Pets:  My wife has two dogs.  A retarded (sorry – developmentally disabled) Maltese named Sophie and a Yorkshire terrier (terrorist) named Lulu.  I hate these dogs.  No wait – that’s not fair – hate is not a strong enough word.  Sophie the Maltese likes to run away on occasion – Run Sophie, run!  Where do you think that you’re going?  Would anyone else put up with you?  Doubtful.  Your only redeeming quality is that you are pitiful and you make others feel better about themselves by comparison.  Even the birds and rabbits in our backyard mock you. “Try to catch me, stupid dog”, they seem to taunt.  Lulu the terrorist likes to bark at me when I leave home EVERY MORNING.  Sort of like “get out of here!” or “never come back!”  Really Lulu???  Like I don’t despise you enough already.  Okay, the dogs do give Deb some company when I travel and when I had surgery last year Sophie laid by my side for days while I recovered.  And of course our granddaughters LOVE the dogs.  So as long as Charlise and Anna love them I guess they can remain.  But there are days…   I know that this makes me a DOG HATER and puts me in the same category as people like Hitler and Dick Cheney but I can live with that.

Peeves:  I try to keep my anger in check but sometimes it just sort of ‘bubbles over’.  This is an extremely busy time of year for our business – trying to get everything installed in stores before the Christmas retail push (thank God for the commercialization of Christ’s birth!).  Folks in the office are a little frantic and nerves are on edge so EVERYONE needs to take a collective deep breath and calm the hell down. No one is going to die if a shipment or installation is missed.  I repeat – NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE.  However someone might get fired.  Today I would like to fire nearly everyone that has crossed my path – it’s just one of those days.  Why is it that when things get busy; people get stupider – see even me (I know that stupider is not a word)?  Today we’re having a little ‘Pizza Party’ here in the office and even that is annoying me – please stop asking me if I will attend!  Of course I won’t – I will take my pizza into my office and eat alone.  Trust me you will all be happier that way.  Now get back to work!  We can’t miss any shipments or installs!

Pet Peeves: The following in no particular order is a list of some of my major pet peeves –

• People who drive S L O W in the passing lane
• Infomercials
• Paid Political Advertisements
• The hillbillies that live next door (and their barking dog)
• People who invade my personal space
• Brett Favre, Michael Vick, and Manny Ramirez – yuck!
• The way the old creepy guy at the gym walks around naked in the locker room
• Text speak – OMG LMAO
• People (usually old) at the airport security checkpoint who hold up the line
• Junk mail
• Stupid made-up holidays like ‘Bosses Day’ or ‘Administrative Assistants Day’
• Crap that’s left under my windshield wiper on a parking lot
• Cranky old men
• People who ALWAYS need to be the center of attention
• People who can’t stop complaining about stuff

Wait a minute; those last three kind of sound like me…

I guess I should  just go home and pet our dogs – then EVERYTHING will be better.  Oh no, I’m worse off than I thought!

Peace,

Denis