PEOPLE I HATE - Pt. 2

George Carlin knew

I had a friend call me the other day. I know...right? He didn't text me, email me or FB instant message me! It's like a miracle when someone actually tries to communicate by SPEAKING to me! It almost never happens any more. So I did what anyone would do under the circumstances. I stared at my cell phone until it stopped ringing then texted him back. "What do you want?"

It turned out one of my good friends had been reading this blog. He wanted to know when I'd be doing People I Hate pt. 2. I called him and we spoke for a few minutes. "I don't hate anyone really and I am trying to have a positive attitude." I said. He couldn't relate. "Everyone knows you have a crappy attitude. Just write it down. Trust me you'll feel better."

Maybe he has a point. This time of year always pisses me off. New England fall always lasts around ten minutes then it's cold and we are getting beaten over the head with the holidays. Halloween isn't done for two seconds and I have to start buying people presents? I just had my long johns on for the first time yesterday. 11/9/2014. That's early. That's not cool. So yes I am pretty sick of everyone. The weather only makes it worse. People seems to get worse this time of year too. The entitled, rude, ignorant sheer stupidness seems to come out full force.

I'm not as cynical as I come off. I want to like everybody and actually I do like many people. I used to think everyone deep down is good and can be reasoned with. All you really need are good communicative skills, a sense of humor and a bright disarming smile. That is all you really need to make friends and allies wherever you go.

Then you can ride your unicorn off into the sunset and pick daisies in the land of Oz while naked bodybuilders make love to you next to an ocean of melted chocolate.....

Yup. That is what I USED to think. I don't really believe that any more. Some people are completely unreasonable. Some are entitled fools who believe the world is actually revolving around them and some people are just batshit crazy.

You can not reason with those types. You will never be able to trust them. Obviously you can't depend on them or consider them friends but actually they might be enemies.

Today's edition of People I Hate is going to be focused on crazy people. Let me explain. I am not writing about the mentally ill padded cell types although some of these people in today's post could easily benefit from years of therapy. More or less I want to touch upon the kind of person who can not be reasoned with. Maybe you can relate.
Maybe you're one of them...Hopefully not.

I. The Narcissist

There's selfish and then there's SELFISH. Everyone knows a Narcissist. You may not realize it so let me lay it all out for you.

1. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder in which a person is excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity, mentally unable to see the destructive damage they are causing to themselves and to others in the process.

Now that sounds pretty cut and dry but it isn't as easy to spot one as you might think. So ask your self these questions:

• Do you know someone who has no problem whatsoever blowing you off?
• Does that person constantly break their word and then somehow make is seem as if it's your fault that they screwed you over?
• Is everything always about them? Is their Ego so big that any time they get insulted they hold a grudge for like FOREVER?
• Are they in and out of romantic relationships because the other person is always somehow crazy or too demanding?
• Do they more or less suck but still make you laugh and can be charming when they want to be or more likely want something from you?

If you answered yes to these questions there is really only one thing to do.   RUN!!!

I heard Judge Judy say once that you can't fix stupid. It's the same with a Narcissist. You're never going to fix that person. They will always be that way. It's better to cut and run. Get far away and move on and if you are stuck working for a person like this well......good luck. 

II. The OCD Person

I used to have a friend who would love to go out to dinner. He was always raving about the newest place or some dish he heard about. He would get a group of us together and we would all go out. The thing that would drive me crazy was that he could never just order off the menu. 

Do you know anyone like that? I've known this person for over twenty years and have to this day never seen him just pick an item on the menu and order it. He always has to ask for changes. Can the chef make him a special side dish? Can they cook it differently just for him? Is it possible to put it on an extra large plate? (seriously) It's embarrassing and incredibly annoying. I came to realize that he just couldn't help it. I just couldn't help getting pissed off. I always say the same thing to him. "No matter what they do for you man it's always going to come back tasting like spit." But at least he'll have his saliva HIS way right?

I know this other guy who hates to be driven around. He needs to be the driver wherever he goes. Great. I love to be driven around but here's the thing. He has this ritual that he needs to do before we can leave. 

He checks the rear view mirror.

He fixes his seat belt

He turns on the heat or AC.

He checks the side mirrors.

He fixes the rear view mirror

He unbuckles his seat belt and puts it back on again.

He checks the side mirrors

He lowers the heat or AC

He checks all the mirrors.     (am I annoying you yet?)

Yes it can go on for ten minutes or more. He's normal as far as I can tell in every single other circumstance. But if I attempt to get him not to do this long insane ritual then we can't leave. It would be funny if it wasn't me that has to wait for this. One time I forced him to just start the car and go. We had to pull over ten minutes later because he said the mirror was messed up. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" I would ask. He didn't really have an answer. I wondered what he would do if he came across a car with no mirrors, just a steering wheel and that was it. His head would explode.

You guys must have people in your life that do completely irrational things that drive you nuts. It isn't clinical enough to get them help. It's just bad enough to be annoying. We all know people who hoard. But are they hoarders? Maybe not. Maybe they are just doing it on purpose just to piss you off! Naah. You should just learn to be more patient like me.
(yeah right)

  

III. Mr. or Mrs. Instant Best Friend:


There is this acquaintance of mine who always has to hug me when she sees me. She LOVES me. She speaks to me as if we have been best friends for life. She asks about my family, my wife, my health. This is not a big deal if not for the act that we are complete strangers more or less. We hung out twice at a big event. That was it. Now she and I are best friends apparently. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than when a person who is sort of a friend says "Bye! I LOVE you!" Come on. You don't love me. It took me years to say that to the woman I married. Now I'm supposed to say it back to a girl I know from a Blogger party? " I passionately love you too! I'm totally comfortable with this! BYE!!!"  ugh ugh ugh.

Some people are like that. I am pretty friendly and I like to make new friends but there's a little imaginary line that once crossed makes you a fruitcake. Some people touch a little too much. I have this imaginary box around me. YOU don't get to enter that box unless I invite you in. Okay? Some people just barge right into that imaginary box.  They move in with luggage. Then they are too close. They are breathing on you. They are touching you. Once they leave you can still smell them and they better smell good because now you smell like them. Thy have left pieces of themselves in your PRIVATE BOX! WTF!  They are all over you. God, I hate that!

Not cool. Not Cool at all.

I know a guy like this who is always asking for favors. "Can you do me a quick favor?" 

"Cappy, can I get your friends number that (Insert job here) so he can hook me up with some free service?"

"Would you mind helping me move?"  

 HAHAHAHAHA! That's always a good one. If some "acquaintance" ever asks you to help them move that's where you spell it out for them like I did for this guy.

He needed an intervention so I gave him one.

"Look bud." I said calmly. "You and I aren't brothers are we?"  

"No" He said, "Why do you ask?"

"Because my brother wouldn't ask me to help him move because he knows I'd say no."

I then went on to explain that manual labor is expensive and that if someone was going to do an expensive, time consuming task for someone else for FREE then it could be considered a "FAVOR" and that favors of this magnitude should be reserved for people who you have known for a LONG time or who you are extremely close or intimate with.

"Are we close and intimate?" I asked him. 

"NO"  he said.

"So do you think I am going to take an entire day off from work and from being with my family to help you do some back breaking work for free?" I said.

"NO" he said.

and he was 100% right. We don't really talk much any more.

Cynical Face

SO. these are a few more types who just crawl up my keister and give me Agita.

The list really is endless.  Next time when we do People I Hate pt. 3 we can do a whole post on the passive aggressive people who deserve special recognition for things like Yelp reviews and asking questions with no answers. Venting like this really does help keep me positive though.

Positive I am not leaving the house today.

Five Things You MUST Do This Fall Around Boston

You are wasting your life. You know at some point you are going to die. It gets closer every single day yet what are you doing? WASTING your time! You think these measly little 24 hour increments we get will last forever? Well they won't. One of my friends was killed when a tractor ran him over. I know what you're thinking. Tractors are slow right? Why didn't he just get out of the way? There is a good answer to that. He was DYING from Cancer and had NO legs! Another guy was attacked by a pit-bull in his own yard. One minute he was watering the daisies, the next thing he was food for a canine who was probably trained by Michael Vick! Those may or may not be true stories but..

You see why we really can't afford to waste one single minute. Our time could be next week or it could be tomorrow. Besides, the Fall or Autumn, (as some annoying people say), is the best season all year.

 Sure, you can't wear that thong to the beach any more and the Speedo has been put away until that Caribbean vacation you've been planning for ten years comes around this winter (yeah right), but that's ok. 

It's cool out but not cold. It's comfortable. We are back in jeans and a light jacket. We look better that way anyway. Personally I always feel a little silly in shorts. I like jeans. When I'm hot though I don't give a crap what I look like. I'll wear Jorts and a halter top if it will make me less hot. Man, I hate the heat. But forget about it. It's the FALL now so let's go:

New England in the Fall is the best place to be. We have the mountains to the north, the Berkshires to the west, the ocean to the east and alcohol ....right here near by. It's football season and bar crawl season. It's comfort food season when you can start making chili and eating things like Shepard's pie and crock pot beef stew again. All that summer weight loss looked good on you but now we need to bulk up. Winter is coming. So let's eat!

(right click on links and open in new window)

1. Mid Week Call in Sick Food Truck Fun Run

Here is what you do. Do this during the week when the myriad of food trucks are out throughout Boston. They congregate in Dewey Square by South Station among other places. So call in sick or take a day off. You deserve it.

Then plan your route. If you go to Dewey Square Tuesday or Thursday then you get the added plus of the Farmers Market too from May through November. Use this site to plan your Food Truck Route:

FOOD TRUCK SCHEDULE

Now the next step is the mode of transportation. You could always take the MBTA but that's for wimps. Driving is just crazy talk so go find a Hubway bike. Biking it is the best way to get around Boston and you can burn off some calories as you sample from an array of food trucks selling all kinds of things like fish tacos, falafel, Banh Mi, barbecue, seafood, ice cream sandwiches and so much more. It is an eating odyssey! 

Here is where the Hubway Bikes are located. It is inexpensive and convenient:

Hubway Bike Rentals

With the bikes you can start at Dewey then hit the rest of the Greenway then Gov. Center, financial district, Copley, Huntington, Kendall...... It's all just a ride away.  

2. Boston Harbor Islands

The tourists are gone now and we can have all the areas back that are usually full of them. The Harbor Islands are a hidden treasure that an entire blog could cover but  the bottom line is that you have to go. It is a very inexpensive ferry ride over and then there are free water taxis to all the other islands. Here are Ranger recs of just a few things you can do there taken from their site:

Ranger Recommendations

• Take a Ranger-led Walking Tour of Fort Warren on Georges Island
• Enjoy a Berklee Jazz Concert on Spectacle Island
• Hike to the North Drumlin of Spectacle Island
• Discover your own "private" island - Grape Island
• Go for a run at Deer Island, Webb Memorial Park or Worlds End
• Go to a clambake on Spectacle Island
• Camp in a yurt on Peddocks Island
• Watch a vintage baseball game on Georges Island
• Have a beach day on Lovells and Spectacle Island

One of the best things ever would be to camp out over night before it gets too cold. You can have a bonfire and feel like you are a million miles from home. You can also just spend the day exploring, having a picnic, taking boat rides, hiking or just finding a nice quiet spot to read. Here is a link with more info:

BOSTON HARBOR ISLAND INFO

3. Go to a  New England Patriots Game

Going to a fall Pats game is a rite of passage if you live here and it is a great time! Getting tickets are easy on the Pats web site but Craigslist always has face value tix from people who bought them and then realize they can't go.

You can handle this a few different ways. 

a. Take the train. There is traffic on Route One. No. not traffic. TRAFFIC. So if you don't want to sit in it take the train. It is very easy, cheap, convenient and you won't have to pay hugely expensive parking fees. Also Patriot Place which is attached to the stadium has more than enough bars and restaurants to pre-game at.   Click here for more info;

Riding the T to the Pats Game

b. If you are like me and the tailgating is a huge part of the experience then you have to leave early. It will be an all day affair but that's the way you like it. Bring a gang. Drive down together. You will need a good grill and some pre-made food. I like to marinate steaks for a few days, make some honey hot wings and have a few good salads like chicken or coleslaw. Bring lots of chips and of course a good craft beer like Trillium or Clown Shoes.

Remember the music!  A Jambox or a portable speaker system so you can get your groove on or rock out. Definitely do not forget some comfortable chairs and BOOM! Ya got a party. Bring extras to share and make friends. Don't forget to cover yourself in Pats gear and after the game THEN go check out Patriots Place and wait for the traffic to subside.

TICKETS

4. Fall Foliage

I see your eyes opening wide in disbelief. "Cappy! You're not a leaf peeper are you?" 

Foliage and Fogeys may sound alike but trust me leaf peeping isn't just for old farts on tour buses coming in to have the cheapest vacation imaginable. 

City living makes it easy to forget how awesome it is to get away sometimes. This is the best time of year to do it too. I'll give you three quick reasons why. Native Sweet Corn, Maple Syrup on Pancakes and Cider Donuts!

Not to mention that if you can time it right and go during peak colors, it is like visiting Oz. We are so fortunate to have New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and the Berkshires so close by. I will give you a couple of my favorite places to go for fall foliage or just fall stuffing of the face:

Applecrest Farm in Hampton Falls NH

Do you like live music, barbecue, hot apple cobbler, corn on the cobb, chicken pot pies, cider donuts, hay rides, apple picking, pumpkins and PIE?

No? You must be crazy.  But if you do. This is the place to go.

Closer by we have 

Brooksby Farm in Peabody, MA

All the things above minus music but add in fishing, hiking, all kinds of fruit to pick and a petting zoo. Hey they have a Llama.    There are also AWESOME cider donuts too. It is  just minutes up route one from Boston.

Ever hear of a sugar shack?  It's where maple syrup is made. They make the syrup right there then they feed it to you on pancakes. Yup it's worth driving for. Here is a pretty good Chowhound thread giving you some great places to go:

Sugar Shacks!

But the best thing to do is to go near one of those sugar shacks like maybe in Franconia Notch and go on a serious hike up into the mountains to see some real color. Bring your camera and research the hikes because some are easy and some like the one I did a while back are hard. (crawled back to my car in the dark after hiking a long, amazing loop up into the mtns.)  3 hour drive north on route 93. Hike within your limits and have fun and don't forget that native sweet corn sold at every farm stand you will pass on the way.

Franconia Notch Information

But if hiking isn't your thing then you can go to the Berkshires and drive to the top of Mt. Greylock too. It's absolutely gorgeous.

5. Visit the Wineries and Breweries all over New England

A word about Octoberfests

I love a party as much as the next guy. Octoberfests and there are plenty around here are full of amatuers who want to see how much beer they can imbibe before acting stupid. It is also a great way to spend the day standing in line, overpaying for food and being around college kids. Not MY scene but if it's yours and you must go,  here are the best:

Harpoon's Octoberfest

Stowe Mountain Octoberfest

White Mountain Octoberfest at Loon

Newport Octoberfest RI

 Boston Magazine  recently did an excellent feature on breweries you have to visit this summer and I concur. There is no reason at all why this can't be the breweries you have to visit this fall article too. So check it out:

Breweries you have to visit this fall

That's the better way to try some of our amazing micro brews around Boston. No lines and it will make for a really great leisurely fall excursion.

OR if WINE is more your thing we also have something called the Coastal Wine Trail that sounds like fun.

Or there's this:  New England Brewery Tours

BONUS

I know I said five but as an added bonus for no extra charge I'm giving you a mini list before I go away until next time. Here are some things that are very touristy but I love to do and I would be remiss in my duties as your half sane New England fall tour guide if I didn't mention these:

Topsfield Fair. October 3 - 13,  2014 -  Don't listen to naysayers just go. I will give you my list of tips and tricks just before it's here so keep checking back.

Salem.  The entire month of October is Salem month. They have lots of cheesy Halloweeny stuff to do but they also have some great restaurants, a great waterfront and great history (obviously)

Six Flags.  You've never been to Six Flags? It's better than Disney. Tons of amazing roller coasters, concerts, special nights (like Halloween fright fest) and more. Worth the money but discounts are everywhere.

Corn Maze.  Find one. Do one. That is all.

and a few more that you will have to Google to find where they are -  zip-lining, white water rafting, canoeing, sea kayaking, bi-plane rides, whale watching and more. Check Living Social and Groupon for deals.

SO get your butts out there and enjoy the greatest season of all!

 See you on the streets!

Love,

Cappy