A warning to rude people, on behalf of writers everywhere. We’re issuing an eavesdropping advisory: if you don’t have an indoor voice, expect to end up in one of our stories. If your temperance drops, and you put a shrill into the air, you’re begging for a role in our next adventure. If you blow white noise conditions out your molar vortex, we owe it to future generations to make a record of it. If you’re a severe weather friend, letting out an arctic blast every time you vent, we’ll be there to chronicle it.
To those who suffer from line blindness. Who steal spots because they feel entitled. Who complain about having to wait, when they couldn’t be bothered to make an appointment. When you say you want to give management a piece of your mind, we’re the ones who really take it.
We welcome you line cutters, you unsatisfied customers, you unexpected guest lecturers. When we need a character’s bile to come from a real place, we eagerly await what spills from your face. It might be toxic, but we won’t let it go to waste. We write what we know, and we learn from people like you.
To the megalomaniacal moviegoers, arguing with actors on screen, we’ll make sure that your dialogue gets to the right place.
To those who throw temper tantrums at tech support, we’ll pay special attention to how you’re wired, to where your screws are loose. We’ll find your glitch. Check your terms and conditions, we reserve the right to do whatever we want with this information. Your call may be recorded for training, quality, or entertainment purposes. Your anger may find its way onto one of our pages.
When you scream, “Am I just talking to myself!” We’re all ears, writing your soliloquy into our screenplays. When you feel like you’re shouting at a brick wall, we’re on the other side building a monument in your likeness.
If there’s a big book tallying up all of your sins, who do you think is keeping score? Never piss off a writer. We’re Santa’s little helpers. We decide who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. We decide who gets shown in a positive light. If we see that you’re always in the red, that’s how you’re going to be painted. If you ignore other people’s perspectives, we’re not going to see your good side.
When you pose statements in the form of questions, with valley girl up speak, we’ll be there to note the inflection. When you lob back handed compliments at your friends, we’ll be there to catch every last one of them.
When you drop F-bombs on civilians from coffee shop couch cushions, gossiping about the other members of AA, we’re the ones writing the flight manifest of your Enola Gay.
You’ve crossed the line, from annoying to entertaining. We went from shutting you out, to tuning you in. It’s not in our interest for you to calm down. We want to egg you on. It would take a boardroom full of comedians, working several months, to punch up lines of dialogue to your level of crazy. You’re doing all the work, and we’re grateful for your charity.
If the potential for conflict is visible, we aspire to make it audible. Conflict is the heart of drama. Be a drama Queen and you will rule our scenes. Be a diva and we’ll give you a place to sing. Every opera needs a prima donna. Every story needs an antagonist.
Send your minestrone back three times in a row. Ask to speak with the chef. Hand out reprimands with your demands. Remind your server that she’s working for tips. Read your nasty Yelp review out loud just incase the staff doesn’t think to search for it. Bravo, you’re perfect!
Drive your knees into the bus seat. Choke the life out of your cellphone. Shout into the receiver until you’re sure your voice is distorting on the other end. Point a finger at a person who isn’t there to see it. We’re casting for The Terror of Metro Transit, and guess what? You just got the part.
We’re the lurkers, the creeps, the ones with records to keep. We’re the quote bookers. We face away, because it makes it easier to hear what you say. We’ll be the ones to accept the awards for your tell off speech.
It’s your audacity that gives our voices authenticity.
If you can’t say something nice, then say it to our faces. You’re an expert quip handler and we’re here to take your tongue-lashings. Thank you mistress, may we have another? We’ve been bad. You should give us a talking to. You’re a control freak, so dominate us. Rake us over the coals. Break us down. Break our writers’ block while you’re at it.
You are rife with material. Take it out on us. Scold us. Berate us. Take us to task.
Good, we can feel your anger. Strike us down with all of your hatred and your journey to the quotation mark-side will be complete.
Now your cruelty belongs to the ages.
“your journey to the quotation mark-side will be complete.” I will be quoting you for some time to come. The oratory force is strong in you.
“The oratory force is strong in you.” Now that’s a high compliment! Thank you so much for reading it.
Here I was wondering if I should go out on a Star Wars quote. I kept reading that last line in the Emperor’s voice.
My friend, sitting next to me, took his headphones off to say, “I have no idea what you just said, but you looked insane saying it.”
It was a good night.
Yes, I loved the whole piece (and read it out loud to my wife), but I clapped above the iPad when I reached the Palpatine paraphrase. Well done, sir.
I’ve actually recorded an audio version of this piece (that I’ve yet to post) where I do my best Emperor Palpatine impression.
This is awesome, Drew! You made my day! 😀
All to happy to make your day. Thanks for reading it!
This is fantastic! It’s poetic, in more ways than one. The words seem to flow like a song, like you opened your mouth and out poured a modern day Shakespeare. Brilliant!
Wow, thank you. I have to keep fighting the urge to rhyme and write in meter. I struggle to quell my inner lyricist.
Please don’t. It’s a beautiful thing to behold. Set your inner lyricist free!
Who needs the NSA when somewhere, a writer is always listening to you? Terrific post, with great pics, as per usual.
Thanks. With all the NSA developments as of late, I really need to write another gag piece on them. It would give me an excuse to model a tin foil hat.
Love the post, Drew! Well written, true and funny — a trifecta! 🙂
Thank you! I had to trim this one down a lot at the last minute. This is one of those tangents I could spend several days ranting on.
You mean I’m not the only one who gets silent revenge for slights by writing people into books and poems? Whew!
lol I must be lucky. Relatives are the people most likely to be quoted and described in my work. Great for writing. Sucks for every day living. *eye roll*
Is it bad that I do this to everyone who manages to speak loud enough for me to hear them? Rude or not. Some of the best triggers I’ve got have been overheard in Starbucks or restaurants. To date my favourite (still waiting for a piece to use it in) was at an ice cream parlour:
Very Angry GF: I can’t believe you’d do this to me
BF: I didn’t cheat on you. I swear on my grandmother’s grave.
* awkward silence *
Even More Angry GF: Your grandmother isn’t even dead.
BF: But still…
🙂 Crowded places where people are prone to speaking loudly are a writer’s playground!
Yeah, we do tend to take the real life situations and the douche bags out there and turn them into great material. I’m pretty sure Joe Hill got that clinic scene in Horns from something like what you described above.
Too many things I love about this piece to chronicle. You are a wordsmith, and your voice is strong, smart, musical, and true. I love crazy, real-world rants, too… devouring them at Starbucks, sponging them up at the gym, in parking lots, at Whole Foods. Can’t wait to read more from you.
Just think of the possibilities if you were working for the NSA. It would be a goldmine for any writer.
10X MY DEAR
I enjoyed reading this way too much. Happening to hear things you really shouldn’t or just being a witness to someone else’s drama is just way too amusing!
Loved this!
I agree! Conversations and quarrels heard in public for everyone to hear are a rich source for story writing.
Wow, I love this. Nice to know I have the same view as you! Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic!!!
Reblogged this on The TV Media Junkie ReBlog Blog.
lol
funny
I feel like going to the window and yelling out “I will not take it anymore”
Just per chance I had the opportunity to read your brilliant ridiculunction (should be a word) of the greasy axles we experience during our everyday
existence here on one of the hemispheres.
They truly can be found everywhere.
I’ll keep it in mind next time my smoke stack wishes to release my heart’s exhaust, following a long day or overwrought interaction with one of the various control freaks you shared!
Thanks!
Reblogged this on Dan's Faves.
And here I thought that people like this were just wasting my oxygen. This is a much better way of looking at them. 🙂 Congrats on being Freshly Pressed
Great post. Interesting collection of all the things that piss me off. Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed.
Thank you so much for reading it. I could rant on rude people for chapters at a time, but I figured I’d just drop the most recent examples I could think of into the article
Ha! This was so funny! Made my day!
Glad you liked it. Now use this technique out in the world
Oh I’m about to! >:) With this new power I have a new responsibility that I’m about to totally abuse!
This brought to mind my recent trip to the Ronald Regan Presidential Library. (For a spy exhibit). My democrat family spent more time listening to the attendees than looking at the exhibit. Plus we were all kind of in shock from the portrait of the man himself made entirely from butterfly wings. (Not kidding)
Reblogged this on Energy's Soul Mission.
Love this! Hilarious and so true.
Wow, thank you. I hope you had as much fun writing that as I did reading it.
Also, it’s probably the most effect way to deal with difficult people.
This is so perfect and, coincidentally, just happened to me less than an hour ago in one of my favorite coffee shops. Thanks for posting. 🙂
Reblogged this on The Dreaming and commented:
This guy’s awesome.
Reblogged this on tjphull.
This is priceless!
This is just superb! Refreshingly original! Best I have read in a long while! Thank you.
Thank you so much. I’ve been straddling the line between “original” and far out of left field. I’m glad you liked it
Keep going left!
I don’t know where to start – loved every word ! I have long found myself observing from that line between annoying and entertaining – its the best seat in the house !
When I was in customer service the world put on a show for me. Thank you so much for reading and commenting.
I was just thinking that myself.
Reblogged this on Tarek Elbakry's Blog.
Reblogged this on Bev Elle and commented:
Dang, writers everywhere have been outted. LOL
Excellent wordplay. I think I may follow along.
Reblogged this on Berly ups and downs..mostly downs.
This post is amazing! It’s so funny and flows perfectly! I really enjoyed reading it and it’s so true
Just outstanding. They’ve been warned.
That’s a whole new way to look at these creeps.
Now the next time I’m taking the local bus and someone’s acting up, all I’m going to be thinking of, is how I can weave a story around a character like this, instead of feeling angry and damaging my mood. 😀 So thanks 😀
Bravo! You’ve given me a gift. Henceforth, each new encounter with the ‘difficult’ will be as joyfully celebrated as found money. Re-blogged on Tea for The Tillie Mom
nice 🙂
Anthropological spying using spying technologies is. taking. creative ingenuity to far, would you agree?
That.
Was.
AWESOME!!!
Love it x
Finally someone to chronicle the self-centred “first world problem”-esque behavior of the entitles so that we can laugh instead of strangling them! Not only are you providing hilarity, but you just might keep me off the bell tower, good sir!
ah those pesky line cutters!