Makin' Shit Up . com

Ok, listen, lady, I don’t know what spilled in your shopping cart. I certainly didn’t spill it there. You know what? Only one person has had control of your shopping cart since you got here, so if theres “some kind of lotion” spilled on the clothes you were gonna buy, I’ll give you three fucking guesses who put it there, and if you guess ME, I’m going to light you on fucking fire. (I’ve done it before.)

So if you hadn’t guessed, I got to spend a couple days “filling in” on a cash register. While its not my normal job, it’s one of those tasks everyone is expected to know how to do, and suck it up and do on occasion. After tomorrow I will never have to do it again (booya lateral promotion) but for now lets talk about what I’ve learned. And I’ve mostly learned that you’re all retarded. So lets go over some “check-lane etiquette:”

Use the goddamned dividers.

If you’re too fucking lazy to use that thing, don’t dare get bitchy with me when the belt shoves your stuff right up to me and I start scanning it in with the previous person’s order. Fuck you, and fuck them too. While we’re on belt etiquette, is you pile all your stuff on the belt in a heap, that’s exactly how it’s going in the bags. The end.

Get off your fucking cellphone.

Just like when driving, there is shit going on here that demands your attention. Mostly its just that I need you to fucking pay so the sorry schlep behind you in line can get their chance to annoy me. And here’s a fun tidbit for you: did you know that most cashiers are rated (and rewarded or punished) by their speed rating? Did you know that it doesn’t stop timing them after they hit the “total” button? So while you’re finishing your call, or fumbling around for change in the bottom of your huge fuck-all purse, or writing out that check you could have filled out all of except for the total while you were waiting, they sorry sucker that’s trying to help you is being punished for your dallying. Not to mention everyone else behind you in the queue. And while the cashier is supposed to engage a customer in some type of small talk, if someone is on a cellphone I usually won’t make eye-contact with them. Because fuck you, that’s why.

Handling Money:

Here’s a favorite: When I give you the total and you throw your money at me, or drop it on the counter as I’m reaching over to take it from your hand. I mean, seriously there, Howie Mandell, the money I’m giving back to you is where the germs are, not on my hands. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fought back the urge to ball up your change and drop it on the floor in front of you and say “sorry” as sarcastically as possible. Oh, and another thing, if you want to scrutinize your receipt because you’re a nasty curmudgeon who thinks everyone is out to screw you, at least take two steps forward so I can start screwing, er, assisting the next person in line. You do realize what you’re doing is tantamount to calling me a liar to my face, right?

In closing, if you ever shop for things, I probably hate you.

Ok, so I work at a place where there is a sink visible to the public. And at various times for various reasons it is sometimes left running. And every once in a while, this will make someone ANGRY. Angry enough to be rude to me about the running sink. Invariably they’ll say something like “You shouldn’t waste water like that.” And my brain dies a little each time.

Ok, before you get uppity with me, I understand that it takes time and money and a complex infrastructure to supply water to an urban population, but lets get one thing straight.

I CANNOT WASTE WATER.

Water is the world’s most abundant RENEWABLE resource. In case anyone has forgotten, 3/4s of the Earth’s surface is covered in the stuff. It’s literally the most abundant compound on the planet. There is more water here than there is ANYTHING ELSE.

Furthermore, its not just that we have a ton of it that we can never run out of it, at least not by leaving the sink running. I could run that fucker at full blast for eternity, and every fucking drop is going to end up back in the water supply one way or another. The only way I could WASTE water would be by loading it onto a rocket and launching it into the fucking Sun. That is the only way I could ever take any amount of water out of circulation on this planet.

Anyway, back to the water thing. When you boil it down, what I’m wasting is the effort to sanitize and deliver that water. What I am wasting is MONEY. And I’m not wasting your money. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID HIPPIE BITCH. Go hop in your Prius and pretend you’re saving the world somewhere else.

Unless you’re one of those sexually liberated woodstock hippie chicks. Then I’ll be happy to shut off that water.

Pretty fucking sweet, eh?

New logo courtesy of Master Vinny Bove.

Also, this logo and other MSUDC art is available in T-shirt form at Procyon Designs.

http://procyondesigns.spreadshirt.com/

Get your official Spaz gear and other great shirts from the official merchandise supplier of Makin’ShitUp.com, Procyon Design.

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MSUDC world headquarters was essentially destroyed in the great Nashville flood of 2010. Today marks the first day with Lappy2.0 and hopefully we will be resuming a regular schedule of making with the funny.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

You can contribute to makinshitup.com by asking me questions. All questions will be answered on my “about” page (click on that link that says “SPAZ” up there,) or if the question is really good, it will get it’s own blog post.

Only you can prevent lame blog posts. Or something.

Ok, this could practically be it’s own blog, but instead its going to be an ongoing series on MakinShitUp.com. You know how when you’re out driving, and you’re surrounded by assholes? Guess what.. you don’t realize it, but THE ASSHOLE IS YOU!

We will demonstrate here how through your ignorance and inattentiveness, YOU are the asshole that you’re always annoyed by while driving. You’re no better than them. YOU ARE THEM. Just as much as you think that guy is an asshole, you’re being an asshole to someone else! If your head wasn’t 30 feet up your ass you might realize this.

For simplicities sake, we’ll go with real-life examples, probably as they happen to me on the road, or while riding with other drivers.

So I’m on my commute home from work. On a three lane interstate, two trucks are having “the duel” in the right two lanes, going 5 under, because they’re both assholes. In the left lane, a hippie chick in a beater sedan is driving as fast as the trucks, but about 10ft behind the bumper of the truck in the center lane. I couldn’t even be an asshole and go cut her off to continue on my merry way, although I would have liked to. I hope instead that one of three things will happen:

• 1: we’ll get to a hill, and the dueling trucks will slow down futher, leading hippie girl to pass the trucks.
• 2: hippie girl will notice that she’s being an asshole and blocking traffic. I might as well wish that gold nuggets will start raining into my car.
• 3: My car would sprout missile launchers and I could destroy her.

Any of those would be too much to ask for. Even before the last of my patience wears out, we get yet another asshole introduced to the situation. This asshole is driving an SUV in the left lane about 10mph faster than the speed limit, so 20-25mph faster than this ridiculous rolling road-block I’m dealing with already. His solution: tailgate ME.

Just fucking great. Its not like I’m driving a compact convertible and you can clearly see that the car in front of me, NOT ME, is causing this traffic-jam in the making, NOOOO. But it’s ok, Mister tiny-dick has to express his aggression towards SOMEONE! After a few seconds a hand gesture (that involved more than one finger… again, I’m trying NOT to be THAT ASSHOLE,) gets him to back off, at least for a few seconds.

Mercifully, a hill is approaching. Surely hippie girl will maintain her speed when the dueling trucks slow down even further… but NO… flower-power is afraid to pass them at all! She slows down further. We’re now going 20mph less than the posted speed limit. Tiny-dick in the SUV is now flashing his high-beams… at me. Great job, Sherlock, because I used mental telepathy to make her slow down.

Ok, I’ve had enough. I didn’t want to be THAT ASSHOLE, but Tiny-Dick is moments away from crushing me in his rage. I flash my own high beams at Hippy-Longstockings. Apparently oblivious to the fact that she’s been obstructing traffic for miles and miles, she changes lanes… and gives me the finger. She probably rushed home to blog about how some asshole in a tiny sports car started flashing the brights at her when she was doing nothing wrong but driving along trying to stay away from the big scary trucks!

Moral of the story? We’re ALL assholes. But if you just hang up your fucking phone, look in your god-damned mirrors once in a while, and devote even a tiny portion of your brain to trying to consider the motives of other drivers, you just might have a chance at not being an asshole. And look, I’m not asking you to yield to every driver, never speed, etc… that’d be dumb. But here’s the thing: I haul ass everywhere I go, and I’m not terribly smart, but I still do a manageable job of not pissing off other drivers, and the ones I do piss off usually deserve it. I’m trying not to get all preachy here, but seriously, the problem starts with you. You are not a great driver. I know you think you don’t make mistakes, but you are dead fucking wrong. You’re out there, talking on your cellphone, oblivious to the fact that you’re clogging up the left lane, or preventing that car from getting over to make their exit, or whatever.

Here’s the kicker, people. You don’t have to agree with the way other people drive. Some of them will drive faster than you, some of them will drive slower. LET THEM. Unless you are a police officer (in which case your mandate to generate revenue instead of promoting safety has already compromised whatever honorable intentions you may have once had,) it is NOT your job to make other people drive the way you think they should. Listen, I don’t care if you think you’re going “fast enough,” the guy behind you wants to go faster, and YOU SHOULD LET HIM. Maybe he’s just a speed-racer wannabe asshole, or maybe he just got a call that his mom is in the hospital dying and he wants a chance to say he’s sorry for having been such a fuck-up all his life. You just don’t know, so don’t judge, and don’t try to be the police. Let other drivers do their thing, even if it means you have to exert all the effort it takes to check your mirrors, use your signal, and change lanes. Oh, you poor fucking thing, my heart bleeds for you.

The asshole is you. Only you have the power to stop it.

Q: I have a friend who thinks that the Post Office is evidence that government-run programs work. How can I tell her that she’s a total fucking idiot without hurting her feelings?

A: I didn’t search long enough to find 2009’s numbers, but the USPS operated at a 3.8 BILLION dollar loss in 2008. If losing billions of dollars a year is her idea of a successful business venture, (I mean that IS pretty standard for a government run business) then yes, the Post Office is proof that a government run program works. Did she honestly think that the cost of stamps was covering the USPS’s annual budget? Maybe you should just hurt her feelings and tell her shes a fucking idiot. Or send her to me and I’ll tell her she’s a fucking idiot. It’s pretty clear in any case that she’s a total fucking idiot.