Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

"You know we're living in a society! We're supposed to act in a civilized way!"
(George Costanza)

Is it just me, or are we fast becoming a society of total dickheads? Everywhere I go and anywhere I look, it seems that people are becoming more and more rude, insensitive and thoughtless. One would think that as we advance technologically, making so many tasks and chores easier to do, we would also become better humans.

I guess I don't know why I think that; I guess I am assuming that the things that used to put people in a bad mood, say, waiting in lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles (also known as Satan's Asshole, thanks Dane Cook) are replaced with online transactions that take two minutes. Doing taxes. Changing your address at the post office. Applying for a loan, or a job or a credit card. Paying bills, making a household budget, checking bank balances, transferring money from savings to checking. Obtaining directions, finding out movie times. Getting tickets for a game or a show. Renting a car. Knowing if it's going to rain later.

In today's society, we don't even have to walk around with that niggling little memory tugger like we used to, you know, asking everyone we see "WHAT was that actor's name, you know, the guy with the thing? It's on the tip of my tongue. He was in that movie with one of the Baldwins and that other guy who was a vampire once. YOU know who I mean..." This kind of thing used to drive people crazy all day and nite. When is the last time you were unable to sleep because you couldn't think of "Kevin Spacey." Now it's instant gratification.

Yet people are still in bad moods. They don't have any sense of perspective on how bad things really COULD be. Just speaking in general terms, there's so much less to bitch about these days than our parents had, but all I hear is bitching, moaning, groaning. And thanks to Facebook I get to hear it constantly. "Really? You're having a 'crappy day' AGAIN? When do you ever have a GOOD day. Could it maybe, one wonders, be YOU that is bringing the crap along with you wherever you go?"

Why can't everyone just fucking relax? What's so bad about life? Angry people walking around with a scowl all day take every little thing as the universe attacking them. They got up that morning to find the outfit they were going to wear is in the laundry, the car low on gas, the coffee from the drive-thru turns out to be plain instead of hazelnut, there's traffic on the road...instead of taking all this in stride, looking on the bright side and getting past these little nuisances cheerfully, they stew and fume needlessly, working themselves into a lather. By the time they get to me, a fellow shopper in the grocery store, as we both approach the cashier with our purchases, they furiously shove ahead and cut in front of me even though they have fourteen items and I only have a pack of gum and a Diet Coke.

Probably the same person who didn't bother to scrape and brush the snow from their car hood and trunk, so that gigantic slabs of white death come hurdling off the car as they speed around, uncaring about cars, dogs and children in the path of their Apathy Torpedos of Destruction.

"Driving angry" is the cause of so many "accidents."

Parking in handicap spaces. Tossing wrappers and cans on the ground. Speaking rudely to service employees; one of my friends came back from the bank last week having witnessed some asshole being so rude they made the bank teller cry. Seriously? And it's necessary to be so angry WHY?

We should be nicer to each other. But that's not happening. Instead we seem to be becoming worse humans. Decency, consideration and kindness? There's no app for that.