more things i simply will not tolerate

1. having the skin of a fifteen year old mcdonald's shift supervisor including the pathetically sparse baby mustache...at twenty-six. as a woman. with seemingly no provocation, all of a sudden my glands millenium falconed up to hyperdrive, leaving my face a potential solution for the current oil shortage. my glands are a sustainable resource, my friends. best of all, everywhere that i don't have really really oil skin, i have hair. i'm proud of my eastern european heritage but a beard? i don't really need that, thanks. at twenty-six. as a woman. facial wax and oxypads...i am every man's dream.

2. people who would rather give you an answer than tell you the truth. i'm sure there are many frontline service workers who feel the need to listen and understand what you are asking before they answer but i seem to be running into a disproportionate number of their evil couterparts. hey, i know you're busy. i know that i talk too much and you know what, i'll even agree with the value judgment that my question IS kind of stupid. but you know where i'm not down with you? i'm not down with you on the part where you lie just to get me out of your way. cuz i can see your eyes, sister. they're shifty - like the dog in the simpsons that homer wanted to blame for all of mel gibson's woes. your retinas are darting back and forth like a hummingbird on speed. and iiiiiiiii'm not leeeeeaving. my modus operandi is now to make it crystal clear i'm a much bigger pain to ignore/lie to than i am to just deal with. without the shifty eyes, thank you.

3. so many cabs, so little cabs. tim canterbury wants to write a comedy sketch where two people are strolling happily down a city street and every two seconds, a cab drives by with the driver honking and gesturing wildly, nearly causing a large vehicular pile-up in his fervour to make it known that 'this cab could BE YOURS'...and then cut to the same couple, rain-soaked and carrying a huge amount of bags and packages desperately trying to hail every cab that whizzes by them. cabs are fickle things really. me, i think it's karma for puking on and in the first cab that ever brought me back from my Very First Bar Trip. i got bad cab passenger writ large all over my ass. the cabbies can smell it.

4. the looooooooooong wait for a bill in restaurants. it's really a toronto theme for me though i'm sure it's not unique to our fair city. it seems as though restauranteurs just really do not want to be rude - they don't want you to feel like you're being RUSHED - and so the algorithm for bill-bringing involves waiting until your plates are cleared and then doubling the amount of time you've taken to sit, have appetizers, eat your meal, read War and Peace, research John Roberts' real stance on abortion, publish your PhD thesis, be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics/medicine, grow old, die and be reincarnated and then they add 5 more minutes just to be safe. if you want to catch a 9pm movie, you'd really better start your dinner the night before. just to be safe.