PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

It was rather fitting that I should be casually surfing the Net and sipping on a beer called Blithering Idiot when I should receive an e-mail invitation for a write-off.  The theme presented by my friend Chuck simply enough was to dishonor his idiot son in law by writing about the biggest idiot in our own life.

Of course, the blithering idiot that I was sipping is rather pleasant as far as idiots go. So the search had to go on. It was cause for pause. I was stumped trying to think of who should so be honored as the biggest idiot in my life. In the spirit of the event, I opted to not write about politicians or celebrities. I figured it should be someone I actually know. I also opted to cross myself off the list. Whatever idiocies, I may have done in my life, I kind of think I'm an all right guy.  

So I began running through my life. What I discovered was that I know an awful lot of idiots. I ran out of digits before I even got past high school. So I figured I would discuss some of the honorees that merit mention. 

First up on the list is my 8th grade humanities teacher. This was Mizz-Grew-Up-In-the-60s-hyper-liberal/feminist. She was always pushing a political agenda in class. She would make the class make up schedules for all their free time at home. She would often berate students for watching pap like Charlie's Angels or Laverne & Shirley. And God forbid a social studies paper should espouse anything other than a liberal viewpoint. (The only thing keeping me from a rant on liberals is that I view conservatives as being just as asinine.)

But I survived this harangue to make it to 10th Grade. Here we had an Assistant Principal with a paddling fetish. This guy loved lining kids up and paddling them. He got p!ssed off because I always took detention and spent the hour reading (usually subversive literature.) He threatened to suspend me for a farcical petition to free Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman wasn't in prison at the time and I was only messing around for attention. But what right does this @sshole have to impose his political views on the matter? Other students took petitions without getting into any trouble. But I guess I won because that pervert never got his hands on my @ss. 

I could go on about different school figures but that would create the wrong impression. I also had some great teachers and maybe I should write a future piece about them. One of my first jobs after I graduated school was as a stock boy at a Woolworths store. I had a manager that was Jerk personified. He always rode me because I looked like his failure, drug addict son. But this big slob smelled like a pig. It was hard to get within twenty feet of this pig. He was always accusing me of being high at work. In truth, there were two occasions, I had a couple beers at lunch. Some people felt he deserved pity but what he did to me was unfair. He treated me a lot worse than workers that didn't show up on time and goofed off and made mistakes. Near the end when I knew he was leaving I offered to break out the violins for his sob story if he agreed to take a shower. Imagine this: I got written up for that. 

Another co-worker also gets the tag. Different job. This co-worker always gave rants about alcoholics and drug addicts. But get this: She smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day. She had me written up for calling her a drug addict. The worse part is that personnel wanted me to apologize to her! What am I missing? Tobacco is a drug. She's addicted to Tobacco. That makes her a drug addict. I should apologize for telling the truth! Go figure!

Let's see. I was a forklift operator at this job. I had a manager give me instructions to take a forklift into an unsafe area and then wrote me up for hitting a heating duct. OSHA was suspiciously nowhere to be found. I had a department head job where the owner's son was stealing copper from the shop to support a coke habit. And there's all the garden variety people that make it into George Carlin's People I Can Do Without monologues. A lot of my friends are idiots but they're the lovable buffoon Homer Simpson kind. They're actually fun to be around. I won't go into family cause Mama didn't raise any fools. Then again she did raise my brother. I currently work for the government so there's no shortage of mental midgets in my life right now. 

I think I've rambled on quite a bit already. In many ways I envy Chuck. He's twice my age and he's able to narrow the field down to a single biggest idiot. Maybe I need more life wisdom to reach that point. Maybe I have been cursed with the destiny of an ongoing stream of new idiots. Maybe some day, I be able to settle down with only one biggest idiot. For now, I have to muse on all these different people that have, at the very least, made my life interesting. I still have half a glass of Blithering Idiot left. At least this idiot won't give me a headache till I wake up tomorrow morning.