“lexicon”
Dave’s Lexicon of Jerkdom
Know Your Jerks!
David Lee Beowülf
As a child, I rebelled against everything my parents, particularly my father, tried to teach me, the consequences of which usually being a severe reprimand either by dear old dad or the mighty forces of Nature. For example, at age six, you want to know what I did? I ran across a busy street without looking both ways before crossing. Guess what happened to me? Right. I was hit by a car.
You know what, though? A hell of a lot of people never even came close to being made living examples of parental adages. In fact, most of the Americans and a heck of a lot of Europeans (not counting the Swiss) laugh at death as they brazenly cross the street without looking either way!
“bar-b-q”
I think these people are jerks. Not only do they remind me that I, me! David Lee Beowülf, was punished for their transgressions, but they make a liar out of my dad! This is the very essence of my hatred of mankind! Many get called, but few ever get what they deserve! When I finish my death ray the world will be cleansed for decent people to walk the streets again!
At the current time, I’m programming my death ray’s database and the Army of Decency, an organization I started dedicated to “fighting indecency in these United States,” is compiling a dictionary of jerks, a “Jerk-tionary,” and graciously allowed me to build my queries, pivot tables, etc. from their already exhaustive files. I’ve cataloged many a jerk and I now present to you a sampling of those jerks whose days on this planet are numbered.
Gym Idiots
Like many Americans, I’m a member of a health club. After work, I like to work out for a couple of hours and take a quick shower before taking the train home for the night. My particular gym’s membership pretty much comprises 95% serious, decent folks who train hard and take quick showers. The other 5%, though, oooh-boy. Most people, when first starting a work out regimen, have a bit of gym idiot in them. This is quickly liquidated after the first harsh chastisement for, say, not putting the weights back after using them. To be honest with you, this never happened to me because, at age sixteen, I witnessed it happen to someone else. At my gym, even though they’ve put signs at every bench saying “put your weights back,” time and time again, someone fails to put back their weights. What the hell? Didn’t anyone ever get yelled at for not picking up their toys? What about putting tools back where you found them? Then you get the boneheads who leave their sweaty towels all over the place. Then there are the clowns who decide that doing twists or side bends with a broom stick right in the thick of the dumbbell area! The other day, this skinny jerkoff decided to plop down on the bench next to me, right while I was in the middle of doing flat flyes, and do his ridiculous twists. That damn broomstick missed my face by about an inch! He stopped only after I yelled at him – something I never do in the gym. All I said was, “that is not the right place to do that exercise,” and he skulked off and began to cry. Offended! Imagine, he puts us all at risk of being clubbed to death, let alone that the sweep of the exercise renders two additional benches unusable, and he’s offended. Not only that, but he didn’t put away the broomstick! What a jerk! This man, who was at least twenty-one, obviously never learned what I assumed most people were taught somewhere around age five. I imagined myself pinning him down and dropping a 45-pound plate on his face, watching his nose and some teeth shoot up through the center hole while the rest of his head was squashed into a pulpy mass of brain, bone, hair and blood.
Bathroom Weirdos
My primary experience with bathroom weirdos crosses-over with the gym idiots. The bathrooms at my gym, it being in New York City, are generally not for the squeamish. However, if you’re not able to handle two men passionately kissing on the leg curl machine, if you’re not able to stomach men touching each other in certain places, if you’re not able to handle being a naked straight guy in a room full of naked gay men, you don’t belong in New York City. No, that’s not a problem for me, besides, it’s a boost to my ego to have anyone admire the way I look… Right! Well, now that we’ve established that I’m not “homophobic” let’s define the bathroom weirdo. First, there’s the general bathroom slob, the folks who leave their used towels on the floor, on the benches, etc. They don’t flush the toilets, they leave a mess at the sink (gobs of spit and toothpaste or shaving cream, etc.). Bathroom slobs certainly will die at my hand one day. The bathroom weirdos apply their jerkdom in specific ways to make one feel genuinely uncomfortable as well as cause serious obstructions to those decent people who just want to use the facilities as quickly as possible and get the heck out. A typical bathroom weirdo will stand in the middle of a busy aisle, blow-drying his genitals while staring at anyone passing by. It’s not easy to comb your hair when there’s a leering man in the mirror behind you playing with himself and silently giggling. Never mind that he’s just rendered the blow dryer unsanitary. Or the bathroom weirdo might be a “mirror jockey” one of those people who spends ten minutes in front of the mirror combing his hair and/or admiring himself. It never occurs to these people that someone else might want to use the mirror (as for me, I bring a little travel mirror with me and never use the wall mirrors). Some bathroom weirdos sing while in the shower or on the toilet. Some dry themselves in front of the showers, blocking the way thereto. These people are in my way, and I would like nothing more than to smash a mirror over their head, driving shards of glass into their tiny, inconsiderate brains.
Honkies
Let’s just put it this way: America would well be served were 50% of all the drivers out there executed at dawn tomorrow. Gun control? What about car control? Since I’m in New York City most of the time, I don’t have to bother with a car, I walk everywhere and have done quite well without relying on an automobile. But, there’s still the problem of allowing half-brained idiots to control 5,000 pound death machines. As there are laws against bad driving, I see no point in discussing what every person with a driver’s license knows already. Right? Sure. Well, let me put it to you this way, since I got a speeding ticket three years ago for going 62 on a major highway where the limit was 55, my hatred is directed at the highway patrol, as well as you irresponsible, crazy drivers who never get caught. Anyway, let me get back on track; my real problem is with the jerks who honk their horns all the time. See, in New York City the streets are lined with tightly packed skyscrapers, so much so that the streets become sound tunnels. The sound of a honking horn is amplified tenfold up here, and it drives me out of my mind. Why do they honk their horns? The traffic is always bumper-to-bumper, nothing will make it go any faster except, perhaps, eliminating all the taxicabs (something recently attempted by the mayor – it was a very pleasant day, too!). So I’ve taken to yelling “silence!” at the horn honkers. A couple of months ago a particularly mookish Long Islander was honking away on Mercer Street as I was walking up to my gym. Of course, gridlock was in full swing, so he couldn’t go anywhere. I yelled, “shut up!” at the top of my lungs and the dude jumped! It was great! I almost gave this jerk a heart attack! Boy, I wish something like a safe had dropped on him, flattening his body and splashing blood all over his vehicle!
Litterers
Littering is an interesting phenomenon. Contrary to what you puke “activists” born after 1970 might think, my generation, that is, all the folks born in the 1960s, were subjected to massive anti-litter education campaigns from elementary school through high school. So why does anyone litter? The last time I littered was in 1974, when I threw an empty ice cream box into Rock Creek. I was 11 and caught a lot of shit for it. So how come everyone else litters? Litterers should be dropped, screaming, into garbage compactors so I can watch their heads pop off as their bodies get squashed.
Yellers
Want to get someone’s attention? Shout “yo!” or “hey!” as loud as you can. What is with these jerks? God forbid they should even call out the person’s name rather than pop the eardrums of everyone in the general vicinity. I hate these jerks who never learned that yelling, screaming, and just being loud was inappropriate behavior in public areas. When I did this kind of crap as a kid, I earned myself a good spanking. If I had a machine gun I’d ram it up the asses of these jerks, pulling the trigger and making their brains fountain out of the top of their skulls.
Winner Pickers
As a youngster I had the disgusting habit of picking my nose. It was great, but no one else thought so. Everyone who witnessed my nose-picking ecstasy was more than quick to yell at me, scream at me, and let everyone around me know that I picked my nose. Imagine, at ten, my humiliation, my embarrassment; I wanted to just drop off a cliff and die… But the other day on the train I saw a 50-year old man with his finger in his nose! And he wiped it on the seat! I had a vision of grabbing his head and thrusting it through the window, I imagined the branches we’d rush by scraping off all his skin, and my hands stained with his blood.
Space Invaders
Personal space is a right. So what is it with these people who come right up behind me when I’m looking over steaks at the meat counter? Wait your turn! When I did this kind of shit as a kid, I never heard the last of it! It was more than obvious that I couldn’t be taken anywhere until I learned to maintain an appropriate distance from people. Then, the other day, this twentysomething dude comes right up on my ass in line at the supermarket. It’s almost like he’s pushing me through! Either that, or he’s trying to get into my clothes! Back off! I thought to myself that I should grab a can of juice and nail this jerk in the head, breaking his nose. Then, while he’s clutched his bloody proboscis, I let him have a chop to the back of the neck, then I stomp his head, getting brains and eyeball all over my shoes. I am pulled off him by the guards. I am acquitted.
Smokers
Plenty is being said against the most evil habit of smoking, but it’s still not enough. People who smoke might possibly be the Kings of Jerkdom for all time, and are fast gaining martyr status. While a similar fate nearly befell drinkers between 1919 and 1933, when it was a criminal offense to produce, own, purchase, and consume alcohol in the United States, I can’t think of any laws putting someone in jail for driving a car under the influence of tobacco. Smokers, on the other hand, are full-time jerks, inflicting their evil habit on us all. Since they’re becoming martyrs, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when they start protesting their right to make confined, indoor spaces unbreathable by making confined, indoor spaces unbreathable. Smokers should have some horrible disease afflict them in middle age as punishment for forcing us all to breathe their pestilential air. Oh, wait, that already happens.
Long Walkers
I’m not a particularly fast walker, but I do have places to be, and the only thing on my mind while walking somewhere is getting there as soon as reasonable as possible. In New York City, though, you get these jerks who really don’t have anywhere to go, and their job is to get in your way! They’re slow, like really slow, so much so that walking in the city is much like walking through a crowded shopping mall. (Burn down the Malls!) My parents would always grab me and yell, “you’re in the way” whenever I milled around on a busy street as a child. Fuckin a’, I’m trying to get to work while these jerks are having a field day, just putzing about on the sidewalk! Then there are those egg-shaped jerks, I swear there must be a breeding factory for them, who are so big their waddling takes up the entire sidewalk! You think it’s bad outside, try underground when you’re trying to get out of the subway, or up the stairs! They have elevators, people! It’s worse then being behind a slow truck on the highway! You try to get by them, but so are all the jerks behind you! Then there’s the jerks who decide that a crowded New York City sidewalk is the right place for a jog. What can possibly be going through their heads?! Man, I’d like to take a flame-thrower to al the sidewalks, blasting these fat shit Weebles into the street where their gobs of blubber would sizzle in the morning sunshine.
(A rather serendipitous way New York City dealt with the homeless problem, rather than send them to Florida where they won’t freeze to death, is the city’s narrow sidewalks. Washington, D.C.’s big problem is that ten people can comfortably fit on the wide sidewalks. In New York the sidewalks can fit about two-and-a-half people. And when scaffolding season is upon us (usually all year-round) you move up the sidewalks single file! There was no way I could prevent myself from bumping into these two beautiful NYU co-eds in their loose-fitting sundresses!)
Trainers
I ride a train every day into New York City, because that’s where I work, and I don’t have a car. During the week, most of my fellow commuters know how to behave on the train. This includes respecting that people are, in fact, going to sit next to you; don’t vomit on the train; don’t be loud; don’t share your gastric problems with everyone else; and basically, be decent to each other. On weekends, holidays, and after major sporting events, the trains become jerk HQ. These people who don’t know that you’re not supposed to play games with the bathroom, or that starting fights or being loud or bothering people is inappropriate behavior. Sloppy drunks are the bane of any party, and are damned dangerous in crowded places, especially on a train. Twice I have seen drunken jerks throw up all over themselves and their fellow passengers on late night trains home from the city on Saturday nights! Whenever I, as a child, was on a trip with my parents somewhere, either in the car, a bus, on a plane or in a train, if I so much as burped, I got a swift slap in the face and a lecture. Apparently more than a million people out there never got such treatment. They should all be thrown out of moving trains, breaking all of their bones into little pieces, the broken ends of which would protrude through their skin, leaving them in pools of blood.
Hard-Liners
Am I the only person on this planet who understands that a line must be respected? I hate these jerks who cut in line or try to make their own lines when they’re on the wrong side. What the fuck is up with this? The last time I cut in a line, back in fourth grade, I got a fist in the eye! I learned! So I’m in line (or “on line” as they say in New York) to get a hot dog in front of Grand Central and this bitch come right up beside me and starts ordering. “Hey, lady!” I yell, “I’m in line, here!” She pretended she didn’t hear me. I imagined myself picking her up and throwing her into an on-coming bus, where she would be pressed up against the grille and her head hits the street and is torn off, her windpipe trailing along from her now limp body.
It’s Over
Boy, that’s a lot, isn’t it? In truth, I was dealt with so harshly as a child for the smallest infractions that I burn with hatred whenever I see someone break rules or cut in line or cut people off in traffic. See, I don’t do that. I respect that I must share the outside world with other people. I try hard not to get in anyone’s way, because I don’t want people to get in my way. It just isn’t right that I wait for a street light to change and the person who brazenly crosses against the light is allowed to live. Honestly, though, I am a person who carefully minds his own business and tries as hard as possible not to disturb other people. I keep to myself. Yet the rest of the world picks fight with me every day: they try to cut the line at the ATM, they play in traffic and make the subway, while I follow the law and wait for he light to change – only to miss the subway by seconds. It’s to the point where an honest, decent person of integrity, like myself, is a loser because he chooses not to cheat, he chooses to follow the rules. It just isn’t fair! One day the arm of god is going to smite all you bastards and you’ll be accountable for the most minute jerkism, while I and the rest of my small band of decent citizens, laughs at your eternal torment! Watch out, America! Judgement Day is coming! ◼
