There are some seriously angry people in this world. I came across one yesterday. Asshats united at Saturday shopping.

I dropped Elder Spawn at work. He works in Coles a few hours a week at the local large shopping centre. Actually, when I say large, I mean it’s bigger than a single shop, but smaller than a mall type thing. Which is totally irrelevant really.

Elder Spawn slinks out of the car, looking furtively from left to right because freakin’ hell! A public place? With your mother? At 16? The shame and humiliation! Even if there is money involved.

I drive on to the opposite end of the shopping centre to buy some magazines for MOTH, Younger Spawn and Step Spawn.

The place is packed. It’s the Saturday afternoon shopping frenzy in full swing. I see a spot in the next row, so drive around there. Before I start to turn into the park, naturally I check I’m clear.
There’s a car coming toward me, but he’s going straight ahead and past me so I throw on the indicator, and start to drive into the spot. A parking spot, two places away from the door of the shopping centre on a busy day. Cool, right? Wrong.

I get out of the car, and there’s a car sitting behind me. It’s the ‘no indicator, going straight ahead car’. I wonder what they’re doing, but start walking. Their window goes down.

The screaming starts. Apparently, I am a fucking, selfish bitch. Apparently, I have no respect for my elders. Apparently, I am a lazy, fucking lowlife scum with shit for brains.

I take a look at the car. Hanging out the window is an elderly gentleman (and I use the term loosely), red in the face, screaming it me at the top of his lungs.

I start to speak, calmly. To explain.

He shouts “Oh come on, we both know that’s bullshit!” proving that along with being a dickhead, he must be psychic, as I didn’t even get the sentence out, yet he knew what I was going to say.

I give up, and just walk off toward the shops. He drives off around the corner, with a few more choice expletives.

As I cross the road to the shops, he throws his car into reverse, and comes straight back at me. People stare.

I keep walking, albeit faster. He screams at me some more, and I say “Have a nice day” wave, and go into the shopping centre. I don’t know where he went, and I didn’t much care by then, although hell would’ve been nice

Shaking a bit, I stand in the newsagents.

*breathe* *breathe*

I don’t do confrontation well at all. It scares me. A therapist type told me once it probably dates back to memories of my dad beating up on my mother when I was 7 or 8. She thought the child in me equates shouting with violence, hence the panic.

Whatever.

I don’t care if he was older. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a rude bastard. He seemed to think I owed him something because he was grey with wrinkles.

Although I have a huge amount of inherent respect for the elderly, respect is still earned.

That bastard, doesn’t deserve any.

It’s this time of year when a young girls thoughts turn to Wimbledon. If she likes tennis that is, and I do.

I love a good tennis match. The problem here in Australia though, is that we have no decent players in the mens draw to support hence my undying love and devotion to the ever charming, likable and immensely talented Roger Federer. How dare Pat Rafter retire.

Because you see, the best mens player we have left is Lleyton Hewitt. What an ass. What a snotty little prat he is, and always has been, even when he was something close to being good.

I can’t stand him, and I’m sure my dog wouldn’t either. How can you like a guy that thinks the world (well, Australia, anyway) owes him admiration and respect because he’s a tennis player. He’s rude, he calls linesmen “spastic”, he screams “C’mon!” mainly just to try and piss off the opposition, and always has an injury excuse ready to trot out should he not do well.

And don’t get me started on the Lleyton and Bec circus. She’s an ex-soapie star (and I use the term loosely), and he’s, well, he’s just him. A pain in the ass.

They got married, and sold the pictures to a magazine for some ludicrous amount.

Then, when they managed to do the unthinkable and pop out a kid, - they pimped the first year or two of the poor things life to a womens mag for a cool million or so. Imagine that? Having a child. How the hell did they do that? No one else does - they were the first. Or so it seemed.

But it all went sour. Becs and Lley-ley weren’t getting the adoration they wanted, people were saying things like, oh I don’t know - he’s a asshat? SHe’s trashy and thick as a brick? And suddenly, they changed their tune. They wanted privacy. They resented the media intruding into their lives.

AUSTRALIAN tennis star Lleyton Hewitt has lashed out at the media over the amount of coverage given to his soap-star wife Bec and their young daughter.

Oh for fucks sake. They prostituted themselves and their infant daughter across any magazine or newspaper they could…and then when the money dried up, cried invasion of privavcy????? Give. Me. A. Break.

Now the media’s in overdrive because Bec’s up the duff again. Seems they must be low on funds because apparently? They’ve sold their story again for over 100 grand.

The supposedly now publicity and media shy Hewitts didn’t just announce the pregnancy to friends and family, then go about their private family business that Lleyton whined was so important to him. They rushed to OK! Magazine and announced the impending arrival with a 8 page spread. That just coincidentally paid a rumoured $100k.

Someone make them stop.

Bloody women’s magazines make me sick. But not as much as Bec and Lleyton. Money can get you a lot of things, but it cannot, and will not ever, buy you class.

And Lleyton? It won’t ever, ever, make you as good as Roger Federer, who last night gave you an absolute tennis lesson.

So my son, Spawn the Elder, has had an emotional week or two. As have I. There is nothing quite like having your teenage son literally crying on your lap, well half on your lap because he is over 6′2″ tall and I am 5′3″, despairing anything good is ever going to happen in his life.

Maybe it’s my Irish ancestry. Being born in Belfast, perhaps I have inherited that melancholy Irish heritage and passed it on. I am partial to a nice potato…

Anyways, thank you to everyone that expressed concern for him. It was greatly appreciated (by me at least, as he’d be horrified if he thought I had posted about him).

Our school has been abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. His year coordinator talked to me for ages, the vice principal called, all his teachers were advised of the situation within a couple of hours, and he was made a priority booking with the school counselor (the spawn that is, not the vice principal), and then was quickly booked into see our GP.

So the boy has talked his head off to a few people, and the general consensus is that he isn’t suffering from depression, but that he needs to work on a few coping skills. He has issues with some of the kids at school because he is more mature than the average 16 year old. Therefore, he can’t be bothered with the crap they spout, and although this isn’t a bad thing, it can serve to make him feel left out and thinking there is something wrong with him. As opposed to just recognising that some of the guys at school are nothing more than raving dickheads. As most 16 year olds are.

He is feeling much brighter however, and needless to say the stronger smell of teen spirit is like nirvana to me (heh, pardon the pun).

I’m telling you folks, this parenting gig gets exponentially harder when they are teenagers.

It sucks, and although I love my boys to pieces, and they don’t get into any trouble, do pretty well at school, have awesome senses of humour, and are generally pretty decent to hang around with….at the moment, I’d give it up in a heartbeat to be back when they were 1 and 3 rather than 14 and 16, because that era? Was a piece of cake compared to this shit.

What would you prefer, or think you would prefer? Toddler hell, or teenage angst??

Also, while we were going through this, I did a bit of research into depression in kids, and uncovered quite a lot of info. I’m thinking of doing a post covering it all in case anyone else is ambushed like me.

Do you think that would be useful??

So…a question.

Who are you when you blog?

Are you you, or are you how you want others to see you?

Who do you blog FOR? (yeah, I know, that’s three questions, so deal with it).

When I decided to start this here blogging gig again, I spent altogether too much time deciding who I was going to be. I had a blog a year or two ago, and it kind of ran out of steam. In hindsight? I think it dwindled and became a chore because I wasn’t being me (it still pisses me off that it wasn’t backed up in the right format to import here though. I AM an idiot).

I pondered, should my blogging persona be the sweet and motherly type? The psychotic axe murderer type? Would anyone like me? All of which sounds very I’m-6-years-old-and-must-fit-in-with-the-other-kids. Rather than I’m-just-a-freaking-fruitcake nutjob-with-a-blog and absolutely, totally lame.

Then, I read a bit about blogging and got all concerned with the “identify your brand, and decide upon your niche” stuff. What? You mean I can’t just register a domain name and write about my life (or lack thereof)? And just stuff? Rants? I have to market myself as well? It was all getting to be too much like hard work - I don’t like hard work, and I don’t like to think. Well, not often anyway. You may have noticed.

Blogging seems so involved now. SEO, Twitter, Plurk, Adsense, Stumbleupon, Technorati, people sweating over their Alexa and Feedburner ratings/subscribers, why you should monetise your blog, why you shouldn’t monetise your blog, how to triple your readers in 47.5 seconds, join this, do that, put this in your sidebar, monitor that…fuck!!! Settle down people!! How the hell do people enjoy blogging when they seem to spend half their time doing their heads in over what they should do, or not do with their blog? Panicking because another blog has a particular feature, and OMG, maybe I should too then? It’s NOT high school for fucks sake! Who gives a shit?

My biggest decision when I decided to blog again was whether or not to swear when I blogged, because I swear in real life. Not AT my two spawn, although there are times when I TOTALLY want to - and possibly should, but when screaming at talking to the MOTH, I have been known to drop the F-bomb. I don’t swear at work, but while there I swear in my head (sometimes). One word I have never uttered either out loud, or in the vast expanse of nothingness that is my mind though, is the “C” word. Just can’t quite come at that one. So to speak.

But really, when I am insanely angry, or feeling forceful, or need to get a point across, I do find there is nothing like a good fuck. The word, not the act. Although…

I decided in the end, just to be as much like me as I can. So that’s what I’m doing. Like it or not.

Incidentally, if you go here you can have your blog personality analysed. So go and do it. Now. I’m not meme’ing you, I’m just saying.

Your Personality Assessment
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.

Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.

At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

Accurate much?

Anyway, help me make sense of it all. What do you think of this whole blogging thing. Are you a panicker, or do just blog for your own personal satisfaction?

There is a guy I work with. We, are not the best of friends. I don’t like him and I don’t think he likes me. Which is odd, because after all, I am an awesome human being and a wonder to behold. But still, he doesn’t recognise said awesomeness, and insists on behaving like some sexist, Neanderthal pig, hence this open letter to him.

To the office asshole (you know who you are).

Your age or nationality is not an excuse for rudeness, dismissiveness and a downright absence of manners or social skills. I might have to work with you - but I DON’T have to like you. That said, it would be appreciated if you could at least be civil like the rest of us, and stop thinking you are superior to myself and the other female employee in the office by virtue of having an appendage we lack.

And by the way, women can do things JUST as well as men can, and damnit, we can do MOST things a whole lot better! So take your sexist, crappy attitude and shove it. Here are some handy hints you’d be well advised to jot down:

1. Grunting when spoken to is not an acceptable form of office communication.

2. Snapping your fingers at people when you would like them to come over to your desk is also not acceptable.

3. Neither is grunting then jerking your head.

4. If you are going to be a sexist pig, then at least do it properly. Don’t choose to suddenly NOT be sexist when one of the girls needs her car jump started, because that just makes you a hypocritical bastard as well as a sexist pig.

5. People who are in lesser positions than you within the company hierarchy, are NOT lesser people, and should not be spoken to as such.

Put a few of those hints into practice you nasty little prick. And remember, respect is earned, not just given, and right now? You get just about the amount of respect you deserve. Not much.

***And just between you and me, internet - I’d like to resign from work now please and spend my days eating chocolate and watching Oprah - well, maybe not Oprah - but lots of movies - so please send all cheques and donations immediately. Thank you.

***Oh and how do you handle a horrible, horrible co-worker?