Baby on Board

The agitation that I feel while viewing the stickers that adorn the vehicles of fellow motorists can only be described as crotch-rending. People on the road are generally passive, courteous citizens with good intentions and a laissez-faire attitude.

The issue here is not the majority of people but the few who are determined to cause blood to shoot from my eyes by advertising the quality of their passengers.

Do I really need to know that you have twins on board? Perhaps the startling revelation that you have an overactive uterus will prompt me to treat you with a greater level of respect, and dare I say, awe?

I grew up playing only the best of gut-busting, psychotically homocidal video games. After I got my driver's licence, I decided it was probably for the best that I no longer played these games, at least where the primary gameplay mode was a driving simulator. Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon were to be avoided after that point so as to diminish their influence on my actual driving ability. 
Shrieking with glee and delight as those pedestrians pirouhetted of my front windscreen accompanied by a geyser of blood emanating from their freshly-removed limbs may have been the most fun I could have without farm animals, but this type of entertainment tends to be frowned upon in the local school zone.

In any case, your proud declarations of testicular fortitude and lack of knowledge of contraception won't dissuade me from being a selfish jerk on the road. I don't care how nice it is to wait for someone at a T-intersection - right of way is right of way. And you aren't going to convert me to Christianity with your ridiculous fish-magnet either.

You're just making yourself a more appealing target. Not as appealing a target as those guys in pimped-out Ford Lasers with giant rear spoilers, but you're close.

Androgynous

I never know what to make of people who are seemingly androgynous. People are often highly offended when I can't tell whether they are a man or a woman and this would appear to be my fault on first glance. Numerous classes studied on the topic of gender tell me (at the very least) that this is one of the more prickly areas; much like an anus. We all have one and it's part of who we are, and sometimes you can get as much going in as you do from what's going out.

I fail to see however, how it is entirely my fault that I can't tell what that person flailing across the room is. Short ginger hair and a choleric temper tell me nothing about their sex; this is a quality of redheads in general. Speaking in a monotone voice is problematic in more ways that one - is it a woman with a deep voice or a man with a soft voice?

This person is carrying one of those sissy over-the-shoulder bags that could be used interchangeably for carrying high-tech laptop equipment or an assortment of face moisturisers and fushcia eye-shadow. Even knowing the contents of the bag won't help me at this point as the PC police have pointed out to me before - "women can use computers too, and I have a guy friend who wears make-up"
"Is he gay?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well if he's gay then he's not really a man, now is he?"

These conversations invariably get me into strife, and consistently cause my grade-point average to suffer. Perhaps that is a lesson on targeting my audience more carefully.

Scrutinising one's gait isn't helpful anymore, since Captain Jack Sparrow popularised the "girly run" as fun for everyone. There is real difficulty in ascertaining gender when you've got a manly profession like pirating, girly locks of hair, tattoos, piercings, maritime homosexuality exemptions, and they run by flapping their arms about while feverishly hopping along like a West Side Story dancer

The crocodile dundee solution would seem to be the best - go straight for the source of the confusion and find out firsthand, but most of the androgynous people I've met seem fairly uncomfortable with this. 

Conversations, interactions and relationships are always, ALWAYS two-way affairs. If I'm not getting what gender you are, chances are you aren't representing yourself clearly as a proud member of your gender. Don't get mad at me because I called you "sir" when you're a chick. I'm scared enough of getting hit in the face by that gigantic neck-knob known as an Adam's Apple.

The first

My latest forays into building a writing business have turned out to be less than fruitful; I seem to be suffering a certain amount of cognitive dissonance regarding my writer's professionalism and a desire to make money. It seems that these goals are mutually exclusive.

It doesn't help that every single offer I seem to be getting is from a complete asshat, determined to wring me dry for every moist droplet of talent I can produce for little in return.

I am convinced however that anyone who uses the internet for a profit motive is both (A) a lacklustre person with aspirations of getting rich with little to no work and (B) greedy, selfish, stupid and in all likelihood, physically hideous. Why else would they be peddling their unintelligible and superfluous wares where no one could see their faces?

I'll be making commentary on people in their entirety, rather than these troglodytes that perpetually burn my ass on the internet. But today, my ass is burned by internet trolls and I wish to bitch about it.