Smite thee, troublesome distributors!

Today I'd like to present a nice, big smite to all my distributors (well, all but one - we all love you, K-man) for the following reasons:

- Not delivering items at the given date. I'm the one that have to tell the customer "Ehm, sorry, I know I said it'd be here this week... and last week... and the week before that... but... it's kinda... not here." Smite thee! If you can't deliver, just frickin' say so!

- Being all bitchy about refunds/repairs/returns. Hey, the damn thing is defective. It came in a box that looked like it'd been trampled by a stampeding herd of elephants. It's smoking. It's in several pieces. Why, oh why do I need to fill out five different forms, in duplicate, with copies of invoices, photos of the product, photos of my pet, a written statement and my social security number for you to send me an actual working product? Smite that!

- Changing prices at an alarming rate. Look, I know you need to change your prices according to the competing markets, webshops, star constellations and tidal waters; however, more than two changes within a three month period is just ridiculous. Adding pain to injury: increasing the prices in January only to lower them again in March isn't even ridiculous - it's just plain stupid. And evil. "Stuevil" as the Chosen One would have aptly formulated it. Smite thee, price-changing persons!


Phew, glad that's out of my system. Huh? Phone-call for me? Bossman who? Oh... Oh! Damn.

I am a pushover pedestrian. It's not something I am proud of, but it's the truth. I walk a lot, and on my foot-based travels, I often encounter other people who are also walking and more often than not, in the opposite direction of me. This of course leads to certain... "encounters" of a most unpleasant (for me, that is) variety. See, I am a simple, rural man who has been raised according to some old-fashioned principles commonly referred to as "common courtesy". These principles state that I, when out walking, meet another person walking in my general direction, I take a step or two to my right-hand side to allow this person to pass me with a certain ease.

Of course, these principles are based on the idea that this person also does this (takes a step or two to his or her right-hand side), thus creating a comfortable amount of passageway and much needed personal space between us. It's an old-fashioned idea, I know, but I feel it's a good one.

Unfortunately, this ancient knowledge of pedestrian courtesy seems to have faded into oblivion. I regularily get pushed aside, elbowed, bumped into or shouldered by men, women, little old ladies and seven year-olds. Being a man of principle, I continue to uphold the glorious ideals I have such belief in, but alas, my faith is being tested everyday. For years, I have stepped aside into snow, mud, puddles of water, dog-droppings and slush just to have the other person give me a good bump as they refuse to take similar action when we meet.

So, I see no other solution than to give all you selfish, brutal jay-walkers a good, solid smite. In particular, I'd like to reserve a special über-smite for the guy who nearly pushed me into a passing semi-trailer yesterday. Yes, the massive amounts of snow has reduced our already small sidewalks to nothing, but you COULD have taken that small step to the side so that I would have had a 30 cm clearing of the motorized death-machine that brushed beside me instead of the nerve-inducing 5 cms. Also, a good smiting is in order for the officials of this silly little town who seem to think that cars are more important than people. Ka-shmack!

Thank you for your attention,

Bit - brutalized pedestrian

PS! I'm thinking of establishing a "Pushover Pedestrians Association" (PPA) for other abused pedestrians like me, please get in touch if you feel this is of interest to you.