craveytrain

On August 18, 2005 my grandfather, Don Harris, passed away. He was a good man. He could be crotchety and would lecture at the drop of a hat for hours on end. He had the most magnificent rock collection and could rattle on about the history of, well, anything. He was both gruff and loving. That was just Papa Don.

Monday we had a funeral service for him. Where we got the preacher from for the funeral is beyond me. Rumor has it he came recommended by the funeral home. Talking to Baptists tends to make me twitch anyways, especially Southern Baptists. However, this guy was a snake oil salesman. You know the type that is too “used car salesman” for televangelism. Honestly, I didn’t see it coming until he met with the family immediately before the service. Somewhere around the 10th minute of prayer for the deceased I began to look around the room and was meeting eyes with my cousins. The look on the youngest one was the epitome of what was going on in my mind, “When is this gonna be over?”. How can anyone prattle on so long about someone they have never met and don’t know more than 5 minutes worth of knowledge about? I was about to be shown just how gifted he is in the art of gab.

The service commenced, the family came in and we sat down up front. First thing I noticed was off was the open casket. That’s what the viewing is for ahead of time. You should shut the coffin during the service. I’m not sure the preacher did this one, so I won’t blame him for it. Not a serious transgression, just a little unsettling. I find myself staring at the deceased in a trance like manner and blocking out everything else. This was a rare exception.

Then the preacher started in. He relayed a few stories given to him by family and friends. He repeated personality traits told to him. Hind sight is 20/20, and now I can see where he was building up his sermon. But at the time, I was blindsided. He talked about a story from a friend that proved that my grandfather was a religious man. Then he moves on to talking about Heaven. All this is pretty normal in a Christian funeral. Then it starts. I have never heard anyone repeat the same phrase more times in a 10 minutes time frame.

“Heaven is a place. Heaven is a prepared place. It says so in the Bible. Jesus died on the cross for all your sins. For all of us in this church. For all of us in Angleton. For all of us in Brazoria County. For all of us in Texas. For all of us everywhere. He died to take away our sins and prepare a place. We will go to that place. That prepared place. We must prepare for the prepared place.”

He rambled on, and on about the “prepared place”. The worst part was the fact he just kept repeating himself. He didn’t reiterate. He repeated. Again, and again, and again, and again. Thesaurus is your friend. I realize when you read the Bible, you should read it verbatim, but after that, dust off the vocab and throw out some other words there.

After about half an hour (yes, that’s right, 30 minutes about the “prepared place”) he must have felt his quota was low and was going to try to convert the congregation. He asked us to bow our heads and pray. He asked if anyone wanted go to that “prepared place”. If so, you were to raise your hand and come up front of the funeral hall so that you may be saved. In the middle of the funeral. I don’t know about you, but to me, it would seem that would be the least likely time I’m going to feel a surge of faith. That was probably the thing I felt was in the worst taste. Trying to recruit in the middle a funeral service. I’ve seen military recruiters with more tact.

He embodied a lot of what I don’t like about religions and why I am an aethist. Not to say I consider him representative of Christianity as a whole (nor is my issue with religions my only reason for being an aetheist), but after suffering through that, I’m not exactly inspired to reconsider coming back to “the church”.

I am pretty proud of myself today. I am feeling witty. I had 2 different witticisms today. Allow me to share.

Grammar Nazi

The first one came out when I was in a discussion with some friends on a message board about the NBA MVP. Several of them posted an entire post without a period. After reading each post several times trying to figure out what they were saying, I was frustrated.

ok, first off. I’m not trying to be a grammar nazi, mainly because I don’t use perfect grammar either. Having said that, learn to use some fucking punctuation. It’s like I’ve stumbled across an ESL conversation on the short bus or something…

Names Are Not Us

The second one happened when some friends of mine made an online gaming guild and called themselves United Shoes. Yeah, I don’t get it either. I had to weight in.

… but the guy names guilds like an ESL drop out lobotomized with a rusty spoon…

I don’t know what my deal is with ESLs. I have nothing against them. Some of my best friends are ESLs. It just seemed appropriate.

I’ve been in a meeting all day doing a proposal. My eyes are glazed over, buzzwords running through my head. I swear, if I hear a new usage of the words “portal”, “interface”, “design” or “content” I think I may have to kill someone. I am so tired of “workflows”, “processes” and “procedures”. “Roles” can bite my ass. And the acronyms… CRP… that has to to be the closest to truth in acronyms I’ve seen yet.

Meetings suck.

Cats are nast-e. There is just no getting around it. What’s worse is cat owners accept that type of behavior. No, they embrace it. I really blame them, not so much the animal.

Cats shit in your house. So do you, you say? Yes, but I flush mine down. There is what is called a “P” trap to keep sewer gases (shit smell, amongst other things) out of your house. I courtesy flush. I turn on vents. I light candles. I spray when there are foul odors. Litter boxes are the nastiest thing known to man. I don’t care if you just changed it, it still stinks. So we’ve established cats shit in your house and leave it there for you to clean up. That in itself should be nasty enough, but no, there is more.

What do you do when you leave the bathroom? I hope you wash your hands, you nasty bastard. I don’t care if you are busy, take the time to wash your hands or don’t get pissed off when I refuse to shake your pissed on hands. But I digress, cats, who have just shat and pissed in their litter box do what? Scratch their paws in dirty litter and come on out. That wouldn’t be so bad, except where do they go? Up on your counter, up onto your funiture, up onto you. I don’t care if you can see it or not, you have cat piss and shit on your counters, and there is no denying that.

So there is cat refuse in a box in your house, what do you do? You get it out, obviously. However, putting it in a bag, tying the bag and putting it into the kitchen trash is not sufficient. That needs to go outside. I don’t care where, but outside. I mean, really, do you go into your toilet aftwards, scoop it out, put it in a bag, tie it and drop it into the kitchen garbage? Of course not. Why? Cause it’s fucking nasty, that’s why. That’s shit! In your kitchen! Get it the fuck out!

Ok, I think we have covered the topic of refuse well enough. Let’s move on. Hair. It’s amazing the people I see with hair all over their clothes. When they see you notice it, they tell you “it’s my cat”. First off, no shit. Of course it’s your cat. If it wasn’t your cat, your pet is the least of your worries. I would be far more concerned about the pounds of furr you were shedding. Secondly, how does saying “it’s my cat” some how make it ok? If you had dirt all over your clothes but “it’s your washer” does that excuse it and make it socially acceptable? Hell no, you would get another washer. How is this any different? It’s dead hair, it’s nasty and it covers everything.

Speaking of everything, we come to the second reason cats aren’t to be allowed on the counter. Cause when I get cat hair in my food or on my counter where I prepare food, I flip out. What do you do when you go out to eat? You expect a clean table, more importantly you expect a clean food preperation area. Why do you make an exception in your home?

Speaking of food, cat food is some of the worst smelling stuff I have ever had the unfortunate experience to waft. Nothing is worse than the wet food. That stuff makes the shit in your garbage not smell so bad. Then there is the worst transgression of all in regards to food. What do owners do with the cat food can after the food has been dished out? They put it in the garbage can. Again, with the stinking up the of the trash. The trash smells bad enough already with human food and waste (notice I say waste, not refuse, you nasty bastards). Let’s add some foul smelling chicken heart soaking in gravy for months to the garbage. Why don’t you wash it out? Cause it smells bad and you don’t want to handle it any longer than you have to? Yeah, then putting it in the trash to let it get stagnant is a great idea. Who was the ad wizard who came up with that one?

In conclusion to this loosely grouped rant, I think owning an inside cat is a statement of someone’s hygiene (or lack there of). It shows their tolerance for foul smells, dirty clothes and home.

So, I work in a corporate environment, and occassionally have to bite my tongue. This is against my nature, and takes a great deal of effort for me to do. I also have learned you don’t put anything in print that could get you in trouble. I have a perfect example…
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