You’re an idiot and this hinders my enlightenment

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

Tao te Ching

——————-

As long as stupid people roam the planet, I will always be a failed Taoist.

There are many brands of stupid, but there is one particular subset of humanity that makes my jaw drop and builds a case for selective breeding.

I call these people “Oblivee-ohs.”

Oblivee-ohs are a liver spot on the hand of god. They are a stain on the genetic future of the race. They are the scourge of my existence.

Put simply, oblivee-ohs are the people who wander the planet, bumbling along like pinballs in slow motion, completely unaware of their actions or how they impact those around them.

You can’t really pick an oblivee-oh out of a crowd by appearance. At first sight, they might look like perfectly normal, functional human beings. Unfortunately, they can’t even self-identify. Oblivee-ohs aren’t aware of their dangerously deviant natures. If they were, I’m confident that their behavior would cease immediately.  They’d be so humiliated they’d either work very hard to change, or they’d kill themselves on the spot in an altruistic gesture to save humanity from their poisonous effects on the gene pool.

Although I’m sure my general readership would never fall into such a category, there’s always a chance that one of them snuck in here while the doorman wasn’t looking. Just in case, here’s a little self-test to determine whether or not you are in need of a radical self-improvement/elimination plan.

You are likely an oblivee-oh if you:

• get off of an escalator and immediately stop at the bottom to “get your bearings,” backing people up behind you like a colon on a high fiber diet.

• Do the same when exiting an elevator

• Do the same when leaving a crowded building. Especially movie theaters. God I hate those people. That includes the ones who stop en masse to discuss the film (which they likely didn’t understand) right at the exit. Yeah, why should I mind standing all night in a room that smells like urine-soaked popcorn and flatulence so you can figure out why the eagles didn’t just fly Frodo to Mount Doom?

• Wait in line at the grocery store until all of your groceries have been rung up and bagged, only then to think of opening your purse to rummage around searching for $112 in loose change.

• Leave your grocery cart all akimbo in the middle of an aisle while you wander slowly around the store, gathering your goodies in your hands, occasionally wandering back to dump your load and forage anew. Keep your cart with you. At all times. Usually I like to take those abandoned carts, purses and all, and move them to the personal hygiene aisle right in front of the condoms. It’s fun to watch you panic, and frankly, you could use the hint.

• And while we’re at it, how hard is it to sound out “corn” on a can label? Grab what you need and move on! If the labels are that confusing, maybe you shouldn’t be eating food with labels. Your ass DOES look kinda fat in those jeans, after all.

• Drive slowly in the left-hand lane on the freeway. “Slow” may be a subjective term, but here’s a test: if there are no cars in front of you and 10+ cars on your bumper, all giving you the finger, MOVE TO THE RIGHT! You’re not just an oblivee-oh, you’re a left-lane hog. Double sin, double debt to humanity. Driving is a not a privilege, it’s a social responsibility. Your very selfishness exposes you as an evil baby-killing fascist. You probably kick kittens, too.

• Drive 10 miles an hour down the road trying to find your destination or next turn. Pull over! Look at a map! Or better yet, if you can’t get GPS, get on Google and plot your trip before you set out with your addled mind behind two tons of steel.  And if you can’t see the signs, how are you going to see that little boy who just ran into the street? Or is that just one more acceptable casualty on your road to uselessness as a human being?

(Jeff Foxworthy aint got nothing on me. Obviously I could go on for hours on this subject. It might just be the subject of my break-out novel. I see a Pulitzer in my future.)

To all  you oblivee-ohs. You are not only impeding the forward momentum of the planet. You are, through your continued existence, personally preventing me from achieving enlightenment. How can I learn to love myself if I can’t love humanity? How rude of you!

And just in case you learned today that you are, in fact, an oblivee-oh, remember kids: it’s up the road, not across the street!

Maybe I’m a little cranky. It’s early and I need coffee.