...tell me your dreams. "Oh, my god," you say, "I had the weirdest dream last night!" and I say, "I find other peoples' dreams deeply boring," and you say, "Yeah, aren't they? But my dream, wow, I'm telling you, it was weird!" And then you tell me the whole thing in mind-numbing detail.
Newsflash: we all dream. All dreams are weird. All other peoples' dreams are boring. There are no exceptions.
I do not give a shit about your dreams. Ever. I will not listen. If you force me to listen (if, say, I'm naked on the massage table, or my mouth is full of dental implements, or I'm in the back of your cab) I will cross you off my Christmas card list. For life. The only person with an exemption to this rule is Kelley because I love her and twenty years of delight buys a certain amount of leeway--but even she knows to use her exemption sparingly.
So don't, just don't.
And while I'm at it, here are some other things that piss me off:
- people who misspell Ursula K. Le Guin's name, or Samuel R. Delany's. Take a minute. Look at those names, look at the vowels, look at the spaces, look at the initials. If you can't be bothered to get it right, don't bother to talk to me. These are giants of the field. Show some respect.
- people who talk as though their conversational partner is two miles away in a howling gale. Use your inside voice. Better still, just shut the fuck up and die. You're as fun to have around as the moronic dream-tellers.
- people who answer the phone in the middle of a conversation or a film or dinner. It makes me want to hurt you. And I warn you: my social conditioning doesn't always hold.
- people who let their dogs bark. I can't even talk about this one without getting homicidal. Insert the vitriolic diatribe of your choice.
- people who feel the need to have the last word, who just can't resist the last little stinging verbal slap. My new resolution: you slap me verbally and I'll punch your fucking teeth out. Fair?
If I spent another five minutes on this I'm sure I could double my list, then double it again, but right now there's a cold beer singing my name and batting its eyelashes. So I'm going to walk away.
