The 10 People I Hope NOT to Be Before the Age of 35; Or After For That Matter

I have had a week full of ups and downs but the last few hours have topped off my patience bucket and I just can't contain myself another minute. At the risk of sounding crass and just a bit edgy, please understand that I am venting here. Everyone has the right to vent. You do it. I do it. We all do it. And that's exactly what I'm going to do now. If you feel this may even possibly offend you, please move on. If you choose to stay and read further, I do not want to hear from you later about it, no matter how rational your intentions might be. In all light-heartedness, consider yourself warned.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know all of these people but am not writing about any one in particular, so don't think too hard about it.

1. The Know-It-All
A person who has the answer to every question you ask (whether you were asking them or not), or who has a story to top every story, whose experience was more exciting, more dangerous, more life-altering than yours.

2. The Back-Stabber
A person wielding hurtful sharp words aimed at you but launched intentionally while you weren't looking, so as to inflict the most pain and cause the most damage. It is for this purpose I have thick rubber-like armor hanging in my closet.

3. The Rogue Clock-Watcher
He/she who has their own set of clock hands that they live by. These hands stop and start for him/her on their command. They are chronically late for every event they are invited to attend. Birthdays, work, church, their own funeral; you can rest assured they will be a minimum of 20 minutes tardy. These people seem to think the world (and dinner) will wait on them, that they are important enough to have time stalled for their arrival.

4. The Story Intruder
One whose face shows complete boredom while listening to another speak and then, in the middle of the climactic height of the story, blindly interrupts to interject his/her own immediate thoughts on the weather, their plans for Friday night or why Cupid only wears a scarf around his loins.

5. The Fake Friend
This is kind of like staging a home when you're trying to sell it. You bring furniture and fixtures into an empty house to make it look and feel more inviting but as soon as someone buys the house all the stuff is hauled off to the next empty house for the next sell. This is a person who is always so happy to hear from you when you call her but forgets how the phone works when she picks it up to call you. She is one who shows up for you in your times of need in nice clothes and fresh make-up with hair primped and nails fixed but she conveniently left her reliability at home.

6. A Stepford Wife
Don't get me wrong, honey. I love making you sandwiches, (inside joke. If you'd like more insight on this please ask Mr. Simpleton to sing you the "Sandwich Song" to the tune of Enrique Iglesias' "Hero"), but you know as well as I do that I'm no robot and don't take orders well. Not that you order me around, but you know who I'm talking about here.

7. The Space Invader
A person who stands within my generously alloted personal space of 24 inches in diameter. I do not need to smell the garlic while you tell me how good Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana was.

8. The Hypocritical Judgement Seeker
Those whose own faults and shortcomings seemed to have clouded their inner conscience and handed them a gavel with which to point at other people when they make a mistake. The Seeker then takes it upon themselves to address these flaws publicly and without the gumption of going to the offending person first. Good thing I always keep a spare set of claws in my purse.

9. The Accountability Shover
One whose pride won't allow blame to be willed on their name for any reason.
"The dog peed on the floor 3 times because its bladder is the size of a key lime, not because I forgot to let it out 5 hours ago."
Riiigghhhtt....I knew that!

10. The Annoying Loud-Mouthed Redneck Woman in the Grocery Store
Thank goodness I can say I am the farthest thing from this but it annoys me to no end to see a toothless woman in the frozen food aisle yelling aimlessly at blank-faced Johnny to stop hitting the glass freezer doors but little Johnny's not listening because he's heard all this before. And then to see her again yanking little Johnny by the arm all the way to the car calling him names and spanking him for *ahem* yelling back at her. I actually reprimanded a woman in the parking lot of Big Lots for this very thing.
I take too much pride in being a mom, and in my kids for that matter, to dare have someone even glance at me and think I'm a bad mom. I can take all 4 of my children together, at the same time, anywhere and not have to worry about them running off or misbehaving. There's raising kids differently and there's being a bad mom. THAT woman was being a bad mom.
And I would've kicked her butt had I not thought little Johnny would've walked away with the wrong lesson learned.