Here at Aunt Slugger headquarters, we spend a lot of time reviewing the news for articles that your Aunt Slugger finds relevant to her throngs of devoted readers. Sometimes these articles inspire us to make the world a more beautiful place. Sometimes these articles remind us that, even in our darkest hour, we are never alone. And sometimes these stories are just examples of solid news reporting.
But today the Aunt Slugger News Team happened upon this article about how gun shops saw record sales the day after the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
I will pause for a moment while you think about that.
Your Aunt Slugger is not here today to debate the right to bear arms, or the root causes of the Sandy Hook massacre, since I am confident that we will soon come to a consensus on these matters via Facebook status updates and anonymous comments on news articles. No, I am here today to warn my readers of a bigger threat, and that is
PEOPLE WHO BUY GUNS THE DAY AFTER A MASSACRE BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE GUN POLICY WILL CHANGE IN LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS.
Think about this for a moment. Here we have a group of people who are aware of the Sandy Hook massacre because they responded to it by stockpiling weapons (I think it is safe to infer causality in this instance). So we know that these people are at least somewhat literate, or minimally do not have impaired hearing and comprehension skills. So it would stand to reason that these people are, nominally, dimly aware of the United States Congress and/or their state legislatures. So even if they don't know specifically how to repeal a Constitutional Amendment, they should at least know that our politicians will fight about fucking anything.
And the right to bear arms is not a Thin Mint issue, either. People love the fuck out of their weaponry. So I think we can assume with a high degree of certainty that repealing the Second Amendment, or even just preventing people from exercising their right to shoot themselves in the thigh, is not going to happen overnight. Or in a week. So you can probably give it a little time before you hit your local arms dealer to make sure your rocket launcher is grandfathered in.
Yet people mobbed gun shops the day after the massacre because they thought gun policy would change instantly. Which means that they are exhibiting an unprecedented degree of ignorance. And...they're armed. THEY'RE COMPLETE FUCKING MORONS, AND NOW THEY'RE ARMED.
Think about that.
Happy Holidays.
Sincerely,
Your Aunt Slugger
Answering life's deepest questions
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Teachers' Unions
Dear Aunt Slugger,
I am sick and tired of the Chicago Teachers Union strike. The only thing teachers' unions are good for is protecting bad teachers, and I am appalled by the number of bad teachers in our public schools. It is a real tragedy.
Sincerely,
Ernest in Skokie
Dear Ernest,
You know what I am sick and tired of, Ernest? You, Ernest. I'm sick and tired of you. Let me ask you this, Ernest: What do you do for a living? Do you have coworkers, Ernest? If so, I want you to sit back and think about your coworkers. Are any of them idiots? No? If you can't figure out who the idiots are at your workplace, you are guaranteed to be the idiot. People probably groan when they get emails from you. Your bosses probably have conference calls about how to pawn you off on another department. The people who interviewed you have probably been denied promotions for their bad judgment. You are also almost certainly really, really annoying as well.
I say all of this, Ernest, to illustrate a point. I am always confused--almost as confused as you, Ernest, become when people use large words in emails--when people complain bitterly about teachers' unions. "They protect bad teachers," people say.
You can debate the merits of this point, which I will not do here. What I am so confused about is why people act as though no other industry is afflicted by sub-par employees. People act as though teachers should be exempt from having appalling work habits.
I know what you're thinking. "My industry doesn't have this problem. We are very professional. We only hire the best people." If you really think that, you're probably the most annoying person in your company, and people are probably plotting to get rid of you as you read this.
Your Aunt Slugger has worked in a few different industries over the years: I have worked for the government, in higher education, in public accounting, and in finance. In only one of these roles was I represented by a union. And every single one of these industries has been CRAWLING with morons. Morons of every variety: socially inept people, people with advanced degrees who are functionally illiterate, people who look at images of naked people on their computers and become confused when their coworkers complain, people who microwave fish in the office kitchen, people who leave passive-aggressive notes on office equipment, people who try to hit on every employee of the opposite sex in the entire office, and people who bristle when asked to do actual work.
Very rarely are these people ever fired. They are allowed to carry on, annoying their coworkers, for years or even decades. This is usually because no one wants to deal with it, or knows how to deal with it, or even can legally deal with it. How do you fire someone for being dumber than a can of Beanee Weenies? It's harder than you think.
My point here is that teachers' unions do not protect bad teachers. The preponderance of idiots in society as a whole protects bad teachers, as well as bad accountants, bad sales clerks, bad equity traders, bad scuba divers. It is the nature of any workplace that there will be people who are so unbelievably stupid that you wonder if you have died and gone to hell. The fact that bad teachers are educating our youth somehow worries you more than the fact that Fortune 500 companies are largely audited by youth in their mid-twenties who are only vaguely aware that Canada is its own country.
So stop with the double-standard. You know there are intellectually void creeps in your workplace. YOU KNOW IT. But you're critical of another industry for having the same problem? Fools are ubiquitous. Once you learn that lesson, life will become much easier for you. Possibly slightly more depressing, but much easier.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
I am sick and tired of the Chicago Teachers Union strike. The only thing teachers' unions are good for is protecting bad teachers, and I am appalled by the number of bad teachers in our public schools. It is a real tragedy.
Sincerely,
Ernest in Skokie
Dear Ernest,
You know what I am sick and tired of, Ernest? You, Ernest. I'm sick and tired of you. Let me ask you this, Ernest: What do you do for a living? Do you have coworkers, Ernest? If so, I want you to sit back and think about your coworkers. Are any of them idiots? No? If you can't figure out who the idiots are at your workplace, you are guaranteed to be the idiot. People probably groan when they get emails from you. Your bosses probably have conference calls about how to pawn you off on another department. The people who interviewed you have probably been denied promotions for their bad judgment. You are also almost certainly really, really annoying as well.
I say all of this, Ernest, to illustrate a point. I am always confused--almost as confused as you, Ernest, become when people use large words in emails--when people complain bitterly about teachers' unions. "They protect bad teachers," people say.
You can debate the merits of this point, which I will not do here. What I am so confused about is why people act as though no other industry is afflicted by sub-par employees. People act as though teachers should be exempt from having appalling work habits.
I know what you're thinking. "My industry doesn't have this problem. We are very professional. We only hire the best people." If you really think that, you're probably the most annoying person in your company, and people are probably plotting to get rid of you as you read this.
Your Aunt Slugger has worked in a few different industries over the years: I have worked for the government, in higher education, in public accounting, and in finance. In only one of these roles was I represented by a union. And every single one of these industries has been CRAWLING with morons. Morons of every variety: socially inept people, people with advanced degrees who are functionally illiterate, people who look at images of naked people on their computers and become confused when their coworkers complain, people who microwave fish in the office kitchen, people who leave passive-aggressive notes on office equipment, people who try to hit on every employee of the opposite sex in the entire office, and people who bristle when asked to do actual work.
Very rarely are these people ever fired. They are allowed to carry on, annoying their coworkers, for years or even decades. This is usually because no one wants to deal with it, or knows how to deal with it, or even can legally deal with it. How do you fire someone for being dumber than a can of Beanee Weenies? It's harder than you think.
My point here is that teachers' unions do not protect bad teachers. The preponderance of idiots in society as a whole protects bad teachers, as well as bad accountants, bad sales clerks, bad equity traders, bad scuba divers. It is the nature of any workplace that there will be people who are so unbelievably stupid that you wonder if you have died and gone to hell. The fact that bad teachers are educating our youth somehow worries you more than the fact that Fortune 500 companies are largely audited by youth in their mid-twenties who are only vaguely aware that Canada is its own country.
So stop with the double-standard. You know there are intellectually void creeps in your workplace. YOU KNOW IT. But you're critical of another industry for having the same problem? Fools are ubiquitous. Once you learn that lesson, life will become much easier for you. Possibly slightly more depressing, but much easier.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
On Voting
Dear Aunt Slugger,
I am sick and tired of the 2012 presidential election. Both sides are wasting my time. I was thinking about voting for one side, but that's like voting for the lesser of two evils, and I won't stoop to that level. So I am not going to vote AT ALL to show my-
To show your what? Your delightful post-modern individualism? Look, chief, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you fancy yourself something of a scholar on the plight of the nation. You view yourself as a bulwark of reason and logic amidst the frenzied partisan politics that has taken over the nation. So you--the astute intellectual--have risen above it all, pondered the situation, and realized that neither candidate is worthy of your vote.
Congratulations--you have finally realized what the rest of us figured out the first time we voted in a student council election. You have finally caught up.
Anyone who has ever paid attention during an election, or even just listened to fifteen seconds of a candidate speech during a campaign, knows that the candidates are NEVER worth voting for. They are ALWAYS pandering to someone and they are FOREVER blowing smoke up your ass. This is because the type of people who run for federal office are almost always the same people who campaigned for your college's student governing body by promising to overhaul [insert something completely out of their reach: the tenure system for professors, the interstate running behind the campus, the punishment for running a brothel out of a dorm room]. A two hour dinner with your average federal candidate will have you dipping your body into a vat of bleach to try to get the slime off.
That being said, I don't see you out there running for office. And you certainly know that your Aunt Slugger isn't going to run on a platform of telling everyone to go fuck themselves. So I always just get out there and I vote, as odious as the task sometimes is. I, personally, always vote for the "lesser of the two evils" (one of the two candidates who actually has a chance of winning). But if you want to vote for the candidate of one of those weirdo parties that always offers up some wild-eyed screaming lunatic, you should vote for that candidate. Or you should start a write-in campaign to elect your hamster. But you should fucking DO IT and STOP PISSING ABOUT THE CANDIDATES LIKE YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON TO NOTICE THAT THEY ALL SUCK. Because this is not news. So if you're not going to actually run for office, and you're not going to vote, your apathy is even more repulsive than the candidates themselves - which I didn't think was possible.
Aunt Slugger
I am sick and tired of the 2012 presidential election. Both sides are wasting my time. I was thinking about voting for one side, but that's like voting for the lesser of two evils, and I won't stoop to that level. So I am not going to vote AT ALL to show my-
To show your what? Your delightful post-modern individualism? Look, chief, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you fancy yourself something of a scholar on the plight of the nation. You view yourself as a bulwark of reason and logic amidst the frenzied partisan politics that has taken over the nation. So you--the astute intellectual--have risen above it all, pondered the situation, and realized that neither candidate is worthy of your vote.
Congratulations--you have finally realized what the rest of us figured out the first time we voted in a student council election. You have finally caught up.
Anyone who has ever paid attention during an election, or even just listened to fifteen seconds of a candidate speech during a campaign, knows that the candidates are NEVER worth voting for. They are ALWAYS pandering to someone and they are FOREVER blowing smoke up your ass. This is because the type of people who run for federal office are almost always the same people who campaigned for your college's student governing body by promising to overhaul [insert something completely out of their reach: the tenure system for professors, the interstate running behind the campus, the punishment for running a brothel out of a dorm room]. A two hour dinner with your average federal candidate will have you dipping your body into a vat of bleach to try to get the slime off.
That being said, I don't see you out there running for office. And you certainly know that your Aunt Slugger isn't going to run on a platform of telling everyone to go fuck themselves. So I always just get out there and I vote, as odious as the task sometimes is. I, personally, always vote for the "lesser of the two evils" (one of the two candidates who actually has a chance of winning). But if you want to vote for the candidate of one of those weirdo parties that always offers up some wild-eyed screaming lunatic, you should vote for that candidate. Or you should start a write-in campaign to elect your hamster. But you should fucking DO IT and STOP PISSING ABOUT THE CANDIDATES LIKE YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON TO NOTICE THAT THEY ALL SUCK. Because this is not news. So if you're not going to actually run for office, and you're not going to vote, your apathy is even more repulsive than the candidates themselves - which I didn't think was possible.
Aunt Slugger
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Presidential Elections
Dear Aunt Slugger,
I was reading this op-ed piece by David Rothkopf today, and I am really worried about the state of American politics. Mr. Rothkopf says that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney "are running a campaign that has the sensibilities and IQ of a typical middle school student council election. With the values of an episode of 'Real Housewives' or 'Big Brother.'" How can we resolve this problem? What can we, the voting public, do?
Sincerely,
Concerned in Connecticut
Dear Concerned,
You know what you can do? You can calm the fuck down is what you can do.
There are two groups of people who are allowed to say, with genuine sincerity, that they are shocked by how low-class the current election is. These two groups are 1.) people in the 18-21 age range who are just now able to vote in a presidential election and as such are paying attention to an election for the very first time in their lives, and 2.) people who have been decapitated.
I don't know which category David Rothkopf, "CEO and editor-at-large of the FP Group" and "visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace," falls into. But it has to be one of the two. Because if you have lived through more than one election and you haven't figured out that presidential elections are a form of federally-sanctioned sketch comedy, then you are either a young fool, or your brain is on a sidewalk in Hoboken right now.
Presidential elections have ALWAYS been a clown car on a hot summer's day. The nation has ALWAYS been "more divided than ever before." The fact that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama haven't challenged one another to a duel or spit chewing tobacco into the audience at a Harvard fundraiser is a sign that this election is BORING AS SHIT.
Back in the 1800s, those old racist dudes would HAVE AT IT with each other. There was one election where a candidate was routinely referred to as "jackass." If that happened today, we'd have like 2 million tweets from people angry that their 6-month-old baby heard a candidate swear on national television. We'd have 48,000 two-member Facebook groups with names like "I Won't Vote Until U Campaign With Dignity." And David Rothkopf, Visiting Scholar, would go into anaphylactic shock.
Some people are very philosophical about political mud-slinging: "Candidates reveal a lot about themselves when they attack the opposition," these modern-day political theorists will say. All right, Plato. That might be true. But your Aunt Slugger is in it for the entertainment. There is nothing better - and I mean nothing better - than watching rich people try to explain their latest gaffe by making a series of additional, equally offensive gaffes. My only hope is that someday, in my lifetime, the candidates will start scratching at each others' faces on live television.
Stop worrying, Concerned. And stop listening to "David Rothkopf, Visiting Scholar," because he obviously never took political science. Or read Wikipedia. Or paid attention during any American presidential election during his lifetime.
Grab your Junior Mints and popcorn.
Aunt Slugger
I was reading this op-ed piece by David Rothkopf today, and I am really worried about the state of American politics. Mr. Rothkopf says that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney "are running a campaign that has the sensibilities and IQ of a typical middle school student council election. With the values of an episode of 'Real Housewives' or 'Big Brother.'" How can we resolve this problem? What can we, the voting public, do?
Sincerely,
Concerned in Connecticut
Dear Concerned,
You know what you can do? You can calm the fuck down is what you can do.
There are two groups of people who are allowed to say, with genuine sincerity, that they are shocked by how low-class the current election is. These two groups are 1.) people in the 18-21 age range who are just now able to vote in a presidential election and as such are paying attention to an election for the very first time in their lives, and 2.) people who have been decapitated.
I don't know which category David Rothkopf, "CEO and editor-at-large of the FP Group" and "visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace," falls into. But it has to be one of the two. Because if you have lived through more than one election and you haven't figured out that presidential elections are a form of federally-sanctioned sketch comedy, then you are either a young fool, or your brain is on a sidewalk in Hoboken right now.
Presidential elections have ALWAYS been a clown car on a hot summer's day. The nation has ALWAYS been "more divided than ever before." The fact that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama haven't challenged one another to a duel or spit chewing tobacco into the audience at a Harvard fundraiser is a sign that this election is BORING AS SHIT.
Back in the 1800s, those old racist dudes would HAVE AT IT with each other. There was one election where a candidate was routinely referred to as "jackass." If that happened today, we'd have like 2 million tweets from people angry that their 6-month-old baby heard a candidate swear on national television. We'd have 48,000 two-member Facebook groups with names like "I Won't Vote Until U Campaign With Dignity." And David Rothkopf, Visiting Scholar, would go into anaphylactic shock.
Some people are very philosophical about political mud-slinging: "Candidates reveal a lot about themselves when they attack the opposition," these modern-day political theorists will say. All right, Plato. That might be true. But your Aunt Slugger is in it for the entertainment. There is nothing better - and I mean nothing better - than watching rich people try to explain their latest gaffe by making a series of additional, equally offensive gaffes. My only hope is that someday, in my lifetime, the candidates will start scratching at each others' faces on live television.
Stop worrying, Concerned. And stop listening to "David Rothkopf, Visiting Scholar," because he obviously never took political science. Or read Wikipedia. Or paid attention during any American presidential election during his lifetime.
Grab your Junior Mints and popcorn.
Aunt Slugger
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Aunt Slugger is Job Hunting
Readers:
Let it now be known that your Aunt Slugger is officially putting her resume out there. I am job searching. I have a very specific job in mind, though: I would like to be a public relations specialist.
I should clarify a little: I would like to be a straightforward public relations specialist. For a company that knows what its position is and just doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about that position. I think I would excel in this role.
Today I read this article about how the makers of the Oreo sandwich cookie posted a picture of an Oreo with rainbow filling in support of the LGBT community. I actually hate this photo because they are not actually producing this Oreo sandwich cookie. It is a feat of graphic design, sort of like the highly misleading graphic of the new Creamsicle Oreo. The actual Creamsicle Oreo is much less impressive in person, but at least you can buy and consume a Creamsicle Oreo, which is more than we can say for the rainbow Oreo. Fucking letdown of the century.
Anyway, as you would expect (and as mentioned in the article), the rainbow Oreo brought all kinds of homophobic freaks out of the woodwork. I really don't know why this surprises anyone any more. Society has always had these fuckers, and they are fucking insane - sitting around, drafting 20-page treatises on the perils of [insert something: alcohol, socialism, Communism, black people, gay people] when the real peril is the fact that the authors of these treatises are maintaining a storage unit filled with eyeballs and livers and shit. Because the truth is, you can't be that much of a zealot about such a non-issue and not be a closet serial killer. It's not possible.
So the Oreo people responded as follows:
"We are excited to illustrate what is making history today in a fun and playful way."
And
“As a company, Kraft Foods has a proud history of celebrating diversity
and inclusiveness. We feel the OREO ad is a fun reflection of our
values.”
What the fuck is that response? Put some muscle into it, dammit. This is why your Aunt Slugger wants to be a spokesperson for a company, so that I can respond to angry Facebook rants about pride Oreos. If Aunt Slugger had been in charge of Oreo PR, and if ABC news had asked Aunt Slugger to comment on the backlash against the rainbow Oreo, I would've said what everyone is thinking:
"Are these people fucking serious? You know why we did this? Because we fucking could. Because we make a tasty-ass sandwich cookie that I fucking DARE YOU to try to boycott. Guess you can't have cookies-n-cream when you go to Baskin Robbins now, can you? And you just cut your McFlurry options by like 33%. And just TRY explaining to your next covert Craigslist casual encounter why you can't binge on Oreos despite just smoking half a bowl of marijuana out of his ear. TRY TO HATE OUR DELICIOUS RAINBOW OREO, YOU CRUSTY OLD SCAB."
I am hoping there is a company out there who will find a use for such an approach. I have no experience or education in the field, and my work history is in finance and advice column-writing. Please email me at auntslugger@gmail.com if you are interested.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dear Aunt Slugger,
So what did you do this morning while you were getting your oil changed for the first time in six thousand miles/one year?
Sincerely,
Norm in Grand Forks
Dear Norm,
Well, your Aunt Slugger is slogging through the last chapters of a book called "The Beautiful Cigar Girl," which is about Edgar Allan Poe's attempt to solve a real-life murder using a fictional story. Your Aunt Slugger has a tendency to read ABOUT authors without suffering the indignity of reading their actual work. I like reading about authors because they are usually sloppy messes. (This is why I also like reading about investment professionals, religious zealots, and Ayn Rand fans.)
I did read the occasional Poe poem or short story in high school, but I've never been a literature buff, especially when it comes to poetry. I honestly cannot discern between the tragic ramblings of a semi-literate teenage girl who can't find a prom dress and anything ever written by Sylvia Plath. But I do like history, particularly the history of weird people, so I am moderately well-read for someone who hates poetry and enjoys eating bar cheez out of the tub.
Anyway, so I had some time to kill during my 1.5 hour oil change, and I came across a reference to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in my book. Since I know nothing about him (and certainly have no intention of learning about him by reading his poetry), I decided to see if Amazon had any biographies of him. I came across this one.
The book itself is fairly non-descript and exactly the sort of bullshit that your Aunt Slugger would read, save for the fact that Longfellow may be the exception to the writers-as-walking-insane-asylums rule. What I like most about this book is not the book itself but one of the Amazon.com reviews of the book, from "Rob Jacques, Technical Writer:"
"Of course you know Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was once literarily
important and famous. Of course you've read 'Paul Revere's Ride,' 'The
Wreck of the Hesperus,' 'The Children's Hour,' and 'A Psalm of Life.'
And one of your favorite Christmas carols has always been 'Christmas
Bells.'"
I, for one, am personally relieved that we have Rob Jacques, Technical Writer, to remind us what we have and have not read and which Christmas carols we do and do not enjoy. And there is no better place to jog our memory about these matters than in an Amazon.com review.
I am truly hopeful that he offers a class on writing pretentious multi-paragraph product reviews.
And then I look forward to reading a biography about him.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wall Street Woes
Well, my day is fucking ruined.
Today, your Aunt Slugger received an email with a link to this article. For those of you who cannot stomach the entire article, it is about how some investment professionals, faced with slumping incomes, are struggling to make ends meet.
"That is so sad," you may be saying right now. "This economy really sucks, and people are really suffering, and--"
So let me stop you right there. This article is NOT. ABOUT. THOSE. PEOPLE. This article is not about the married couple with two children trying to figure out how to put food on the table. This article is not about the single mother who can't afford soy formula for her baby with allergies.
No, this article is about people with a formal education in finance who cannot figure out that the rising cost of Wheat Chex is not the driving force behind their financial difficulties when they are writing checks for thirty grand for their 6-year-old kid's private school education.
It so happens that your Aunt Slugger moonlights in the investment industry, when I am not dedicating entire minutes at a time to this advice column that has saved so many lives over the years. Now the time has come for me to merge my more lucrative career (giving advice via a free blog that has no advertising and one regular reader) with my hobby (showing up to an office every day and referring to "The Wall Street Journal" simply as "The Journal"). So today I am going to issue a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY
so that maybe we won't have to read any more of this bullshit.
First and foremost, do not ever, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be quoted in a national publication as saying this:
“If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you. But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”
This quotation comes from Alan Dlugash, who was also quoted as saying, “People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress. Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
That's absolutely right, Alan Dlugash. People without money have absolutely no idea what real stress is. Wondering how you're going to feed and clothe your children - that's amateur hour compared to the crushing stress of knowing that your asshole friends will think less of you if you move your children from their elite preparatory school to a parochial school, or God forbid, the public school system.
Second, you need to move. The reason your mortgage is so high is because you bought an overpriced house in a gated white flight community with a town ordinance against fast food chains (except for Starbucks) and a city council with nothing better to do but fight bitterly about whether or not the seafood at the annual town barbecue is sustainable.
And finally--and this is critical--you need to be told about yourself. If you were half as interesting as you think you are, you would be twice as interesting as you are. You work in finance. You don't save the world. Stop being a fucking predictable mess of a human, with your prep school tuition and your European cars and your newfound salmon price sensitivity. Think about real human suffering. Homeless people. Hungry people. People in war-torn nations.
Think about that before you open your big mouth to a Bloomberg News reporter and make my eyes bleed on a Thursday morning.
Today, your Aunt Slugger received an email with a link to this article. For those of you who cannot stomach the entire article, it is about how some investment professionals, faced with slumping incomes, are struggling to make ends meet.
"That is so sad," you may be saying right now. "This economy really sucks, and people are really suffering, and--"
So let me stop you right there. This article is NOT. ABOUT. THOSE. PEOPLE. This article is not about the married couple with two children trying to figure out how to put food on the table. This article is not about the single mother who can't afford soy formula for her baby with allergies.
No, this article is about people with a formal education in finance who cannot figure out that the rising cost of Wheat Chex is not the driving force behind their financial difficulties when they are writing checks for thirty grand for their 6-year-old kid's private school education.
It so happens that your Aunt Slugger moonlights in the investment industry, when I am not dedicating entire minutes at a time to this advice column that has saved so many lives over the years. Now the time has come for me to merge my more lucrative career (giving advice via a free blog that has no advertising and one regular reader) with my hobby (showing up to an office every day and referring to "The Wall Street Journal" simply as "The Journal"). So today I am going to issue a
CRITICAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY
so that maybe we won't have to read any more of this bullshit.
First and foremost, do not ever, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be quoted in a national publication as saying this:
“If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you. But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”
This quotation comes from Alan Dlugash, who was also quoted as saying, “People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress. Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
That's absolutely right, Alan Dlugash. People without money have absolutely no idea what real stress is. Wondering how you're going to feed and clothe your children - that's amateur hour compared to the crushing stress of knowing that your asshole friends will think less of you if you move your children from their elite preparatory school to a parochial school, or God forbid, the public school system.
Second, you need to move. The reason your mortgage is so high is because you bought an overpriced house in a gated white flight community with a town ordinance against fast food chains (except for Starbucks) and a city council with nothing better to do but fight bitterly about whether or not the seafood at the annual town barbecue is sustainable.
And finally--and this is critical--you need to be told about yourself. If you were half as interesting as you think you are, you would be twice as interesting as you are. You work in finance. You don't save the world. Stop being a fucking predictable mess of a human, with your prep school tuition and your European cars and your newfound salmon price sensitivity. Think about real human suffering. Homeless people. Hungry people. People in war-torn nations.
Think about that before you open your big mouth to a Bloomberg News reporter and make my eyes bleed on a Thursday morning.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Houskeeping Tips from Your Aunt Slugger
Many of you have written to me and said, "Aunt Slugger, your advice column really reminds me of something Martha Stewart would put together, and I am just surprised she hasn't picked you up as a writer for her magazine. It's only a matter of time, though. In the meantime, do you have any housekeeping tips for the public?"
Well, public, I am so glad you asked. In point of fact, yes, I DO happen to have some great housekeeping tips. In fact, just today, I stumbled upon a great way to find the inspiration to clean your apartment! Just follow these easy steps:
Well, public, I am so glad you asked. In point of fact, yes, I DO happen to have some great housekeeping tips. In fact, just today, I stumbled upon a great way to find the inspiration to clean your apartment! Just follow these easy steps:
- Wake up at 6:05a.m. on a Saturday morning to the shrill beeping of your carbon monoxide detector, which is conveniently located twelve feet off the ground, on your ceiling.
- Wielding a household broom, which you can buy at any grocery store, stab at the carbon monoxide detector until it stops beeping.
- Using the used batteries from your remote control, attempt to change the batteries in the carbon monoxide detector and then notice that it is wired into the electrical system in your apartment, thereby suggesting that dead batteries are not the issue at play here.
- Come close to urinating on yourself when the carbon monoxide detector starts beeping again.
- Realize that OH MY GOD THERE IS CARBON MONOXIDE IN MY MOTHERFUCKING APARTMENT WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS PLACE THIS FUCKING SECOND.
- Put your coat on while screaming, "WHERE IS THAT FUCKING CAT? WHERE IS SHE? SHE'S GOING TO DIE IN HERE THAT LITTLE FUCKING ASSHOLE" to your significant other.
- Walk around the apartment holding wet cat food in your bare hand.
- Slip on a two-week-old stack of junk mail and stop, suddenly, realizing that you cannot, realistically, call emergency personnel to come to the apartment when it looks like this, a trash heap.
- Resign yourself to dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
- Begrudgingly decide you do not want the police to find your lifeless, pajama-clad body face down on the floor in your apartment, still clinging to a glob of salmon and mackerel entree in a savory broth.
- Leave the apartment without that dick cat, who is still in hiding, and call the non-emergency number for the fire department and ask for suggestions on what to do.
- When the fire department sends a full-size fire truck, with sirens blaring and lights flashing, to your apartment, try not to kill yourself out of sheer embarrassment.
- Cringe while one firefighter checks for carbon monoxide with a handheld device and the other firefighter looks at the piles of [circle one or all: Valentine's candy, those goddamn proxy voting statements from your mutual fund company, unwatched Netflix movies, winter boots, cat toys, grocery store receipts, and recipes that you clipped from the side of a Nilla Wafers box].
- Feel something between relief and horror when the firefighters tell you there is no carbon monoxide and that you have a faulty alarm. Relief because you are not going to die; horror because this means the alarm will need to be changed out, which means involving building maintenance, which means more people will see all your shit.
- Phone your apartment complex's 24-hour crack security force (which interfaces with building maintenance during off-hours). Naturally, you will be sent to voicemail. You instantly feel safer.
- Receive a call back from building security. Explain the situation. Experience momentary shock when the security guard's primary concern is the fact that the apartment complex will be charged because the fire department came out for a false alarm. (It should be mentioned here that the firefighters told you that you "did the right thing" by calling.)
- Lose your shit. Note that your significant other, who was pouring a glass of water while listening to you on the phone, has been rendered motionless by your unrelenting verbal assault into the phone.
- Once the security guard realizes that he has inadvertently released the Kraken, he will retreat. He promises you that maintenance will be there in about fifteen minutes.
- Commence a whirlwind clean-up of the apartment.
And that, readers, is how you find the inspiration to clean your house! My patented method is low-budget, non-toxic, and uses items you already have around the house: faulty safety equipment, cat food, and rage. Please be sure to share your success stories in the comments section!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)