{"id":17869,"date":"2015-10-14T03:29:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T07:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=17869"},"modified":"2015-10-14T03:29:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T07:29:30","slug":"the-day-youve-dreaded-is-almost-nigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2015\/10\/the-day-youve-dreaded-is-almost-nigh\/","title":{"rendered":"The day you&#8217;ve dreaded is almost nigh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While it would have been nice to completely forget about this, at some time in the past, in a fit of uncharacteristic optimism, I put the damn thing into my calendar and reminders have been popping up for <em>days<\/em>. Far be it from me to suffer alone, so be warned<strong>:<\/strong> tomorrow is <strong>National Grouch Day<\/strong>, as you probably already know so this post is an utter waste of time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NationalGrouchDay.jpg\" alt=\"grouchy cats\" width=\"400\" height=\"257\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-17870\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2014\/10\/dont-let-em-get-you-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">Last year&#8217;s post<\/a> contained a lot of really terrible ideas, and I&#8217;d apologize for it but you don&#8217;t deserve such. The point is, there&#8217;s <em>one<\/em> day &#8211; one lousy, fucking day out of the whole <em>year<\/em> &#8211; that we can be ourselves without someone trying to convince us otherwise, and it is our onus to spread the irritability. And I really should just leave you hanging like that, but I&#8217;m not sure if that constitutes doing my part, so I went ahead and made a new list to work from, for which I&#8217;ll probably get blamed if you screw them up<strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li>Bring empty donut boxes into the office<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Pocket someone else&#8217;s keys, then after at least five minutes of the owner searching for them, surreptitiously place the keys back in a location you know the owner looked at least twice. Best to be gone before they&#8217;re found (you&#8217;re not allowed to enjoy this)<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Buy\/use cheap metal tools that no one was smart enough to clean all the metal burs from<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Keep disconnecting the internet router throughout the day<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Try to be &#8216;cool&#8217; and &#8216;with it&#8217; to your kids in a public place &#8211; bonus points if you can do it in front of a crush<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Spill something wet on fabric carseats &#8211; it <em>must<\/em> be slightly below body temperature so it won&#8217;t be immediately noticed<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Salt someone&#8217;s toothbrush<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Failing to tip waitstaff is <em>not<\/em> acceptable &#8211; they depend on tips to make up part of their salary. However, generously overtipping them entirely in nickels is fine<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Put your turn signal on and slow down for <em>every<\/em> side street but never turn<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Try an extremely difficult recipe with a lot of hungry people waiting<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Hum (badly) some recognizable yet really annoying bubblegum song in a crowded office, so it gets stuck in everyone&#8217;s head (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3FPn5noN_qs\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> might work if they&#8217;re older, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qkuu0Lwb5EM\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> one.) When someone finally complains, simply tell them, &#8220;Don&#8217;t worry &#8211; be happy.&#8221; They&#8217;re just wannabes anyway&#8230;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Put containers back in the fridge with about 1\/4 ounce of content within<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Distribute random patches of bubblewrap around the workplace &#8211; <em>all<\/em> bubbles should have a pinhole in them<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Shave some coarse grit sandpaper with someone else&#8217;s razor, preferably one still in the refill pack<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Set every clock in the house to a different time (bonus points for coordinating this with the internet thing)<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Get one shoe soaking wet<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Knock on the door of an occupied bathroom and ask if they&#8217;ve seen the big hairy spider come under the door<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Hide a container of spoiled milk <em>behind<\/em> the fridge against the wall &#8211; seriously, it&#8217;ll take forever to find, but the fridge will finally get cleaned<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Drive someone else&#8217;s car without adjusting the seat<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Use every touchscreen you can, including your own, with jelly on your fingers<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Find the shopping cart with the worst wheels. You know the one<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/sonofabitch.jpg\" alt=\"my day\" width=\"300\" height=\"348\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-17873\" \/>It is important to note that this is not National <em>Asshole<\/em> Day, and also that we ourselves are not exempt (even if we normally have this going on anyway.) Chances are, if anyone figures out we&#8217;re the ones with the &#8216;holiday spirit,&#8217; we couldn&#8217;t escape it anyway. Embrace it reluctantly, develop those frown lines, let our irritated mumbling be heard! Let&#8217;s drag the &#8216;norms&#8217; down into the mud with us and become one big dysfunctional family, if only for a day.<\/p>\n<p>It won&#8217;t matter anyway &#8211; it never does. No matter what we do, someone&#8217;s always gonna try to be <em>upbeat<\/em>. It practically makes me sick. What the hell&#8217;s <em>right<\/em> with people? Whatever &#8211; kick back and stream <em>Sanford &#038; Son<\/em> with a bag of burned popcorn and try to remember every stupid thing you&#8217;ve ever said to anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, even though he completely screwed up the timing, <a href=\"http:\/\/amultiverse.com\/comic\/2015\/09\/30\/cheer-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Rosenberg still knows<\/a>.<br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While it would have been nice to completely forget about this, at some time in the past, in a fit of uncharacteristic optimism, I put the damn thing into my calendar and reminders have been popping up for days. Far be it from me to suffer alone, so be warned: tomorrow is National Grouch Day, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[2590,3195,2589],"class_list":["post-17869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-random","tag-bitch-bitch-bitch","tag-going-viral","tag-national-grouch-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}