Nice guys finish last

I hate being the nice guy.  Yeah, I know, I’ve referred myself as an asshole on occasion, but I’m a nice guy.  I respect those around me as long as they’re not doing anything to me.  When I’m turning onto another street, I avoid crossing the turn lane if nobody is there so the light doesn’t change, I don’t cut lines, I let people out when I know it’s hard to get out on that road, I’ve offered to help people with their groceries.  I’ve taken grocery carts from handicap people outside stores so they don’t have to push them all the way back in. Just yesterday, one of the assholes I’m going to mention below dropped something on the sidewalk outside her apartment, her hands were full so I picked it up and handed it to her.  I hold doors for people, I’ve watched people drop cash and told them so they didn’t lose it.  My kids are not allowed to run down the halls or play music loudly at all because we are in the upstairs apartment.  I’m always on time, usually early, because it’s disrespectful to make someone wait on you.  I’m a nice guy.

Unlike these true life assholes who never respect anybody and think they are above everyone else.

          

I included a compass to make it easier to explain these assholes.  You see the orange blocking half of the road and then a little further down the whole road?  Those are blocking the road for construction, it is completely blocked off, you can’t get through but the problem actually lies on the north/south road.  You see the train tracks that run across it (black), there are constantly trains crossing it.  They run into a huge rail yard just north of the picture so when they cross, they usually cross very slowly.  There is a stop light at the corner and it lets one side go at a time.  The cars coming from the north get pretty backed up at certain times of the day.  If you want to go straight, it may take you a couple light changes to get through the intersection and your chances of hitting a train rise with each minute you sit there.  So while all the good people sit in line and wait their turn, the assholes will get in the right lane, turn right (heading west) then do a u-turn so they can turn right again back onto the road they were just on.  They do it when there is a train blocking the tracks as well, they basically jump the line.

I’m the nice guy who sits in the line waiting to go through the light, I take my turn like most everyone else.  Or I’ll go left to the underpass but it’s a few miles down the road.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about doing the u-turn thing, and I wouldn’t think twice about doing it.  It’s not the law that scares me, it’s the fact that it isn’t fair to everybody else if I get to cut the line.

This happens all over the place.  People getting in turn lanes and going straight beating out traffic.  People who stay in lanes that are ending all the way to the last second until they have to force their way over.  People are assholes, put them behind 2 tons of steel and they think they become invincible assholes.

Here at our apartment, I deal with assholes on a daily basis.  I have the luxury of calling them my neighbors.  Whether it be my neighbor in the next building and his stereo, the lady below us with her 50 kids who slam the door every time they go in and out, to the special breed of asshole who lives right next to us.  We deal with their stereo on a weekly basis but what’s worse is what you see above.  Those first 4 parking spots are marked handicapped.  The blue Tahoe and the black Monte Carlo belong to them, and they are far from handicapped.  Unless not knowing how to wear your pants at your waist is considered being handicapped now.  The apartment below them is a group home of sorts with 3 handicapped individuals who have a rotation of nurses that come in and stay with them.  They deserve the handicap spots (the other 2 cars are theirs), not the asshole neighbors.  The really pathetic part is that we have a handicap placard for Cheri and even she refuses to park in the spaces because the nurses need them.

Apparently they think if they destroy the handicap sign, then it’s ok.  I couldn’t tell you how many times they’ve replaced it.  I’m so sick of living here, I need a house out in the middle of nowhere with no one around.  I’m really starting to hate people.

I want to say I believe that you get what you deserve.  But I’ve seen a lot of good people get hurt who didn’t deserve it.  I’ve also seen more assholes continually getting away with being assholes with no retribution.  It gets old.  I’m a nice guy and I’m trying to raise my kids to be the same, but I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.  The way this world is, the assholes continue to take from the nice people.  Maybe I should raise my kids to be assholes so they can survive this world.

Kids and Social Media

My daughter brought home a letter from the school today.  Saying that there has been some instance’s of cyber bullying coming to light.  In the freaking 5th grade.  The letter was long, posted some rules about electronic devices but basically it said that parent’s need to monitor their kids better when it comes to Social Media.  While I do agree with the intent behind the letter.  I really want to send the principle an e-mail and say I realize that there is only so much the school can do and I’m not against what the letter said, but let’s face it, most parents don’t care what their kids are doing online as long they are entertained and out of their hair.

My daughter has a Facebook account and has limited access to the internet at home.  The access has parental controls as well as I get an e-mail telling me every website she has visited which is mostly just Facebook.  And as far as the Facebook account goes, she doesn’t know the email or password associated with the account.  So she can only access it when Cheri and I are around.  And every notification she gets on it is also emailed to me.  Almost all of her friends are family members and I’ve even had to hide 1 of them because she’s early 20’s and tends to cuss a lot.  She does have a few friends from school, but not many.  All friend request go through me which means I look at their accounts after approval and before I let her look.  I approved one friend that after I approved her, I checked her wall a week or so later and there was sexual like content plus her profile pic had the F word in it twice.  I posted about that here.  She was defriended immediately and I’ve had to turn down friend requests from her more than once.  She doesn’t know the word no, I’m guessing.

Since then, I’ve been to this girls house and seen that she lives with her grandparents and an uncle while her father stays out back in some sort of shed.  She has her own laptop and cellphone.  At freaking 10 years old.  I understand it’s probably real hard for the grandparents to raise this kid but you can’t let them do whatever you want either.  I’ve already told Samantha that I won’t even discuss a cellphone until at least 13 and that’s just discussing it, that’s not a yes your getting one.  It doesn’t help that the school system that my kids go to is in a rich kind of area.  So a lot of the kids parents can afford to give their kids the nicer things.  If you go to the high school, you’ll see all kinds of Beamers and Mercedes in the parking lot.  They are spoiled beyond belief.  I sent them to this school system because it’s the best in the area, academically and athletically.  It’s also the high school I graduated from.  But anytime there is a school function, Cheri and I just feel out of place.  While we are still considering a house in this school system, it is not at the top of our list anymore.  There’s more issues I have with it but I’m getting off track.

These kids that got caught, or told on, I don’t really know what happened, on Instagram.  Which means they probably all had cell phones.  The school’s rules basically leave it up to the teacher to post the rules of the classroom.  They are allowed to have them at school as long as they aren’t disruptive and if a teacher says he doesn’t want to see them, then they have to be put away.  I think the school rules at that age should be no cell phones out period.  You can have them on you and have them out at lunch and recess but any other time in the school they should be put away.  At this age, all after school activities are planned from this time, to this time.  You know what time to pick up your kid.  There is no need for a cell phone to call a parent when practice is over.  Junior High, maybe.  Elementary, no.

I can’t believe I’m actually having to deal with this stuff already.  I thought I’d at least get her to Junior High before this became an issue.  What makes this worse, was I had planned on posting a post about my Social Media Addiction.  I guess I had this coming.

Facebook is bullying me

Back when I was in Junior High, I was picked on.  They use the term bullied and I’ve said before I was bullied, but compared to what kids go through now a days, I’m not sure that’s what happened.  I got made fun of, nobody really laid a hand on me that I remember.  And until I learned the phrase that I still live by today ‘I don’t give a shit”, it continued.  Once they realized it didn’t bother me anymore, they gave up.  Between that and my main antagonist getting in a fight with me, things stopped.  I know what your thinking, I kicked his ass and people stopped screwing with me.  No, that didn’t happen.

Brian made fun of me, every chance he got.  He hung out with Wally who did the same.  When he wasn’t making fun of me, he was goading me to fight him.  Brian was the cool kid who was an athlete.  Wally was his sniveling wannabe.  Anyways, we were sitting in class before the bell rang and he was taunting me as usual.

Brian – “Come on, fight me.  Let’s get together after school.  Let’s go pussy, you chicken” – or something like that.

Me – “Fine, you want to fight, let’s fight.”

Brian – after the shock that I said yes wore off “Good, meet me behind the gas station after school.”

Me – “No, you want to fight me, find me.  I’m not going to “meet” you anywhere.  But if you come across me outside of school, we’ll do it.  I’m not doing anything you say, and am not meeting you anywhere.”

I don’t remember what was said after that, but you get the idea.  It didn’t end there though.  Now he just kept talking about what he was going to do when he saw me.  Blah, blah, blah, I ignored him.

A week or 2 later, I was hanging out at my buddy’s house.  We were out in his backyard, throwing a football.  Guess who comes walking up.  Brian & Wally.  They came up and offered to play us, 2 on 2, in football.  Sure, why not.  See where I said Brian was a good athlete, well, so was I.  I just never played for my school.  But in the coming years in high school, I didn’t get picked on as much.  Mainly because I schooled most of the athletes in the school in whatever we played in gym class.  I regularly beat guys on the basketball team and it pissed them off, but it did get me a little respect.  But back to the backyard.  We started playing, I don’t really remember a whole lot about the game.  I know my friend wasn’t very athletic, but neither was Wally.  But Brian and I went at it, hard.  The last play of the game resulted in me grabbing his shirt to tackle him and ripping a huge hole in it.  And apparently he didn’t like that and it was game on.

He came at me, I defended.  All I did was keep my arms up on defense and blocked most of what he threw.  He only connected 3 times and they were all body shots that did nothing.  I never threw a punch.  Eventually he got bored and him and Wally went home.  A few people at school heard about it, tried to tell me I got my butt kicked.  I just shrugged my shoulders and asked if they saw a mark on me.  Eventually, they let it go and I learned that I didn’t really care who thought what about me.  Once they knew it didn’t bother me, they left me alone.

But why do I bring all this up now?  Well, when I first got on Facebook years ago, I friended anybody in my graduating class.  I’ve even made decent friends with some of them that I never really knew before.  Actually met my wife doing that being as she was in my graduating class.  Well, there were a few friends that I didn’t friend request.  You can probably guess 2 of them.  I’m telling this story in the hopes that whoever does the “people you may know” for Facebook, reads this, because I’m getting tired of seeing this.

He’s on top of my list, and I see him over and over again on my sidebar.  Stupid Facebook.

That was the closest I’ve ever come to a fight, I guess technically it is, just depends how you look at it.  That’s partly because back then I was 6”2’, 140 lbs with a white man’s afro and glasses.  Now I’m 6”3’, 260 lbs with a shaved head and usually a pissed off look on my face.  I don’t get messed with anymore.  Some people actually fear me, I find that funny.