Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Jerks & A**holes

jerksThere are three kinds of people in the world: regular folks, (that would be us) jerks and assholes.  We all recognize jerks and assholes.  They’re those people whose decision-making and social behaviour ruins the quality of life for everyone around them.  Yet they haven’t got a clue just how annoying they are.  They can be the girl on the bus, the guy behind the counter, a neighbour, even a friend — but these days, they’re everywhere.

At first glance, jerks and assholes might look and act in a similar manner; however, they are two different species.  Here’s a quick guide to help you sort them out.  (Although I have used the masculine pronoun throughout, there are an equal number of male and female jerks and assholes.  In fact, jerks and assholes practice 100% gender equality.)

At a restaurant, a jerk always leaves a miniscule tip.
An asshole always brags about the size of the tip he left, and then bitches about the service — after he’s left the restaurant.

A jerk will answer texts while he’s talking to you.
An asshole will stop you in mid sentence to show you the text.

A jerk doesn’t care what you think of him.
An asshole believes you think about him all the time.

A jerk will loudly explain why he’s an atheist to any Christian who crosses his path.
An asshole wants to discuss the Vatican’s position on pedophilia with your great aunt’s friend, retired Father Donnelly, aged 82.

At a coffee shop, a jerk asks any number of stupid questions but always ends up ordering a regular coffee.
An asshole will ask for some ingredient nobody’s ever heard of, be surprised that nobody’s ever heard of it, explain its significance to the  barista and end up ordering a regular coffee.  Then, after it’s poured he remembers he wanted decaf.

A jerk never cleans up after his dog.
An asshole scoops poop but leaves the bag under a tree.

At lunch, a jerk is constantly checking his phone.
An asshole has extended conversations.

A jerk laughs at his own jokes.
An asshole never laughs at anybody’s jokes.

A jerk is always late.
An asshole is always late.

You’re always nervous introducing your jerky friend to everybody.
You try to avoid introducing your asshole friend to anybody.

Ever Wonder Why?

WhyUnless you’re four years old, Seth Rogen or the Big Lebowski, you don’t have a lot of time to lie around the house and wonder why.  Adults, who aren’t permanently affixed to 4/20 self medication, learn to take a few things on faith.  After all, “why?” is a pretty open-ended question and much if it, without herbal encouragement, isn’t worth the trouble.  For example, I don’t know why there are 8,000 different kinds of pasta, and, honestly, I don’t care.  I’m sure somebody knows the difference between linguini, fettuccini and all of other “inis,” out there, but it ain’t me.  However, there are times when our inner child does escape on a Friday morning and, over a second cup of coffee just wonders why.

During automobile commercials, when the car speeds up, why are the wheels turning the wrong way?  I’m no fan of physics, but that’s impossible.

The Ancient Greeks believed in a pantheon of gods who lived on Mount Olympus.  Mount Olympus is only 3,000 metres high.  Why didn’t somebody just climb the mountain and look?

When anti-religious people get upset about religious symbols like burkas and crucifixes, why doesn’t anybody ever mention yoga pants?  Honestly, we should do something about yoga pants.

And why does this work?

paradox

Every year, charities spend thousands and thousands of dollars making television commercials to solicit donations.  Why don’t they take the big money they’re spending on film crews, transportation, actors, actresses and TV time and just give it to the people they’re trying to help?

Why don’t psychics ever win the lottery?

In Lord Of The Rings, instead of walking all over Middle Earth trying to get to Mordor, why didn’t Gandalf just get the eagles to fly Frodo directly to Mount Doom?  He throws the Ring into the volcano: Sauron’s history.  Mission accomplished!

And finally, if Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is correct and there is natural selection, then why, after 50,000 years of human history, are there still so many stupid people kicking around?

Why Do They Hate Us?

Our western world is the most carefree, benevolent society in history.  So why does half the rest of the world hate us while the other half is actively trying to kill us?  It’s a conundrum, and a lot of learned minds have written volumes hoping to figure it out.  Forget all that crap!  It boils down to the 3Gs: Grocery stores, Game shows and Golf.

groceryGrocery Stores – In North America, there’s enough food in the average grocery store to feed a 3rd World village for the better part of a decade.  There’s fresh food, frozen food, canned food, processed food and food that isn’t even food anymore.  (BTW, what does “meal replacement” actually mean?)  We’ve got so much food there’s an entire aisle devoted to food whose only purpose is to go on top of other food.  There’s another aisle for the food we eat between the times we’re eating food.  We can buy food and use it to decorate other food — and then just throw it away.  Incredible as it sounds, grocery stores even have a whole bunch of food that’s actually bad for us — not to mention the 600 different kinds of sugar water we can buy to wash it all down with.  And that’s just one grocery store: there are thousands and thousands of them.  The industrialized West has more food than it could ever possibly eat.

Game Shows – Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right are absolute WTF moments in modern living.gameshow  Contestants can walk away from these programs with more money than billions of people on this planet can earn in a lifetime — and they do it in 30 minutes or less.  And what do they have to do to collect all this coin?  Not much beyond spinning the big game wheel or making it “a true daily double, Alex.”  However, for insult to injury TV, nothing beats Survivor.  The premise of this game is that, for a month and a half, a  group of Americans have to live the way the rest of the world lives all the time.  After six weeks, the person who is sneaky, cunning and manipulative enough to outlast everybody else, wins a million dollars.  (A million dollars!)  That’s folding money in any country’s currency.

golfGolf – Nobody actually knows how much money is spent in the Western world on golf.  Even a conservative guess would put it somewhere around the accumulated GNPs of 50 of the world’s poorest nations.  A quick inventory of balls, clubs, tees, gloves, a bag, shoes, a collared shirt, and the dicky little hat and you’re into the game for a couple of thousand.  Add green fees, cart rentals and all the other etceteras and you’re looking at five figures to bang your balls around a pasture every week.  And that’s what it is — a Members Only pasture — and we have thousands of them.  Plus, we soak these pastures with billions of litres of drinkable water, thousands of metric tonnes of fertilizer and millions of working hours in maintenance.  (Some places cut their putting greens with lasers!)  To produce?  Nothing — beyond huge tracts of immaculately manicured, inedible grass.  All for the sole purpose of getting a little white ball into a tiny round hole, hundreds of yards away from where we’re originally standing.

These are the 3Gs, and it’s this kind of in-your-face affluence that pisses people off.