Everybody has his or her line in the sand. A friend of mine who has an "online journal" (not a blog, he would be quick to say) wrote about one of his: Starbucks. He has never been to a Starbucks, and has no plans on going for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here. Suffice to say, if he was to buy a cup of Starbucks, it would be a minor moral failure. Not earth-shattering, but wrong nevertheless.
Clearly, he and I are at odds when it comes to this. However, there are things that I feel just as strongly about....my own lines in the sand.
1. When somebody is kind enough to let you merge, you always, always give "the wave." If you choose not to wave thank you, you are an ass.
2. You bake cookies for your neighbors at Christmastime, even if you can't remember all of their names.
3. It is unacceptable to leave the newspaper out once it has been read. You're either reading it, or it is in the recycle bin. This is a hard one for me, because my parents read the paper all day long. My dad, on his last visit, was still reading the paper at five PM. I was making motions to get rid of it, and he stopped me, saying "It's only been out for seven hours!" Ex-actly. How long does it take to read a paper? Dad was about six and a half hours too long, as far as I was concerned.
4. I disagree with people that compare George W to Hitler. He's not my favorite guy, but c'mon. He's not Pol Pot. A little perspective, please.
5. Paul's addition: When you're running, and you wave at a fellow runner, they should wave back. To quote,"It doesn't matter how tired you're feeling, you can still lift up your hand three inches. "
6. Because of my weird, weird aversion to jewelry (I think it stems from the cord being wrapped around my neck in the womb), I cannot drink wine at parties when they have those little "wine charms" attached to the stem of the glass. It's like the wine glass is wearing a necklace, and it skeeves me out.
7. I hate it when bloggers or columnists are having off days, and resort to lists of pet peeves, refashioned as "lines in the sand." It's such a cop-out and so lame.
2 comments:
You won't drink wine when the glass has one of those doo-dads on it? I love it. And yes, the librarian is the same as when you were there - Cindy Osborn. I'm a little surprised that she's not embedded in your memory.
1) You're so right above "the wave." If you merge ahead of someone - or especially if you are forced to cut someone off - you better wave.
7) See Calvin and Hobbes, May 11, 1993.
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