Happy Festivus

Since the Christmas season makes me cranky as hell, and because today is Festivus, I shall commence with the traditional Airing of the Grievances.

• In 1979, my younger brother left a peanut butter sandwich on the table in the front hallway. I was punished for it, even though it was not my fault. To be fair, I accidentally set him on fire in 1978, so I guess we’re even.
• I had to eat liver and onions when I was a child, and I’ll bear the emotional scars for the rest of my life.
• In 1976, Vicky Poff stole my library book about Hawaiian gods, and I had to spend an entire month’s allowance to replace it. That grieved me terribly.
• In 5^th grade, Beverly borrowed my Unauthorized Biography of Andy Gibb and did not return it. I was over it by 6^th grade, but I haven’t forgotten.
• Speaking of book stealers, one of my former coworkers borrowed my big-assed Oxford Classical Dictionary, and never returned it. I am seriously grieved about that. Bastard! (You’ll note that my taste in reading material has improved dramatically over the years.)
• I hate blog memes/tagging. I find them a total waste of my time.
• I moved 18 times and attended nine schools, before finishing high school. And, no, I’m not from a military family.
• I got the horse of my dreams when I was nine years old, but he was green-broke and ornery as hell, so he was actually more of a nightmare. I was not only grieved by this, but was damn-near killed on a couple of occasions.
• I spent the majority of 9^th grade at a school chock-a-block with preppy, rich doctors’ kids. Sophomore-senior years were spent at a teaching laboratory school, which was, again, chock-a-block with preppy, rich doctors’ kids. I didn’t care so much, though, because it was on a college campus, and it was easy to skip class and get drunk.
• My 2^nd grade math teacher told me that I was slower than molasses in January. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it wasn’t nice.
• My algebra and computer programming teacher was more interested in picking on kids and looking down girls’ shirts than he was in teaching.
• My 9^th grade Algebra teacher, who wouldn’t let “stupid girls” ask questions in class, is at the top of my teacher-related grievance list. That jackass should have stuck to coaching basketball, because he had no business anywhere near a classroom.
• Math, in general, grieves me. Not so much because I had some really bad math teachers, but because I’m numerically dyslexic. I try to be careful, but there’s a disconnect between the numbers I see/think and the numbers my hands write/type, so I’m forever transposing numbers, not seeing them, or just making them up. I’m constantly screwing up my check book because of it.
• In one of my family’s many moves, I lost nearly all my childhood books. That was Teh Suck. I’ve managed to replace most of them, but there are still a few that I’m missing.

Next, The Feats of Strength!