A few general rules that should be instituted by the world at large:
While I was out, bowling for my Auntie’s birthday on friday, I came to the conclusion that 5-pin is actually much harder than 10-pin, mainly because the balls are smaller, there are fewer pins, and they’re spaced further apart. I’ve also learned that if you hurl that little ball down the lane and hit just one pin, it will just knock straight back and not take out any other pins. No fair, I say! I can’t tell you how many times I hit that damned middle pin, praying for a strike, and all it did was take out the middle pin, leaving all the other pins standing and taunting me! So, I have decided that henceforth, ALL 5-pin bowling games that I play will earn MORE points for only taking out one pin, sniper styles. And we shall call it “HitBall” or “Sniper Bowling”. So be it, dammit!
I have also crafted a rule about giant trucks and fog lights – mainly that they don’t need them and shouldn’t be allowed to use them in anything less than pea-soup, good old London type fogs (in which case, they’d actually just make it worse. So, maybe they should just be outlawed altogether). I can tell you, driving in front of a truck that has FOUR lights, all on, is like driving in front of the SUN. Honestly! I have to adjust all my mirrors so that I’m not f-ing BLINDED by the lights! So, new rule. All trucks and/or large vehicles that sit above the average height of an average car shall ONLY have headlights (not including highbeams) that sit at the NORMAL level or the average car. Yes, I’m aware that this means that the lights on the trucks will have to pretty much be below the bumper, but I’m okay with that, if it preserves what’s left of my eyesight and allows me to see the road without being stabbed in the eyeball by the SUN, driving behind me. Again, so be it. So there.
A rule for respecting your neighbours - my parents live in a neighbourhood that has (apparently) unanimously vetoed clotheslines. Now, I understand that a clothesline doesn’t exactly count toward the esthetics of ’the view’, but honestly, I’d rather see the neighbour’s granny panties (or thongs, you never know with some people) hanging on a drying line, than have to listen to her little yappy-ass dog barking all f&cking day. But, apparently, it’s offensive to some to have to see their neighbour’s clean gitch, but NOT offensive when the neighbour’s dog takes a dump on their front lawn. Go figure.
But, people are wierd about their pets. “They’re like one of the family” they all say. Okay, groovy. So, if you regard your dog as a much smaller, much hairier version of your own son, why do you let him out all day long, to stand on the back porch and yell? Because really, that’s what the neighbour’s dog does. She lets him out at the crack of dawn and he barks. All f&cking day. There’s no reason why the neighbours (namely, ME) should have to put up with listening to your yappy-ass little furball of a dog (that you CARRY, even though it’s got 4 perfectly good legs of its own) all day long, especially if we go with most pet owners’ logic of the pet being one of the family. I would never be expected to put up with some kid standing on the back porch and screaming all f&cking day – what makes a dog any different? Grrr.
Moving on & swallowing the rage… St. Patty’s this year was also on the weekend before my friend’s birthday, so we celebrated her birthday while wearing green. Honestly, I didn’t mind – St. Pat’s is more fun with my family, anyway. So, I went to my friend’s 30th birthday on Saturday afternoon and realized that I’m the oldest in our little group – which was kind of a shock. I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the oldest person in the room (except when I was working in the kindergartens). Honestly, I think half of the aging that happens after 30 is from the shock of realizations like this. I’m SURE I felt a wrinkle or two sink in. Damn. Now I just have to follow my cousin’s boyfriend around, hoping to hear him freak out again like he did on Cousin’s Night. I’d said something about being 30 and his little drunken head snapped up and he exclaimed, “You’re THIRTY?!” and I was like, “Yup, that’s what they tell me.” He was so disbelieving, I think the only reason I didn’t kiss him right then & there is because the counter was in the way, and perhaps because it was his girlfriend that I’d been talking to… 
