Stuff I’ve Learned to – UH – Dislike!

Hate is one of those things we’re not supposed to do anymore.  It’s on this unwritten list of things that are strictly verboten in the 21^st century.  There’s a lot of other stuff on the list, but that’s not our concern today.  (Besides the list kinda keeps changing, so it hard to keep up.)  Anyway, hate is a biggie, so if you’re going to do it, you better keep your mouth shut about it.  And that’s the problem.  You see, hate is one of the primal emotions.  It’s hardwired into our DNA — like love, jealousy, fear, sadness, etc., etc. — and we can’t just switch it off because a Twitter mob tells us to.  Think about it!  Every religion on the planet made its bones preaching that our spiritual needs must overcome our baser emotions; Twitter’s no different.  Yet, throughout history, we’ve managed to harvest a pretty substantial crop of sinners.  Personally, I think a little sin is good for the soul: just don’t let it get out of hand.  So, with that in mind, here are a few things I — uh – dislike very, very much.

Eggplant – When I was a kid, this was a particularly insidious brand of child abuse, and I vowed when I became an adult, I would never let this slippery, slimy, sludgy purple horror darken my doorstep again – and it hasn’t.

Wine Snobs – These are the guys (and they’re always guys) who take one sip of wine and start orating its qualities like Cicero in front of the Roman Senate.  Here’s the deal.  It has been proven (literally hundreds of times) that ordinary people cannot actually tell plonk from pinot noir— and even seasoned sommeliers can’t do it consistently.  In fact, in one study (University of Bordeaux) white wine was coloured red and nobody knew the difference!  Fruity aftertaste, my ass!

“The Little Drummer Boy” – Listening to this dirge every Christmas is like getting beaten over the head with candy canes.  This is one holiday tradition that should be shot in the head, dragged by its heels into the back garden and buried without ceremony.

“Relationships” – This is what’s wrong with contemporary society: we don’t have the cojones to love each other anymore.

Faux Foodies – I love genuine foodies.  Anyone who spends that much time and trouble just to find something different to put in their mouth is a dedicated connoisseur of the oral experience.  However, those other clowns who insist guacamole is an entrée, refuse to serve any vegetable with a recognizable name and prowl the trendy shops, looking for esoteric crap like Peruvian pygmy goat cheese, are just assholes.

And finally:

Pompous Asses – Years ago, I had a university professor who thought he didn’t put his pants on one leg at a time.  I decided to squeeze some creative points out of the old boy by giving him a gag gift for his office.  I bought a plaster figurine of Pan at a local garden shop.  Then I created a long-winded provenance that said it was a replica of a full-sized statue, discovered in the ruins of Pompeii.  I even printed a tag that read, Frederico II, University of Naples/Gift Shop.  I thought it was all in good fun.  Unfortunately, Professor X and his colleagues didn’t really have a sense of humour.  They were quite impressed with the gift!  They marvelled at the craftsmanship, and a couple of them commented that it was an excellent example of 1^st century Roman art.  One fellow, overcome with one-upmanship, casually mentioned that it was indeed a very good replica because he’d seen the original.  (I needed the marks, so I kept my mouth shut.)