Skippy’s Cranky!

Perhaps it’s because of a marathon grading session, or perhaps it’s because I had to deal with some nonsense that is just too cracktastic to blog about. Whatever it is, I’m pretty frickin’ cranky today. So, I’m gonna blog about two things that piss me off. Perhaps venting will put me in a less “Skippy” mood.

1. Tapout shirts, Harley Davidson motorcycles and other miscellaneous male overcompensations

Fig. 1. All of these men have tiny, tiny penises.

Now that it’s spring, my neighbors are out doing their yards, washing their ridiculously oversized trucks…and riding their motorcycles. One neighbor in particular seems to have an oversupply of Tapout and Ed Hardy shirts, a Ford (of course!) F-15000 Behemoth truck, and, of course, a loud-ass Harley Davidson. Because it’s spring, I can count on hearing him and his other friends (all of whom look almost exactly like each other) getting on those damn motorcycles and letting the entire neighborhood know that said motorcycles seem to take fifteen to thirty minutes to be able to ride.

You see, when you get in your car, you turn the ignition, release the parking brake and go on about your way. That probably takes a whole minute. Not so with the Harley Davidson crotch rocket. No. With these substitute penises, you have to rev the thing up for the length of a standard sitcom, and then–and only then are you ready to go ride the useless thing around the block. So, for thirty minutes, I get the unparalleled joy of listening to those damnable machines growling and growling and growling and growling before they finally launch those crotch rocket death traps.

I’ll be glad when it’s cold again.

Also, when it’s cold again, I won’t have to see these damnably ignorant “Tapout”/Ed Hardy shirts. Did someone appoint Ed Hardy/Tapout shirts as the official gear of the overcompensating douchebag? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what is the appeal of these hideously stupid shirts?

Fig. 2 The Official T-Shirt of the Immature Manchild.

It’s like you’re going around, saying to everyone, “Look! I am a giant asshole! I am so obviously overcompensating for the fact that I have no redeeming social graces whatsoever nor do I have any discernible personality, thus I am wearing this shirt to show everyone that I am frickin’ unique! Even though I’m totally not!”

I mean, I get it. When I was in my late 20s, I bought a gag shirt that said “Tag Team Wrestling.” It was clearly a “Look! I’m proud of being gay–so proud, I will wear this utterly lame ‘gag’ T-shirt with this shocking double entendre!” shirt. It was a douchebaggy shirt, and now resides in the bottom of my T-shirt drawer. Because I realized that I was an ADULT who probably didn’t need to wear shirts that could have come from Spencer’s. In other words, wearing Tapout or Ed Hardy shirts tells me one thing: you are overcompensating and most likely very immature and have bought into a pathetic image of “masculinity” that makes you think you’re a combination of Mel Gibson in “Braveheart” and the Dark Knight when you’re more likely a combination of Glenn Beck and Shia LeBouf. You think you’re being edgy and an “individual,” when you’re nothing more than a sheep shelling out money in order to conform to a ridiculously cartoonish “masculine” ideal.

And by the way, that tribal tattoo you have? It sucks.

2. Stupid family stickers on minivans

Fig. 3 Oh, great. I’m driving behind a family of smug jackasses.

What the is it with these damn stickers–and why is it they’re usually on the back of a Chrysler Windstar minivan driven by some oblivious maternal unit with a damn cell phone glued to her idiot head? Maybe if you hung up the damn phone and didn’t have stickers of your useless husband, troglodyte children and unruly dog and cat covering the back window, maybe you’d notice that I’m trying to get over.

But seriously–what is it with those stickers? Are we that pathetic a culture that we have to brag about the most minuscule, unimportant nonsense that isn’t brag-worthy? You successfully reproduced, adding to the overpopulation of the world and creating special snowflakes who, due to parental incompetence, will think that they excrete spun gold! Congratulations!

OK. I’ve vented. Tomorrow we will return to regularly scheduled blogging about puppies, sunshine and sparkly rainbows.