The nicest part of being a morning person is, I can usually get a fair amount of work done before some asshole rattles my cage. Ads get sent. E-mails get answered. Copy gets written in peace.
Once the little bastard has routinely flooded the bathroom floor and left for school – and while others arrive at their desks – I head to the park for an hour of calm. And, unless some peckerhead is "socializing" their otherwise caged and overbred Doodle, the park is generally a happy place.
Yesterday, heading home with my happy firmly in place, I found myself stuck behind a 1982 Skylark doing 7 in a 50. I could make out the top of a bald head poking above the steering wheel so I immediately pulled out to pass, leaving my happy wallowing in the dust. My Toyota accelerates uncontrollably all the time, but before I could swing alongside the Skylark, a liver-spotted, arthritic old hand flew out the window, whereupon the miserable old fucker proceeded to flip me the bird.
I chortled at his spunky defiance, but respectful of my elders, I proceeded to roll down my window, stick my arm up in the air and return his kind gesture. As I sped off, quickly reaching 70 in a 50 I kept waving my bird back at him, just to give him something to bitch about back at the Home.
Expressing myself has never been a problem. It has created problems at every juncture in my life, but keeping things bottled up is never the issue on my crazy couch. I seldom answer the phone, and avoid most social engagements, so, day-to-day interactions go fairly smoothly unless I encounter stupid. Rude. Or my favourite combo: stupid and rude.
My contact with the outside world is generally through tennis, hockey, or work and work-related emails. Lately though, I have noticed a higher frequency of these: ☺. And if for some reason that didn't show up, it's a smiley face icon. An emoticon. I am not sure why annoying little smiley faces are popping up more often, but I hate smiley face icons almost as much as I hate ASAP. I had a client once who ended every email with ASAP, which loosely translated means: I am a selfish person and I fucked up, and because I have left everything to the last minute I now expect you to drop everything and prioritize my work so I can look good because my time is more valuable than yours.
The last P in ASAP does not stand for please, so every time I received an email that ended in ASAP, I made it my lowest possible priority, as soon as I possibly could. I also fired their ass as soon as I possibly could.
Which beings me back to ☺.
A ☺ buried in an email makes me want to drown puppies. I don't mind the occasional :) from a friend, because :) is clever, but a ☺ lodged in the middle of a work email just pisses me off. What kind of person takes the time to put a fucking ☺ in the middle of a sentence?
So I did something about it.
I created a set of emoticons, much like the geriatric flipping of the bird. They are my own secret communication enhancers, but I will share a few with you today, because I am still in my happy place. Here it goes.
.l. means "fuck you". It is a period, a lower case L, followed by another period, and resembles a nicely flipped middle finger, don't you think?
–0–? means "suck this why doncha". Used sparingly, a dash, followed by a zero, then another dash, topped off with a question mark – speaks volumes.
0l0 means "kiss my big fat ass". It is a zero, followed by a lower case L, followed by another zero. I love how it it resembles a butt crack, and it brightens my day just tacking one on to the end of an email.
Oh, I could go on all day but I have to express myself in other ways so I can get paid. Besides, the Peter Gzowski Golf Tournament for Literacy is happening June 23 at Granite Springs Golf Club. What better place to let your emoticons fly than on the golf course, especially during a golf tournament where literacy is so strongly encouraged. I can hardly wait to tee off and show them how literate I really am.
And I am. I really ☺ fucking am.
halifaxbroad@gmail.com
To register and express your support for Peter and literacy go to www.ns.iteracy.ca or click on Peter's face to the right.
