malt at a Buffalo Wild Wings, what do I care? I’ll tell you how much I care. About as much as someone applying ketchup to their hot dog. I love a hot dog just as much as anyone so if a man chooses to drench his processed pig lips and hooves in the tomato-flavored sugar paste so popular among the Oscar Meyer set, far be it from me to tell him not to.

Likewise do I support watching blockbuster popcorn flicks and reading dime store novels. I mean, considering you have to have an advanced engineering degree to operate the soda fountain at most movie theaters, yeah, I support patronage of these theaters because otherwise how is the engineering student going to make their student loan payment? And I fully support reading dime store novels because who am I to deny Beaver Cleaver or Wally or Eddie Hascall that pleasure?

And I am on board with hair dying and head shaving, as long as its dye of an outlandish color or its shaving of the head in keeping with the styles championed by Dennis Rodman or Lady Gaga this week in order that it shrinks the pool of job applicants for the position slinging popcorn at the movie theater so we can at least give the advanced engineering degree a fighting chance to get the job over your driver’s ed student.

Anyone who tries to tell you your wrong, just read them Fox in Sox or The Lorax sincethe caliber of person who has the gumption and/or the utter lack of social graces to pipe up and tell other people how to live should be sitting in the corner coloring.

Honestly, the whole prospect of boldly eating ketchup and shaving your head doesn’t really rally the troops in my book. Considering the high watermark for civil disobedience in today’s climate is dressing up like a Village Person and storming the Senate Chamber in the Capitol building, you’re going to need to pack more than dime store novels and hair cuts to demand my attention or respect.