J'ACCUSE!*

...in which I verbally seethe about various annoyances.

Run a stop sign? J'accuse!

Push my kid? J'accuse!

Cut in line? J'accuse!

Um...yeah. So, it's been MONTHS since I've done a thing for my site-got my realtor's license-n-such but this has been in my face so much lately, I have to express my rage:

Bicyclists: when you are at an intersection, PLEASE stop trying to balance on your wheels, flipping the front wheel back and forth, while waiting for your light to turn green. It's not cool, no one is impressed and while I'm at it, if you have a really large belly, the yellow biking jersey is not a good look. I never thought I would say this but the "Hey, look at me! I'm BALANCING!!" shtick is FAR more annoying than the runners who continue to run in place at an intersection. Just stop.

Et tu, NPR?

PEOPLE!

It's NOT Ralph Laur-EN, It's Ralph LAUR-en.

J'accuse people who wear tight jeans on super-hot summer days. What is your problem? They are going to stick to your legs and you won't be abe to get them off when you have to go to the bathroom.

Trust me-I know of which I speak. (It was the 90s, man; I was clueless!)

I don't understand why parents think it's cute to cut their kid's hair into a mohawk, a mullet, or the worst, the convict cut. You know, the one with the almost shaved head? I believe it was called a "buzz cut" back in the 50s but it's just trashy and creepy today. I don't care if David Beckham's sons have it.

I refuse to let my son play with kids with that cut. I'm teaching him early who to avoid.

What? What?!

J'accuse swim-up bars and the people who like them

Oh, I have no idea who to J'accuse on this one, but why do people think swim-up bars are cool? I am forever hearing "resorts" tout their swim-up bar like it's the make-or-break that is going to bring in the customers. Do you ever watch those "48 Hours" or "Datelines" where a couple disappears or one is murdered? They're always part of that, "Hey let's go party at the lake" culture of "crazy and wacky" 48 year olds who listen to Jimmy Buffett or hang out at Carlos-n-Charlie's. Yeah, like the swim-up bar.

Cheese.

J'accuse the San Antonio Spurs front office and/or entertainment dorks:

For the love of all things holy, please STOP playing that ridiculous, "Y'all ready for this?" song! Am I alone in my utter shame when that song comes on for every single Spurs introduction???? How many finals have they won? Four? That song has been bugging me since 2003. I do not exaggerate. Once, the Spurs played the Mavs in Dallas and the Mavs came out to a pitch-black arena and "Eminence Front" by the Who. How cool is that and how extra-lame was it when the Spurs came out with their dorky faux-hip-hop crap club song? GOD. I hate that song so much. Almost as much as that dumb America song, "Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't, didn't already have..." Blech, Vomit.

I cannot BELIEVE I haven't J'accused this group of twerps before:

Those fools who graduated from Harvard and when you ask where they went to school, they act all faux-embarassed and mumble and say, "Cambridge." WTF?! Oh, I get it-you are so filled with faux modesty about going to Harvard that you are going to make me pull it out of you? Is that it? Dude, I will yank your alma mater out so slowly you will be twisting with discomfort.

Why can Harvard graduates only refer to their college years in one of two ways: with preening self-adulation or with that dumb, annoying, mumbling, "Oh, I don't want it to look like I'm bragging, because as soon as everyone hears I went to Harvard, they might feel bad or sad or weird or dumb" BS?

You know what? Just answer the question. No one cares that you went there except you and your grandma.

You know what I say when people ask me? Dude, I yell it out-I went to THE University of Texas and I'm proud because not everyone can survive four years at a school with 55,000 other students; a school where you are a number not a name and where no one else really cares about your honors thesis because they're too busy smoking dope at Barton Springs or puking up beer on 6th street. Besides, our Yiddish department alone probably could have whooped your ass in something.

(Did I just say Yiddish?! Score! Second mention on J'accuse!)

There are so many things that I could J'accuse right now: the international lack of involvement in Darfur, etc., but I really hate it when I watch a yogurt commercial and the women (because men don't eat yogurt) TURN THE SPOON OVER AND PULL IT OUT UPSIDE DOWN! Why do they do that? Ugh--so annoying. Like in the ads where the woman jumps on the sofa and kicks her legs up and crosses them up in the air, while either enjoying some kind of food or smugly remembering the good times she had spraying Lysol in her bathroom or using Kotex pantiliners.

I have to be honest: lately, only commercials featuring guys doing ridiculous things in their offices make me laugh-and even they are becoming overdone-but women's commercials have completely reverted (or stayed) to the boring, ridiculous and dumb. Come ON! NOBODY eats yogurt like that!! Maybe I should, though, maybe they're on to something.

I feel better-on to Darfur.

J'accuse those small planes that drone above my house during the day:

Isn't there just something so creepily annoying about hearing that far-off drone coming closer and then passing by? I never hear jets or other large aircraft but cannot escape the low buzz of those private planes. I suppose it hearkens back to my childhood when I would pretend to be sick and my mom would make me stay in my room all day and I would be tormented by a lone, distant plane, circling around for what seemed like hours. I would rather hear a Concorde than a small plane in the sky.

To this very day, when I hear that sound, it brings forth a rush of melancholy. Or guilt.

J'accuse women who complain about Super Bowl Sunday:

What, you can't spend one day without your man? For God's Sake, go find another TV and watch something else. Better yet, go for a walk or to the gym. Better still, go volunteer somewhere for that afternoon. Whatever, just stop your whining-you know it comes around once a year so get over it and stop writing cutesy, anti-feminist Yahoo essays about why you hate that you can't cuddle that evening. Blech. Is your whole life a bad romantic comedy?

I will happily be watching the game because I love competition, I love the ads and I love Prince. Nyah.

J'accuse American Idol.

No-not because they are mean to the people who audition in the various cities but because they are teaching Americans to revile the eccentric outer fringes of our society. The judges would like to create as banal a society as exists in Hollywood: blonde ditz, earnest rocker, earthy African-American, Jesus-loving country singer, cuddly balladeer...and act as though the fly-over state oddballs clogging and singing off-key in their orange cowboy hats have no place in our world. I absolutely and strongly defy that rationale. The quirky weirdos that everyone loves to mock on Idol are the people that make life worth living, they're the ones that make airplane conversations interesting . We should admire these kooks for putting their dreams and their lifestyles on the line and, frankly, I admire them for living these lives out of the mainstream. The barely employed, off-the-grid folks who clearly have enough time to wait in line for the chance at either humilation or stardom are the stuff of Bukowski. We should be embracing them and their resolute anti-sociality at a time when our culture looks to the boring vacuousness (in looks as well as personality) of Paris Hilton as the new Athena.

J'accuse the Volkswagen designers:

God knows I LOVE the Jetta. I have been filled with Fahrvergnügen since my first Jetta purchase in 1991 and flat-out adore them...I have probably been responsible for at least seven other Jetta purchases...so WHY, Hans, why must you design the cladding so LOW in the front that when I park my husband's Jetta, I ALWAYS catch it on the parking lot bulkhead, thereby ripping it off when I back up? And for good measure, what were you thinking when you designed my 1989 Jetta Carat's bumper?

One good shove and it came right off-I know because I hopped on it once in New Braunfels, Texas and I had to pop it back on like a jigsaw piece.

J'accuse Mandy Patinkin:

because can't this guy do any performance without breaking into the Yiddish songs of the old country in his irritating Broadway tenor? I literally can't look at him without imagining him slowly opening his mouth and crooning, "Oooooooo".

And to think he was Inigo Montoya.

The woman at Central Market South:

For your patchouli-drenched, frizzy haired self who SLOWLY browsed while I was trying to spend as much as possible on over-priced, organic-chic food in the 30 minutes between school drop-off and my plyo-burn class and for STOPPING in front of every single case I tried to access (yes, I WOULD like some Boca Burgers) and for EATING nuts and trail mix from your bulk baggies BEFORE paying for them...J'accuse.

J'accuse the lady in front of me at Macy's yesterday:

Come ON! Are you really going to hassle that poor employee over a $1.00 difference in price? Are you REALLY going to wave the circular in her face, have her void the transaction, purchase all of your items again, void them again and then quibble over one dollar? And you wonder why, after 20 minutes of listening to this, when all I had to do was return a pair of jeans and no other register was open, I got up in your face and asked you to get ON with it?! Buy your damn socks and go back to Talbot's.

Well, the good news is that I felt so invigorated after fussing at you that I went down and bought two kick-ass pairs of shoes.

ON SALE.

J'accuse random drivers:

I am just not getting what part of my gigantic wagon that sports six-plus headlights and that sits eight inches off the ground that you "cutting me off constantly" drivers cannot see...Let me know when you arrive at an answer.

I'm waiting.

J'accuse Julia Roberts and the military-industrial complex that keeps her employed.

J'accuse George Clooney:

Ummm...how do I express my adoration for said hottie yet also lament his inexorable slide into caricature?

Oh. I guess I just did.

J'accuse my agave:

You-you-you-pointy-leafed-prehistoric-lookin'-silvery-grey-tequila-makin'-succulent: you are in SO much trouble right now because you poked my son's face when he bent down to pick up his baseball. And don't give me that "But I'm just a plant! Your modern world frightens and confuses me" BS. You are in a time out, smart guy.

J'accuse! my body:

I need to bitch about the complete squeamishness that kicked in when my son was born several years ago.

Let me be very clear: one of my jobs at the Discovery Health Channel was to determine exactly how many seconds of airtime we could show a certain piece of body tissue, e.g., a leg that had been mangled in a car accident. Never made me sick. Watch disgusting surgeries or trauma footage? All mine. I took a mini-med school at Georgetown Med and handled a cadaver for an hour. Bring it ON.

So, I have a child and now cannot stand the sight of blood: it makes me shaky and queasy and I scream like a little girl. I went for a walk recently...normally I can put one foot in front of the other with a basic competence; I have even run two marathons, so I have kind of mastered the walking/running thing. So, yeah, I was daydreaming, my feet conspired against me and I fell hard. The slo-mo kind. I could hear my skinned being ripped off, which left a seven-inch long scraping of tissue on the sidewalk. (Yeah, sorry about that, homeowners, but you could have helped me.) I limped the mile home, trying to choke back sobs (I cry when I fall-so what?) with blood dripping down my leg.

When I got home, I showed my husband. Who has been a doctor for, like, 13 years. His expert opinion? "Eww, gross. Clean it off." So, I go to wash my knee and I am seconds from passing out on the floor of my bathroom because the water and the stinging and the anger and the embarrassment and the grodiness of it all came together and made my 39 year old ass get dizzy and sick. It took me FOUR attempts to rinse off my meaty injury and I almost got a concussion in the process.

Man, I am SO lame.

J'accuse! my neighbors:

OK, so, six weeks ago these kids moved in to this house across the street. I can't even tell how many there are because all day long, random, massive SUVs move in and out of the driveway. Plus, they are all Republican campaign workers. I had no idea there WERE 23 year old Republicans but I suppose I should applaud them for "being involved in the system". They are constantly on cell phones as they pull up-because god knows, the governor is calling. They shoot bb guns at bottles in their backyard. They wear starched khakis with cowboy boots and short-sleeved shirts and are slightly soft around the edges which gives them the look of 48 year old suburban dads. They place 4' x 6' campaign signs in their yard. My son says hi, they ignore him. I ask them not to park in front of my house, they roll their eyes. So, last night, on the final day of a nearby music festival, following hours of obnoxiousness from their friends (all of whom drive Tahoes, et al) I was awakened by a thunderstorm and was watching the rain when what, to my wondering eyes should appear, but a festival-goer spending a good 45 seconds peeing in their yard. Any other neighbor, I would have banged on the window like Gladys Kravitz, but this time I mouthed a silent "Thank you, friend, thank you."

*http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/j'accuse
http://www.answers.com/topic/emile-zola
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/january98/rosenblatt_1-13.html

**Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey